Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
CHARLIE
Lydia: Happy first day of fake dating! How long before you two accidentally fall in love?
I refuse to dignify that text with a response as I walk home with Alice. Refuse . For about five seconds.
Charlie: Accidentally falling in love usually requires eye contact. Which she’s avoiding.
Love is the last thing on this girl’s mind. Carrots has barely said anything since we left that mining exhibit. She won’t even look at me.
The Gold Rush cupcake I bribed her with before we left downtown didn’t help. It earned me two seconds of conversation at the bakery before she clammed back up. As we reach the Lilac Hedgerow, the crumpled wrapper in her hand is the only thing left, but her mood still hasn’t lifted.
Lydia is undeterred. Giving up isn’t really her thing.
Lydia: Ooh, you make her nervous? That’s a really good sign…
Is it, though? Because the way Alice would rather stare at her cupcake wrapper instead of me feels like the opposite of a good sign.
Lydia: What’s your next move?
Probably apologize and beg for forgiveness. Or curl in a ball on my air mattress and pretend today never happened. But I don’t tell Lydia that—I change the subject.
Charlie: Shouldn’t you be more concerned about the Victorian than me and Alice?
Charlie: She wants revenge for those missing scandal sheets. And she knows it was you. Aren’t you worried?
Lydia sends me a gif of a laughing dachshund. It takes another few seconds for her real response to show up.
Lydia: Sweetie, I’m from Los Angeles. I rode the city bus to a charter school for seven years. Public transit. As a girl.
Lydia: I think I can handle your small-town gossip columnist.
She pairs that with a winky face emoji, and I smile in spite of myself. Then I put my phone away and get to work, determined to help Alice break her vow of silence.
“Didn’t you say earlier we needed to talk?” I remind her as we pass a row of renovated bungalows. “About our fake-dating plan?”
I’ve been dreading this conversation since she told me we needed to have it. She mentioned it during lunch before we left for the museum, and I’ve been dodging this moment ever since, afraid of what she might say. Though anything’s better than three more blocks of silence.
Alice gulps, wide-eyed. Like she doesn’t want to have this conversation either, even though it was her idea. We pass two more houses and a mailbox shaped like a duck before she recovers.
“Yep! We definitely need to talk!”
Uh-oh.
Her voice is bright, but she looks sick to her stomach, and I can tell she’s gone to that place. The land of hyper optimism where she always hides when she’s nervous. Where her smile is a thousand watts while her voice is a thousand decibels. And nothing that intentionally cheerful has ever been more ominous.
Except clowns.
Alice glances away and clears her throat eighteen times in a row—maybe a hundred. Then she clears it once more for good measure. Are you okay, Carrots?
Those words nearly tumble out of me, but I catch myself in time. I already slipped up once today, while we were hiding in that fake mine. When Alice was shaking and upset and I would’ve done anything to make her feel better. Even accidentally use the nickname I swore I wouldn’t.
But I’m not going to slip up twice. She’s leaving town in five days, and I’m not her type. Giving her a cute nickname isn’t going to help me survive Alice Kilpatrick.
“It’s about our plan,” she says. “I don’t think it’s going to work.”
“Oh yeah?”
That’s all I’ve got, the only response I have the energy for. Her face is a grim mask of determination, and that tells me everything I need to know. Yesterday, Alice talked herself into fake dating me, and today, she’s talked herself out of it.
“Our plan just doesn’t make sense. I kept thinking about it last night. Regular fake dating was never going to fix your reputation.”
Ouch.
Valid, but ouch .
She says that as nicely as she can, apologetically, but Alice isn’t wrong. My reputation is too far gone for a quick revamp. Anything we tried was only going to make it worse. People in this town would believe a lot of things about me, but a sweet and wholesome love story will never be one of them.
Besides, Alice can barely stomach spending time with me as it is. She hasn’t made eye contact in over half an hour, and that woman couldn’t lie her way out of a paper bag. Watching her pretend to fall for me was going to be the Hallmark version of the Hindenburg. A slow-motion tragedy of epic proportions.
“So, I was thinking…if we want this to work…”
Wait.
If we want this to work? Alice still sounds like she’d rather throw up than spend another second with me, but her words don’t match. She isn’t giving up on our plan?
Warmth fills my chest, but there’s something else mixed in. Something extra that feels a lot like hope.
“We’ll have to play it just right,” she says, and I nod.
“Sweet and wholesome. Got it.”
That’s not my strong suit—not even close—but an old Charlie can learn new tricks, right? All I need to do is ignore every Alice-instinct I have…and stop looking for any excuse to touch her or hold her hand. Bonus points if I can avoid getting lost in those warm brown eyes thirty times a day or mentally tracing star patterns in her freckles or imagining what she looks like in that Regency maid costume or?—
“Clean and wholesome.” Alice nods. “Yes—but also no. I mean, that’s important too, but…”
Suddenly, she’s more nervous than before. It’s a wonder she doesn’t faint right there on Balsam Street.
“If we want this to work…” Alice hesitates. Taking a deep breath, her gaze finds mine. “I have to pursue you.”
Pursue me?
I almost faint. Right there on Balsam Street. My throat dries out, and I fight the urge to wet my lips. “You want to…pursue me?”
Alice is a tornado of anxiety, but she nods. “That was the plan I came up with last night. So I guess it’s still my plan. Why? Do you hate it—is it dumb? Because if you hate it…”
It’s a horrible idea. Her new plan is worse than the Hindenburg, but I definitely don’t hate it. “Are you sure you can pull that off, Kilpatrick?”
She can’t. We both know she can’t—she can barely make eye contact. But Alice nods weakly, and I don’t try to talk her out of her new plan.
I’m too into it.
This plan is everything.
Maybe it’s going to crash and burn a million different ways. Maybe she’ll never be able to muster up what it takes to pursue me properly, but I’m really going to enjoy watching her try. Five minutes ago, Alice was avoiding me like the plague. Now she’s going to flirt and make moves? Yes, please.
“It’s the only way to prove you aren’t a rake,” she stammers. “You can’t be up to no good if I’m the predator and you’re the prey.”
Now I’m prey?
She doesn’t mean it that way. I’m pretty sure Alice isn’t going to hunt me like a stone-cold player while she’s in town. But maybe I’d like that too. Maybe, when it comes to Alice, I’d like just about anything. That girl can hunt me however she wants, whenever she wants.
“I’m prey now, huh?” I tease.
Alice blushes, but she almost smiles too. So I keep going, egging her on as I dust off my secret weapon. An award-winning smirk that is every rake’s best friend.
“I don’t think you’ve got it in you, Allie-cat. Not gonna lie.”
That gets her.
Alice bites back a laugh, and it feels good to see her happy again. Feigning offense, she serves up a smirk of her own. And that smirk is heaven.
“I’m a romance author, Roscoe. And this was my idea. How hard could it be?”
Guess we’ll find out.