2
There are exactly twenty-two dollars and thirty-seven cents in my checking account, and one of these children just sneezed into my mouth.
I squeeze my eyes shut. Just fabulous. I close my mouth and pretend I don’t taste spit on my tongue.
“That one’s yours,” I say flatly, pointing to the towel. But she’s three and doesn’t care what I have to say.
I stand up to help her as she runs away. Tessa walks through the door holding two grocery bags and looking like she barely got sleep last night. Shoot. I stand tall and grin. She greets me with a single exhausted nod before setting the bags down.
“What happened here?” she asks.
I look around. Dinner’s on the table. One kid is naked except for a sock. The other is holding a remote I did not give to her.
“Dinner,” I say, wiping something orange off my arm.
The three-year-old belts out a loud crying sound of out of nowhere. Cue the mom has entered the building.
“Charlie, inside voice,” Tessa says weakly from the kitchen island, where she’s sorting through a mountain of mail still in her work clothes.
“This is my inside voice,” Charlie screams back, then demonstrates her outside voice by shrieking like a pterodactyl.
Baby Emma, not to be outdone, starts crying and throws the remote across the room. Because apparently whenever mom comes home, it’s time to scream and cry and let it all out.
“I swear they were fine just a minute ago,” I plead, hoping she’s not mad at me as I pick up the remote and place it above the TV. I always feel like I’m failing when her kids start crying. It’s overstimulating and overwhelming, but I need the money.
“They’re like this,” she says, bringing her kids into a hug. The baby starts pushing the three-year-old out of the way, and now they’re fighting.
“Have kids, Liv. It’s so fun,” she smiles sarcastically.
“I promise not to forget to take my birth control,” I tease, and she gives me a look. Now’s not the time for a joke. She got pregnant with Charlie because she had forgotten.
“Mommy’s so tired,” she says to her girls. “You’re so snuggly, and now I could fall asleep.” She turns to me. “Did you shower them yet?”
I shake my head. Shit. “No, but I can. I will. You had a long day, and I’m still on the clock.”
“You’re a lifesaver,” she says, handing me Charlie. “Thank God you were free last minute.”
Free. That’s one way to put it. The truth is I cleared my very empty calendar because twelve dollars an hour is twelve dollars an hour, and my rent isn’t going to pay itself.
My phone buzzes as I hold crying Charlie. It’s a payment reminder for rent.
“You okay?” Tessa asks, following my gaze.
“Just living my best broke-girl life,” I joke.
“I thought you had that freelance thing.”
“I did. Then they decided they didn’t need a writer, they needed an ‘AI content optimization specialist.’ Whatever the hell that means.”
“Yikes.”
Baby Emma starts crying, so she rocks her, following me into the bathroom.
I get the two kiddies in the bathtub when Tessa’s phone starts ringing.
“Drop it like it’s hot. Drop it like it’s hot,” the ringtone starts singing, and I immediately know who it is.
My stomach does this stupid little flip that I immediately squash. Because we don’t do that. We’ve established clear boundaries about West-related stomach flips, and it is not allowed. Nope. Stop it, stomach!
Tessa answers, putting it on speaker as she stares in the mirror.
I start the bath for the kids as they fight over a bath toy when there are ten more behind them.
“Yo,” comes West’s voice, tinny and chaotic. “You busy?”
“Medium,” Tessa says. “What’s up?”
“Okay, so, slight emergency.”
“What did you do now?” Tessa asks, immediately switching into caring sister mode.
“I didn’t do anything. Well, I did something, but it wasn’t my fault. Okay, it was probably my fault, but—”
“West.”
“Sorry. So you know Bea? The girl I’ve been seeing?”
“The one you refuse to introduce to anyone?”
“Yeah, well, there’s a reason for that. She dumped me. This morning. While I was holding a glass of water.”
I snort, then quickly cover it with a cough when Tessa shoots me a look.
“I’m sorry,” Tessa says, and she actually sounds like she means it. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Great. Never been better. Except for the part where I RSVP’d to three weddings for two people and now I don’t know what I’m going to do because I can’t just show up without a date.”
