14. Chapter Fourteen #2
“Looking good,” she said, crossing her arms as she assessed.
Alice was setting up the chalkboard menu, which detailed the dinner and dessert offerings for today—saucy meatball spaghetti and a three-pack of chocolate, vanilla, and pistachio cannoli.
“You two are the best.” Gigi stood from where she was crouched next to a cooler. She wiped her hands on her apron. A tomato-red scarf held back her dark hair. “That went so much faster with four people instead of two.”
“Anytime,” Alice replied, arranging flowers in the vase she’d set next to the menu. “Happy to help. Plus, I’d be here, anyway. It’s nice to get early access.”
Paige grinned. “I love that we get paid in pasta and cannoli.” Her stomach rumbled at the thought. Scoring a stash of Gigi’s cooking was like winning the lottery.
“How long before this is your full-time gig?” Alice asked, twisting her long auburn hair into a high bun as the sun warmed the tent.
“Probably another year,” Gigi beamed, and all three of them squealed.
“Really? That’s amazing!” Paige said.
“I mean, I’ve really been enjoying my director position at SheTime,” Gigi said, “but it’d be a dream to have my own business, especially doing something I love.”
“And you’ll be ready to make the change in a year?” Alice asked.
Gigi nodded. “My bonus from last year was enough to start up the business and invest in an app that Harris is working on for me.”
“An app?” Paige asked, getting even more excited for her friend. Harris had created the dating app she used, GambleOnLove. He was really savvy in that area.
Gigi nodded. “We’ve been working on it together. It’ll be the main driver of the business. A way for people to order home-cooked Italian meals straight to their homes, delivered through a car service. It will interconnect with Uber.”
“Cannoli that comes straight to your couch?” Alice breathed. “That’s genius.”
“I’m sold.” Paige grinned.
Gigi beamed, smiling from ear to ear. She turned to the crates filled with boxes. “Let’s get these in the coolers. Then we’ll be ready for the crowd.”
They made an assembly line, unloading the crates and packing coolers full of plastic to-go boxes filled with noodles, sauce, and golf ball-sized meatballs. As they did, they chatted and caught up on the happenings of the week. Quickly, the conversation turned to Paige and Ethan.
“What’s the status on the hunt for the clue?” Gigi asked, shifting a few boxes in the cooler to make them fit.
“We haven’t found it yet,” Paige said. “But spending the week at the library has been super productive for the book. We’ve been there every day. One of us writes while the other hunts for the clue.”
“Writing at the same place every day isn’t giving you writer’s block?” Alice asked.
Paige shook her head. “We’ve been picking a different spot in the library each day to use as home base. The Children’s section, the hallway outside the music practice rooms. Yesterday we were in the garden atrium on the top floor.”
“Mmm,” Alice replied. “My favorite. It’s so gorgeous up there.”
“Isn’t it?” Paige nodded, thinking of how she and Ethan had set up camp at a table in the sun. They’d sipped coffee and pecked away at their laptops together. “The writing has been weirdly easy.”
“It has?” Alice replied, surprised.
Paige nodded and shrugged, because she hadn’t expected it, either.
With their different creative processes, she figured there would be obstacle after obstacle.
But writing with Ethan had cracked open something inside her.
Plot ideas came fast, dialogue was snappy, and writing alongside him—bantering, brainstorming, challenging each other—was kind of magical.
“We’re already halfway through the first draft. ”
“Halfway?” Gigi’s mouth popped open.
“Wow, that’s so fast!” Alice said.
“I know, right?” Paige replied, hoping the ease of their writing would last. “We’ve only been writing for three weeks. I’ve never written a first draft that quickly.”
“Maybe you should make this a regular thing?” Gigi suggested, with a quirked eyebrow.
“Regular?” Paige asked, her mind racing back to her time with Ethan. “Like really date him?” She’d been thinking about it nonstop, not that she’d ever admit that to anyone.
Gigi chuckled. “I meant, you should think about writing more books with him, if it’s going that well.” She gave Paige a knowing look, and Paige’s cheeks immediately went hot. “But if that’s where your head went, I’m guessing there’s something you aren’t telling us.”
Both Gigi and Alice stopped and stared at Paige. Her mouth opened and closed like a fish, not sure how to explain her Freudian slip.
“I knew it!” Alice jumped and clapped her hands. “You’re in love!”
“I’m not in love, Alice!” Paige scoffed. “That’s crazy. I think you’ve watched one too many rom-coms.”
“Lust?” Gigi asked, hooking a thumb in her apron, waiting for Paige to spill the tea.
“I—” Paige set the last box of cannoli in the cooler. She pressed a palm to her chest, like maybe she could calm the weird flutter there. “I don’t really know.”
“Which one?” Alice asked.
“You don’t know if it’s love or lust?” Gigi asked, now looking concerned.
Paige shook her head. “No, no. I mean, I like spending time with him.” Lately, she’d been catching herself smiling at nothing.
