SIX
SERENA
RYAN: You made your point. I took you for granted and that’s my bad. Please give me another chance.
“It’s not going to be just one night.” Liv’s voice comes in a breathy rush as we round the track in the park, picking up speed for the last mile of our run.
It’s early Saturday morning, but the park is already busy with runners, dog walkers, and parents pushing strollers. The burn of cold air scrapes down my lungs. Overhead, bright sunlight pushes through heavy cloud cover, the sky fighting itself to decide what kind of day it wants to be. Hard to believe it’ll hit seventy-five by the afternoon. Harder still to believe that in six weeks we could be knee-deep in snow. Another reason I love the weather: the constant shift, the reminder that nothing stays the same.
I heave in a breath. “Why not?”
Liv shoots me a side-eye. Her sleek black bob is caught in two playful pigtails at the nape of her neck. “You honestly think you can make a red-carpet kiss seem like a full-blown real relationship? Too many people know you and Chase are just friends. You’ll have to put on a show.”
My stomach nosedives at the thought, and without realizing it I push harder into my pace. Liv matches me stride for stride. We’ve been doing these Saturday runs for years, only ever skipping if one of us was flat-out with the flu. We’ve run through hangovers, and through snowstorms that iced the track, and heat waves that left us red-faced and gasping. These runs are our ritual, our reset button. And soon they’ll be another thing I miss when she moves in with Jensen. Sure, we’ll still run. We’ll find some new route halfway between our apartments. But it won’t be every week. And it won’t be the same.
I bite back the pinch of sadness, glancing sideways at my best friend. Her easy smile, the sparkle in her eyes. It’s impossible not to feel happy that she’s happy. Liv hasn’t had it easy. First a pro basketball player who thought fidelity was optional. Then a pro hockey guy who acted like she was crazy for expecting loyalty. Both of them cheats. Both of them made her feel like she was the problem. But then, two years ago, Jensen walked into her life. Jensen, who builds houses instead of playing games. The kind of man who treats Liv like she’s his whole world. They’re the kind of love that makes me believe when I start to doubt.
Liv fixes me with a look. “Are you sure you know what you’re letting yourself in for?”
“Totally. It’s not going to be real,” I say between breaths.
“But you’re going to have to make it look real. Which means the kiss is going to be real. The touching is going to be real. And what happens if one of you catches feelings?”
“We won’t.”
She narrows her eyes, unconvinced.
“I won’t,” I insist. “I know what you’re thinking, but that was six years ago, Liv. I’m over him.” I shut down the whispered voice in my head asking me who I’m trying to convince, Liv or myself. Because I mean it. Chase and I are friends. Period.
Liv lets out a huff like she’s asking herself the same question. “But how is that helping you find your own relationship? The one you actually want? A family. Kids. Your dreams, remember?”
I groan, my ponytail swishing as I shake my head. “I’m not ready to put myself out there again yet. Fake dating Chase is an easy fix for both of us in the short term.”
The weight of her stare presses heavy, but I keep my eyes on the path ahead, feet pounding the gravel. Liv was the one who handed me a tissue in the toilets of The Hay Barn six years ago when I was crying over my shattered heart. The one who sat with me rewatching Friends with tubs of low-fat frozen yogurt we pretended were ice cream. Liv knows how hard I worked to pick myself back up, shove all my feelings for Chase down until they stopped existing, and throw myself back out into the world.
I suck in another breath, lungs burning as we round the far curve of the park. The sun pushes harder through the clouds. The park is waking up. People with strollers, dogs darting across the grass, kids shouting from the playground above the rhythm of our sneakers hitting the path.
“Tell me about the wedding planning,” I say, shifting us to safer ground.
Liv groans, tipping her face toward the sky. “Don’t even. Jensen’s mom has decided to invite all her neighbors. People I’ve never even met. I wanted small and intimate. Now it’s ballooning into this massive event, like some society wedding. She even asked if we could invite more of the Stormhawks team. I swear, she’s planning to sell our wedding to a gossip magazine.”
I laugh, shaking my head as we reach the final stretch of path and slow to a walk, both of us breathing hard.
“That’s the thing about plans,” Liv sighs as we reach the park gates. “They grow. Doesn’t matter what you decide, they always get bigger. Weddings, and…” She gives me a pointed look. “Fake dating.”
“Subtle.” I bend to stretch my hamstrings.
“All I’m saying is, put some rules in place,” she says, mirroring my stretch.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“Boundaries, Serena. What’s OK, what’s not. Handholding in public? Kissing on the cheek? Actual kissing? What about social media? Are you going to post about each other? Who are you faking it to? Are you going to tell your families? You need to decide, or someone’s going to get hurt.”
I let out a long breath, my chest tight for reasons that have nothing to do with running. She’s not wrong. Maybe this isn’t going to be as simple—or as safe—as Chase insisted it was. And if that’s true, then the only way forward is to get ahead of it. Set the rules. Draw the lines.
“Good idea,” I reply, decision made, before spinning on my heels and breaking into a jog again.
“Hey!” Liv calls after me. “Where are you going?”
I glance over my shoulder. “To Chase’s place. We need rules, remember?”
I brandish his favorite loaf of bread in one hand and a cardboard tray of take-out coffees and pastries in the other as Chase opens the door to his apartment. He’s wearing nothing but a pair of loose basketball shorts, ab muscles carved from years on the field. His hair is growing back, a black shadow that matches the stubble along his jaw.
“Serena.” His voice is low and gravel-rough, how it always is when he’s not long woken up. “Did we make plans to run today?” He frowns like he’s trying to remember.