Tessa scoffs, “Don’t be so dramatic, West. You can show up without your plus one. It’s not that big a deal.”
“It is that big a deal!” West’s voice goes up an octave. “I told the team I had a girlfriend. I finally joined the team’s couples group chat, Tess. They send recipe recommendations and date night ideas. There’s a whole ecosystem built around my relationship status.”
Tessa’s trying not to laugh, I can tell. Her lips are twitching in that way they do when she’s about to lose it.
“You joined the team’s couples group chat?” she asks, her voice almost giving away that she’s about to burst out laughing.
“It wasn’t voluntary!” West shrieks.
“Oh my god,” Tessa whispers, covering her mouth.
“And that’s not even the worst part,” West continues, oblivious to our barely contained laughter. “One of the weddings is Reed’s. You remember Reed? My teammate who thinks I’m a reformed bachelor? His wife already asked what Bea’s wearing so they can coordinate photos.”
“Jesus, West.”
“I know! And the other wedding is our cousins, which means Mom’s going to be there, and you know how she gets about my dating life. She’s going to spend the entire reception asking when I’m going to settle down and give her grandchildren.”
“She has grandchildren,” Tessa says, gesturing to Charlie, who’s now trying to eat the shampoo bottle.
“Hockey grandchildren, Tess. There’s a difference.”
I can’t help myself. “You could always tell them she died.”
Silence.
Then, he says, “Who was that?”
Tessa grins. “Just Liv.”
Another pause. “Liv’s there?”
“Yes. Hi,” I say, washing Emma’s feet. “And I’m just saying, fake death is a classic breakup excuse. Very dramatic. Very final. No follow-up questions.”
“I can’t fake-kill my girlfriend,” West says, and I can hear him pacing now. That’s something he’s done since we were kids.
“Why not? It worked for Ross.”
There’s a moment of quiet, broken only by Charlie splashing and Emma starts crying.
Then West says, quietly, “I’m fucked, aren’t I?”
“Probably,” I say at the same time Tessa says, “No.”
There’s a moment of silence as I wash the girls’ hair.
“Unless...” Tessa says, and there’s something in her voice that makes my stomach drop.
“Unless what?” West asks.
“Unless you find someone to pretend to be your girlfriend.”
My shoulders stiffen as I wipe Emma’s face with the dry washcloth.
Imagining her brother fake dating someone just sends a bullet through me.
Someone like him shouldn’t have trouble keeping a girlfriend, finding a date, or anything along those lines.
He’s funny, clean, sweet, and a fucking professional hockey player for crying out loud.
Do not tell me that this man cannot get a date or keep a girl around.
Tessa looks at me with that expression she gets when she’s about to suggest something terrible. Like the time she convinced me to dye my hair with Kool-Aid in eighth grade, or when she thought it would be fun to crash her ex-boyfriend’s wedding in our early twenties.
“You need a fake girlfriend,” she says slowly. “Liv needs money.”
“What?” I gasp.
No, she did not suggest me in trade for money. I point at myself with soapy fingers. Water drips all over my clothes.
“Me?”
Tessa nods. “Yeah. It’s a good idea.”
I whisper, “I can’t go to Seattle. Are you insane?”
Tessa shakes her head. “I’ll find a new sitter for the time being.”
“Tess, no.”
“This is perfect!” she continues, completely ignoring my protests. “You already know the family, you can handle West’s ego, and you’re both emotionally unavailable enough to pull this off without it getting weird.”
“It’s already weird,” I point out.
“Um,” West’s voice cuts through our argument. “Can I just say that this is the most insulting way anyone’s ever tried to help me?”
“How is this insulting?” Tessa asks. “I’m trying to help.”
“‘Emotionally unavailable enough to pull this off’? What does that even mean?”
“It means you both have commitment issues who communicate primarily through sarcasm,” Tessa explains cheerfully. “It’s perfect.”
“I don’t have commitment issues,” I protest.
“You broke up with your last boyfriend because he wanted to meet your parents.”
“That’s different. My parents are terrible.”
“And you,” she continues, turning her attention to the phone, “haven’t had a relationship last longer than three months since college.”
“Bea lasted… three months. Shit,” West says.
