Chapter 3
Chapter 3
“You’re dating Nick Zachary ?” Sophie’s big blue eyes are open so wide with shock, they could roll right out of her pretty head and onto the table at Jojo’s Karaoke Bar, our regular Saturday night hangout where we love to talk and sing and catch up on each other’s lives.
For almost as long as I can remember, Saturday nights have been for going out with my girls to sing karaoke. Sing karaoke at Jojo’s Karaoke Bar, to be precise. It’s me, Darcy, and Sophie, the three BFFs. We sing, we laugh, we share stories, and we generally do our best to solve the world’s problems over a bottle of cheap sparkling plonk.
We haven’t succeeded yet, but we’re giving it our very best shot.
“But, Erin, you hate Nick Zachary,” Darcy adds, looking equally agog as she gazes at me across the table. “Don’t you?”
“I’m fake dating him,” I correct under my breath as I look around the busy karaoke bar to check that no one is listening in. “But you can’t say anything to anyone, okay? You two are the only people who can know because I trust you both. This thing has got to seem real.”
Darcy knits her brows together. “I don’t get it. You hate jocks, especially rugby players. You tell us that all the time.”
“And you’ve said how much you dislike Nick Zachary before,” Sophie adds.
I get it. They think I’ve hopped on board the train to Crazytown. They know how much I despise jocks, so this is the last thing they’d ever expect of me. You see, I’ve been BFFs with Darcy and Sophie since high school, and we know one another inside and out. I can’t imagine my life without them both. We’ve been through zits and braces, first boyfriends and first breakups, and we’ve always got each other’s back, right down to agreeing to vet one another’s dates in the No More Bad Dates Pact.
“None of that has changed,” I reply firmly. “I still don’t like jocks, and I definitely still do not like Nick Zachary.”
My mind turns to the way he sat back in his chair, watching me with a smug smirk as we discussed fake dating with Ed and John. I know he was looking down his nose at me, this non-model, non-celebrity, “ordinary” girl. I bet he was thinking how excited I must be about getting to spend time with the likes of him. How much brighter my life will be because he’ll be in it. “It’s the opposite,” I wanted to tell him, “the polar freaking opposite.”
Darcy is persistent. “Okay, I get that this is not real dating. But have you thought about the fact that you will have to be in the same room as him, pretending everything’s great? I know a little about working with someone you don’t like, you know. It’s not easy.”
Darcy’s referring to Alex Walsh, the photographer she was forced to work with when her boss decided on a whim to buy an art gallery and exhibit his work. She told us all how much she hated him every chance she got, only it turned out she’d been carrying a secret torch for him since they’d shared an incredible kiss in high school—a kiss she’d never been able to forget.
“But you did like Alex, Darce. You secretly lurved him,” Sophie teases as she hugs and kisses an invisible man.
Darcy crosses her arms defensively. “Yeah, well, this is different. Alex and I had history. Erin and Nick Zachary do not.”
“Who knows? Maybe he’ll turn out to be a really great guy,” Sophie offers. “You never know who you’ll end up falling for.”
Sophie may have dated a few frogs before she found her prince, but she knows what she’s talking about. Her boyfriend is living proof of finding a guy where you’d least expect to, and these days she is one loved-up woman.
I bristle at the suggestion. “I can tell you both something right now: there is no way on this sweet Earth I will fall for Nick Zachary.”
“Why does this guy even have to have a fake girlfriend?” Darcy asks.
“How can you not know?” Sophie says. “Have you been living under a very large, very heavy rock, girl? He’s been in the news lately. A lot.”
Darcy shrugs. “I don’t have a rugby-mad boyfriend.”
“Sophie’s right. Most people in the country know about Nick Zachary’s recent incidents . He’s gone from being this guy everyone thought was a decent, straight-up sort of person to being labelled the Wild Boy of Rugby. It is not going down well with Bennett Motors.”
