Chapter 2 #2
I know better than to ask if you’re kidding.
EMMETT
Does she seriously have that sort of information at the ready?
RYAN
It is a legit part of her job.
Info will be in your email in ten minutes, Prescott.
ME
I’m scared to look. I don’t think I’m a Hallmark man.
EMMETT
Don’t knock it till you try it.
RYAN
WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH EMMETT?
Bro, did Danielle steal your phone?
Send proof of life.
EMMETT
Don’t make a big deal out of this. Watching Hallmark with my wife doesn’t revoke my man card.
ME
True. But you are the man who threw up halfway through Little Women on his third date with said wife. I was there. Nothing manly about that.
EMMETT
That was food poisoning. Don’t desecrate the masterpiece that is Little Women. I saw you reaching for tissues, date crasher.
RYAN
Nash, you cried over Matthew dying in Anne of Green Gables. We have video proof. We own you, man. Leave our Hallmark alone.
Gotta dash. Baby’s crying, and I’m up to bat. Night, brothers.
I shot off a goodbye text and shifted into drive.
The conversation left me chuckling all the way home.
I’d known Ryan since high school, and we’d been instant best friends.
Emmett had joined our circle in our freshman year of college, and here we were at thirty-three and still going strong.
They’d both married amazing women nearly ten years ago and had three kids a piece, leaving me the solo bachelor.
If my plans had worked out, I’d have been happily married for the last ten years, too.
With a couple of kids and a white-picket fence.
A dog. I’d always wanted a dog growing up, but life with my mom was too unpredictable. As for Alexis and me…
She hated your drive but wanted you to be successful. Hated when you focused on things besides her but always wanted more than you could give. You weren’t enough for her. Or your mom. Or any woman. Why would Steph be any different?
My tires screeched to a halt as I belatedly recalled a stop sign in my neighbourhood.
I was already partway through the intersection, and it was late.
Frank Sinatra’s velvety cadence singing “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” filled the vehicle.
If only. I shook my head to clear the cobwebs.
But the thoughts were a chilling ghost breathing down my neck.
I eased out of the intersection. No more reminiscing.
Alexis wasn’t worth a second distracted-driving ticket.
The guys would never let me live it down.
But this thing with Stephanie was sending my head into spaces I didn’t want to dwell on.
Especially not if I wanted something real with her.
I had no reason to think we wouldn’t be compatible.
We’d been dancing around this whole friends thing for two years, which included countless get-togethers with Ryan and Emmett’s families and Liz and her fiancé.
As the odd ones out as a no-couple unit, Stephanie and I often paired together for different events and game nights.
I loved the way her nose crinkled when she was hyperfocused and how her eyes sparkled when she talked about her best friends or her nieces and nephews. Stop worrying.
Grounded in Frank’s melancholy nostalgia, I paid more attention to the road and the perfectly decorated houses flashing past. The neat rows of multicoloured lights.
The blow-up Frosty the Snowmans. The song alone was enough to pull me back in time to Christmases past I’d spent with Alexis and her family.
Decorating the tree, stringing lights, and driving through the neighbourhood at night to count the number of nativity scenes we found.
Just like I used to do with my grandparents once upon a time.
But then I lost Alexis, and her family by proxy.
Hence my love-hate relationship with the holiday.
Frank finished singing as I parked my Jeep in the apartment complex parking lot.
Good thing too—the ache in my chest was almost unbearable.
Hearts could be annoying organs. Aching for lost things and holding onto dreams at the same time.
I slid out into the nippy night air, absently rubbing my sternum.
Lifting a hand, I waved to Mr. and Mrs. Lavoie, my elderly neighbours two units down, as they strolled hand in hand towards the entrance. Maybe bingo ran extra late tonight?
“You got plans for Christmas, young man?” Mrs. Lavoie’s warbly voice called across the darkness.
“Yes, ma’am. I’m spending it with my girlfriend.” Wow, that rolled off the tongue way too easily, but I couldn’t help my grin, despite the twinge of nerves in my gut.
Mrs. Lavoie awwed, and her husband grunted, “‘Bout time.”
We rode the elevator up to the third floor together, and I listened while Mrs. Lavoie told me about their plans to visit their kids in Coeur d’Alene.
Mr. Lavoie didn’t say much, just grunted occasionally and smiled fondly at his wife.
They reminded me of a real-life Carl and Ellie from that kids’ movie Emmett’s girls were obsessed with.