Replaying moments. Analyzing the look on Ethan’s face when they wrote together.
Replaying the way he’d kissed her. Soaking in how she felt when they were together .
. . and feeling this silly longing when they were apart.
When Ethan had whispered, “Thanks for being my date tonight,” in that hushed theater—just the two of them in the dark, no cameras, no charade—something had shifted. He’d looked at her like she was his favorite chapter in a book he didn’t want to end. And she wanted more of that . . . more of him.
Something had changed.
Because she was feeling . . . real things. Big things. And it terrified her.
If she had gone from detesting to liking, could she go from liking to love?
Did she even know what genuine love should feel like?
All she knew for sure was that loving someone—anyone—would mean she could get hurt.
And yet, whatever this was with Ethan . .
. she wanted to keep it. She wanted to stuff it in a bottle and cork it, make sure it couldn’t slip away.
“What’s that look?” Gigi asked, breaking Paige out of her thoughts.
Paige ran a hand over her face. “I don’t know what my face is doing, but I’m confused. That’s what my face is trying to say.”
“About?” Alice asked, tilting her head.
Paige swallowed and then spit out what her friends’ questions had pushed her to consider. “I don’t think I’ve been in love before.”
They both froze. “ Ever ?” Alice and Gigi asked together.
Paige shook her head. She shrugged. She rocked from her heels to her toes. What a rollercoaster her brain had been on in the last minute.
“Not even with Derek?” Alice asked.
“No.” Paige shook her head again. “I mean, I cared about him. I loved him. But was I in love with him?” She paused and her friends held their breath. “I don’t think so. It didn’t feel like this. It didn’t feel like Ethan.”
Both Alice and Gigi gasped, sucking the air out of the tent. Then they squealed. A man from the tomato booth gave them all a bemused side-eye, then went back to stacking vegetables in perfect rows.
“Okay,” Gigi said, fanning herself with a napkin. “So just to confirm—your fake boyfriend has turned into your real crush?”
Alice leaned over the table, eyes wide. “I knew those pictures of you guys kissing couldn’t be fake!”
“It didn’t feel fake. At least, for me,” Paige admitted with a sigh.
But what was she supposed to do with the feelings bubbling inside her?
Especially now that she’d voiced them to the world—at least, her world.
“But I don’t know what to do with any of that.
” Her hands flew about in front of her, like she was trying to scatter away all the strange, bold emotions that had crept up on her.
Gigi stopped fanning herself, dropping her hand to her side. “You know. You write romance, for goodness’ sake. You’re just scared.”
“Which is valid,” Alice added, softly. “I’ve never seen you like this. I kind of love it.”
Paige looked away, out at the fresh-cut flowers and people lining up at the entrance gate. “What if he doesn’t feel the same way? What if it was just part of the show for him and I’m completely making this all up in my head? I have a good imagination, you know.”
“You have a great imagination.” Alice stepped around the table and nudged her. “But that man kissed you like he forgot the world existed.”
“You seriously think that was fake?” Gigi asked.
Paige pondered the question. “It was supposed to be,” she admitted, quietly.
“But what if it wasn’t?” Gigi asked, putting her hands on her hips. “You’ll never know unless you really go for it.”
Paige crossed her arms over her chest, trying to settle the uncertainty pinballing through her. “I’ve never really put my heart out there before. Not really. With Derek, I was doing what I thought I was supposed to. Playing the part. And that . . . didn’t end well.”
They were quiet for a moment, letting the truth settle.
“What if I ruin everything?” Paige added, her throat tightening. “The writing, our friendship, the book deal. If I say something and it goes sideways, it’s not just my heart on the line. It’s my career.”
And her heart and career were one and the same. Destroying one would crush the other.
Alice reached over and took her hand, grounding her. “You can’t spend your life avoiding love just because heartbreak might happen,” Alice said, staring straight into Paige’s eyes.
Gigi nodded. “Especially when the person you’re scared of losing looks at you like Ethan does.”
“I just . . .” Paige breathed in deeply.
“I wish someone could tell me how to make this fake relationship real without wrecking everything else.” And that was the truth of it, the part she hadn’t dared to say out loud until now—she didn’t want this to be pretend anymore.
She wanted Ethan. For real. But wanting him meant risking more than she ever had before.
Before Alice or Gigi could respond, the gate opened, and the crowd poured in.
“Hold that thought,” Gigi said, snapping the lid shut on the cooler. “We’ll definitely be circling back to this.”
“Yappy hour at my place?” Alice offered. “I’m stocked up on margarita mix, and I’ve got a new knitting project we can try. Knitted book covers!”
Paige nodded and managed a smile at Alice’s enthusiasm, though panic still fluttered in her chest. She wasn’t sure which scared her more—telling Ethan how she felt, or never telling him at all.
Somewhere along the way, she’d lost her grip on what was real and what was pretend.
And if she didn’t get brave soon . . . she might lose the first real connection her heart had wanted in a long time.