“I was running. Now I’m here. With coffee, pastries, and bread, obviously.” I hold up the loaf for emphasis. “You’re flying out to San Diego later for tomorrow’s game, right?”
He’s still half-asleep, but he opens the door wider. I step inside, kick off my sneakers, and head straight for the kitchen.
“And did you stock up on bread for your pre-game toast?” I throw the question over my shoulder, already knowing the answer. On home game days, Chase eats four slices of toast with almond butter before leaving for the stadium. His pre-game ritual since he was sixteen. But away games mean food at the airport lounge and in hotels, so he eats his toast before he leaves. More about superstition than carbs.
“It was on my list of things to get,” he mutters, shutting the door behind him.
“Right alongside a kitchen table, right?” I laugh, holding out his coffee and leaning back against the counter.
“Thanks,” he says, inhaling the steam like it’s the best thing he’s ever smelled.
The apartment around us is as stark as always. It’s an open-plan high rise, with soaring ceilings and gray walls that could use a splash of warmth. Wood floors gleam under the light from the floor-to-ceiling windows, the city sprawled out below us with the Rockies hazy in the distance. It’s beautiful, but empty. Too empty. Two beds—one in his room, one in the spare. A couch, a TV, nothing else. No pictures, no bookshelves, no signs of a life being lived here. Just space.
“You know you could actually buy bread ahead of time,” I tease, pulling off the lid of my coffee, allowing the steam and the smell of caffeine to billow into the room.
He looks triumphant. “But then you wouldn’t show up at my door with coffee and pastries.”
“Your master plan all along.”
“Totally,” he says, biting into a pastry like he hasn’t eaten in a week. “But don’t even think about rearranging my cupboards again. I’ve only just figured out where you put the peanut butter.”
“It had to be done. They were a disaster.”
“They were fine.”
“They had soup cans mixed with cereal boxes,” I reply.
“Fine-ish,” he concedes, the smile widening.
This is us. It’s so normal, I almost forget why I came until the words slip out.
“Chase, this fake dating thing. You’re still serious about it?” I ask, though I already know the answer. I just want to give him the chance to back out. To chalk the plan up to desperation, lunch-time hunger, and Harper putting ideas in our heads.
He polishes off the last bite of his pastry before he replies. “The more I think about it, the more certain I am this is the perfect solution for both of us.”
“Me too,” I reply, thinking of Ryan’s message this morning.
His eyes narrow. “Why do I sense a ‘but’ coming?”
“Not a but. An and.”
“And you know you’re hyper after a run?”
“I do. It’s the?—”
“Endorphins,” he cuts in smoothly. “You’ve told me a million times before.”
“Exactly.” I sip my coffee, savoring the warmth and the hit of caffeine. “And I think we should put some ground rules in place. We’ve been best friends too long to risk messing that up, right?”
“Right,” he says easily, though his eyes sharpen. “What kind of rules are you thinking?”
“I haven’t got that far,” I admit, thinking for a moment, remembering Liv’s reservations. “OK, so what do we do if we can’t fully sell everyone on us at the Hearts of Denver awards? Do we carry on? And if so, for how long?”
He tilts his head, considering. “Let’s say worst-case scenario, we don’t sell it—which I don’t buy for a second because we can absolutely sell this in one night. But, if we do need to keep it going, how about this? We call it quits no matter what by the Denver Fall Fair. That’s five weeks away. We go all out for those five weeks then let things fizzle out. We go back to being friends and by the time the gossip sites and fans have cottoned on that we’re no longer dating, the world will have moved on.”
I picture it: fake dating Chase for the next month. Hanging out like we already do, only with his hand in mine when people are looking. Smiling for a few photos. Maybe a kiss or two when the cameras are on us. It hardly sounds much different from what we already have, apart from the PDA.
“Agreed,” I reply, wondering for a moment why Liv thought we even needed rules. This is going to be easy. “Are we going to tell our families it’s fake?” I ask then. “I’d feel weird keeping it secret.”
“One hundred percent,” Chase replies without hesitation. “We let our families in on it. And Liv and Mia and Flic too. The only people we’re trying to convince are the fans and Ryan anyway.”
“Good.” Relief threads through me. “No way I want to get caught lying to Mama after that time we were eleven and she caught us hiding clothes under our pillows the night we planned to go on a midnight walk.”
Chase chuckles. “As if she wouldn’t see straight through this anyway. She’s got superpowers.” His smile widens with warmth and love at the mention of the woman who raised him.
There’s a pause as we both sip our coffees. Then Chase raises his brows in question. “How much PDA are you actually OK with?”
My stomach does a strange little flip at the question, like I’ve only just realized how weird this is going to be. “Define PDA.”
“Well for starters, to pull this off we probably need to give the press a red-carpet kiss at the awards,” he says, tone easy, but eyes watching me.
“We can put on a show,” I reply, repeating Liv’s words from earlier.
“And handholding when people are watching. Sitting close. Looking cozy.”
“Fine,” I reply.
Then his lips twitch into a smile. “You might have to touch my ass a few times. Want to practice now?”
The laugh bubbles out of me. “That is officially off the table. And kissing, holding hands, all of that, is strictly only in public.”
“What, no practicing?” he teases, puckering his lips in an exaggerated kiss.
“Nope.”
His eyes hold mine. Then he says, voice light, like it’s nothing more than a joke, “And no falling for each other.”
I laugh, because that’s what you do when your best friend turns a line like that into a joke. “Obviously.”
We’ve been friends too long for this to be complicated.
The rules are set. The lines are clear. There’s nothing about this that can get messy.