“He’s also called Naughty Nick and Rugby’s Unruly Rebel,” Sophie adds, counting the titles off on her fingers. “Basically, the media’s given him a bunch of predictable and alliterative titles.”
Darcy tilts her head and asks, “Why you?”
“Because I’m an ‘ordinary girl,’” I say using air quotes, “which basically means I’m nothing special.”
“No way, babe! That’s ridiculous. You’re gorgeous and fabulous, right, Soph?” Darcy says.
Sophie gives a vigorous head nod. “Totally.”
Darcy shakes her head. “This, after that funeral disaster date.”
I roll my eyes. “Thank you for the reminder.”
“Oh, forget about it,” Sophie says with a wave of her hand. “Tonight we are going to sing as many ABBA songs as your vocal cords can manage. We’ll show them you’re not some ‘ordinary’ girl.”
The three of us adore ABBA. From their fun, lighthearted disco hits through to their soulful ballads, not a Saturday at Jojo’s goes by without us belting out at least one of their songs. Like my love of designing and sewing clothes, Mum introduced me to ABBA’s music when I was a kid.
A smile bursts out across my face. Forget Nick Zachary and the Hawks, forget grief-stricken guys at supermarkets parading as normal, happy people, forget funeral-inappropriate Adele lyrics. My friends are the best, and I love them for it. “Thanks, you two.”
“How long do you have to fake date him?” Darcy asks.
“My bosses said we would only need to do it for a maximum of two months.”
Sophie lets out a low whistle. “That’s a long time.”
“No, it’s not. It’s fine,” I reply, more to convince myself than anyone else.
“What’s in it for you?” Darcy asks.
“Well,” I begin, excitement bubbling up inside me, “we’re going to get a bunch of media attention, right? That’s the whole point of this. So, I’m going to wear my designs every time we’re seen together and make sure the media knows I’m the one who designed them. That way, I can launch a new career in fashion design.” I beam at my friends in anticipation. After the scary Bennett Motors men had left, Ed took me aside and reiterated that they could find a string of more than willing “ordinary” girls to take my place. Aside from the compliment (ordinary? Thank you so much), I know enough about how the world works to know that being the girlfriend of a famous sports star like Nick Zachary—fake or otherwise—can open a bunch of doors for me. He’s headline news right now, so I’m guaranteed to get seen. I could finally leave my sensible job and pursue my passion of becoming a fashion designer.
Sophie claps her hands together. “Brilliant!”
“Such a good idea, babe,” Darcy says.
I bend over in a bow. “Thank you, ladies.”
Darcy grins at me. “Girl, it’s a win-win.”
“Exactly. All I’ve got to do is pretend to like the guy until this whole thing settles down, and meanwhile my new career as a fashion designer will begin.”
“This calls for a bottle of Jojo’s finest cheap fake champagne,” Darcy declares.
“To go with Erin’s fake date,” Sophie adds.
My grin blows up into a fully formed smile. “And my new career.”
With Darcy at the bar, Sophie asks, “When do you start your relationship with the totally hot Mr. Zachary?”
“He’s not that hot, you know. Not in person.”
She raises her eyebrows at me. “Oh, come on. The man’s a god. A rugby god at that in a country obsessed with rugby, no less.” She gets a faraway look in her eye when she says, “He’s got the whole sporty good looks thing going on combined with that bad boy image of his. Really, he’s irresistible to women.”
That darn billboard of Nick with his shirt off flashes before my eyes. “Well, I know one thing for sure. I will have no trouble resisting him.”
“Maybe now,” she leads.
The enormity of what I’ve signed up for fills my brain. I’ll have to spend a serious amount of time with an arrogant, self-interested jock, the kind of guy I cannot stand. But I’m not going to let my dislike of the guy get between me and my fashion goal. No way. “It’ll be fine, and it’s only until the bosses at Bennett Motors are happy he’s back on track.”
"What happened in his life to change him?"