“See.”
“This is insulting to both of us,” I say.
“But is it wrong?” Tessa asks.
We’re quiet for a moment. Charlie’s standing and ready to pour more water on her sister. Emma is sucking on her wet hand.
Because I don’t want to hear this conversation anymore, I say, “Can you help me get them out?”
Tess says, “Gotta go. Call Liv later. Bye.”
When she ends the call, I hand her Emma.
“Did you seriously suggest that, Tess?” I blurt because I can’t believe her. All throughout high school, I was not allowed to look at her brother, and suddenly that’s all changed?
“What?” she asks, offended. “It’s not like you don’t like him.”
“Yeah, but we have history. He’s in another state for crying out loud. I don’t know if I can commit to that.”
“What history?”
“You know what history.”
“I know you kissed him at my wedding, but that was three years ago, and you were both drunk.”
“We don’t talk about the wedding,” I remind her as my lips press together.
“Oh,” she mocks. “We’re talking about the wedding.”
“We’re absolutely not talking about the wedding.”
I pick up Charlie and follow her to the bedroom.
“I may have overreacted every time you looked at my brother, but that was high school. We were kids. It’s different now. He’s almost thirty. We’re getting old. I’m not that girl anymore, trying to keep my family and friends separate. I actually wouldn’t mind having you for a sister-in-law.”
I think I’m about to have a panic attack. “You said he would pay me,” I say, putting Charlie down on the bed. “Like I’m a prostitute or escort.”
She laughs. “That’s funny, Liv.” She stares off into space, waiting for me to finish diapering Charlie. “I used to cockblock you guys so bad.”
I roll my eyes. “He never liked me, Tessa.”
She laughs. “Watch and you’ll see.”
I’m sitting on my twenty-year-old bed in my tiny studio apartment above a consignment store that smells like burnt incense and regret. My laptop is open. My bank account is still a joke. And I haven’t stopped thinking about West’s voice since the call.
I don’t need this. I really don’t. But I also need money. And maybe a vacation. And possibly a punch in the face, because I open FaceTime and hit call.
It rings once before he picks up.
He looks…different.
Same dumb jawline. Same too-white teeth. But he’s wearing glasses, his hair is a mess, and he’s smiling.
“You called,” he says, sounding smug.
“Don’t make it weird.”
“Already weird. You’re calling.”
I roll my eyes. “Let’s discuss your tragic love life. What would this even look like for me?” I ask, hating myself for the question.
“Three weddings,” West says immediately. “Spread out over ten weeks. Plus maybe a few team events, family dinner, that sort of thing.”
“How much are you paying me for this ridiculous charade?”
“How much do you want?”
I look at my laptop again. At the payment reminders, the bank account balance that’s basically a joke, the stack of one-dollar bills that Tessa gave me for babysitting her kids tonight.
“Five hundred a week,” I say, pulling a number out of thin air.
“Deal.”
“Plus expenses. Travel, clothes, whatever I need to make this convincing.”
“Done.”
“And I get my own hotel room. No sharing.”
“Obviously.”
“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” I mutter, “but when’s the first wedding?”
“Next Saturday.”
“That’s a week away!”
“I know. Is that a problem?”
I think about my empty calendar, my emptier bank account, and the fact that I just agreed to spend ten weeks pretending to be in love with someone I’ve spent most of my life trying not to think about.
“No,” I say finally. “It’s not a problem. But I want the first payment upfront.”
“I can Venmo you tonight.”
“Okay. I guess we’re doing this.”
“We’re doing this,” West repeats, and there’s something in his voice that makes my stomach do that stupid flip again.
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” West says. “We should probably... plan this out.”
“Probably.”
“Okay. Good. Great. This is... good.”
“If you say so.”
“I do say so.”
“Cool.”
“Cool.”
We’re quiet for a moment, and I can practically feel the awkwardness through the phone.
“I should go,” he says finally.
“You should.”
“Talk tomorrow?”
“Talk tomorrow.”
The call ends and I fall back onto my pillow. I just agreed to be Weston Carmack’s fake girlfriend.
What the hell?
High school me is screaming on the inside.