When I finally slipped into my apartment, I had a container full of Christmas baking, courtesy of Mrs. Lavoie. Helping myself to a pecan butter tart, I groaned. Heavenly. This was why I hadn’t moved. Mrs. Lavoie’s baking was too good to pass up.
After finishing college in Southern California and moving to Spokane ten years ago, I’d roomed with Emmett for a while before buying this two-bedroom apartment.
It was simple and well-maintained, meeting my bachelor needs.
After Genesis’s financial success, I didn’t see much point in selling and upgrading when it was just me, simply because I had more money now than I did right out of college.
The only difference was I owned the building now—strictly because I liked my neighbours too much to risk losing them.
And if Mrs. Lavoie was strategic about catching me in the hall every week to smother me with baked goods, I wasn’t complaining.
But as I loosened my tie and dropped it onto my bed’s navy comforter, there was a part of my text conversation with the guys I couldn’t shake.
What had Ryan said? The potential harassing ex.
Was someone bothering Stephanie enough to make a fake boyfriend seem like her only hope?
I made a mental note to ask her tomorrow.
I hadn’t even thought about her past exes before now.
My friends hadn’t mentioned her dating life, which was definitely something they would have spilled because they were nosy imps.
My email pinged with a notification. No doubt Ryan’s promised materials for all things fake dating, courtesy of Kelsi.
Tonight, I’d do everything in my power to research the role of a fake boyfriend.
Four in the morning. That’s when I emerged from the cloud of two Hallmark dramas, four of Mrs. Lavoie’s gingerbread men, and Kelsi’s latest closed-door, fake dating rom-com.
I felt both informed and so out of my depth.
But at least I understood Stephanie’s costume choice tonight.
Hallmark lived for its coat selections and knitwear.
Ryan’s text teased my sleep-deprived mind as I fell into bed.
They inevitably fall in love. I wasn’t new to the dating circle, but I had been out of the loop for the last ten years.
Ever since… her. I tried to shove the thoughts away, but it was hard to do when hampered by exhaustion.
The unwelcome thoughts came with more rapid clarity in the darkness than in the daylight hours.
Was I ready to break my dating ban for Stephanie? What if I wrecked our friendship and our work dynamic? What if I didn’t measure up to what she wanted in a man? I certainly hadn’t been enough for Alexis.
I’d met Alexis in my sophomore year of college and had been immediately intrigued by Kelsi’s music major friend, a brunette with smoky eyes and a ready smile.
We’d hit it off immediately and started dating.
It was nice having a friend group and my first real girlfriend.
I hadn’t had the time or the connections for either in high school.
We’d talked futures, kids, dreams, everything, and when graduation rolled around, I’d had a ring ready to go.
Only for me to get down on one knee and have her turn me down flat.
She’d met someone else. Someone with drive who didn’t make her feel less important than his work.
Someone who had more vision for his future.
Apparently, she had something against my early dreams of entrepreneurship and took the opportunity to inform me she hated the way I got deeply focused on new projects, among other personal quirks.
She knew what she wanted. Someone who, bottom line, wasn’t me.
“I know what I want my life to look like, Nash,” she’d said with pitying eyes and a sardonic smile. “Chester can give me everything you can’t.”
Code words for: he had money. What kind of name was Chester anyhow?
At the time, I was self-sufficient but nowhere near a millionaire. And just like my mom, she decided, without money, I wasn’t worth keeping around.
I groaned and flopped over, punching my pillow.
How could Alexis still have such a hold on me all these years later?
She’d only chomped on my heart and spit it out.
No big deal. But I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of ruining my life again.
I’d shifted my earlier business ideas into what eventually became Genesis Marketing, and I had no regrets about that.
No regrets about not marrying Alexis either, since she’d shown her true colours.
But I still wanted someone in my life. A partner, a friend…
Someone more than just a friend. Someone who saw me—needed me and not just my money. I wanted Stephanie.
They inevitably fall in love.
They were the last words I heard as I set my alarm with enough time to squeeze in more than three hours of sleep and still be on time to meet Stephanie at the café .
I did the research. We’ll discuss the rules—a mandatory conversation for fake dating, I’d gathered—and promise not to fall in love, which was rule number one apparently.
Little did she know, it was too late for that.
Now, I just needed to convince Stephanie to drop the fake part and take a chance on me for real.