I shrug. “Who knows? All I care about is getting my designs out there.”
Sophie grins at me. “I can see it now: Erin Andrews, fashion designer to the country’s elite.” Her face changes when she adds, “Just be careful, okay?”
“What could possibly go wrong?” I say with a shrug. “And that’s a rhetorical question, before you go throwing disaster scenarios at me.”
“When’s the first public outing?”
“In a couple weeks at the new season Kickoff Party.”
“You’ve got two weeks left of singledom.”
Darcy arrives back at the table, balancing a bottle of sparkling wine and three glasses. “Guess who’s on their way?” she asks as she places them on our table.
“Who?” I ask.
“The guys,” Darcy replies with an excited smile, referring to her boyfriend, Alex, and Sophie’s boyfriend, Jason. “They’ve been at that new superhero movie, and they missed us.”
“The Jason-Alex bromance continues, huh?” I say as I pour the wine into the glasses. The two guys have been as thick as thieves since they met back when all three of us decided to form the No More Bad Dates Pact. Jason may have been initially suspicious about good-looking Alex’s intentions toward Sophie, but once he found out they were cousins, the two of them became great friends.
“Oh, yeah. Sometimes I wonder whether Alex only dates me because we hang out with Jas and Soph so much,” Darcy says.
I shake my head at her. “It’s not that he’s crazy in love with you or anything like that.”
Her face is aglow. “No, of course not.”
“With the guys turning up, I guess once again I’m the sad sack without a date,” I say with a sigh.
“Girl, you’re about to become the envy of every woman in the country. I wouldn’t feel too sorry for yourself,” Sophie says.
“That does not count, and you know it.” I take a sip of my wine. “But really, I don’t think it’s too much to ask for the No More Bad Dates Pact to work for me. Look at you two. I can’t even get a date. Well, not one that’s either fake or takes me to his girlfriend’s funeral.” I try to keep the self-pity from my voice, but I know I fail miserably. Because you know what? My BFFs are both in love. When is it going to be my turn?
“If the bar is really so low that you’ll date anyone who doesn’t take you to his girlfriend’s funeral or only pretends to be your boyfriend, you’ll have no problem finding a guy,” Darcy says with a laugh. She takes in the look on my face and adds, “Sorry, Erin. Too soon?”
“W aaa y too soon.” I shake my head. “I know I said I was never going to do this, but I’ve started to wonder if I should try online dating.”
Sophie bounces up and down in her seat, clapping like an excited toddler promised ice cream. “Let me do your profile, okay? I’ll write you something amazing, and the guys will come from far and wide.” Sophie is nothing if not optimistic.
I screw up my face. “You make me sound like the Pied Piper.”
“That would make the guys rats,” Darcy comments.
“An appropriate metaphor, don’t you think?” I reply.
Sophie reaches out her hand, palm up. “Hand over your phone.”
“You’re going to do it now ?”
“There’s no time like the present.”
I pull my phone out of my purse and pass it to her. “Just don’t make anything go live until I’ve given it my seal of approval. Promise?”
Sophie’s already feverishly tapping things into my phone as she replies, “Sure.”
Darcy reaches across and places her hand on top of Sophie’s, who looks up at her. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
“What?” Sophie asks.
“Erin is about to be seen publicly with one of New Zealand’s most recognizable sports stars,” Darcy says.
“So?”
“So, she can’t go dating other guys while she’s doing that, and she definitely can’t have an online dating profile. Not if this is meant to seem real.”
Ever the pragmatist, Darcy is the Queen of Logic in our trio of friends. Ordinarily, I appreciate her for it. Now? I wish she wasn’t right, even though I know in my heart she is.
“Oh,” Sophie says as she turns my phone over and places it on the table.
I let out a defeated puff of air. “So that’s it. My dating life is dead in the water until further notice.” I slump in my chair.
Without even the possibility of a date on the horizon, fake dating Nick Zachary just got a whole lot worse.