Fake Boyfriend Until Fall

Prologue

Daisy

There are three things no one tells you about starting over in Boston.

One, rent will make you consider marrying for health insurance, closet space, or access to an in-unit washer and dryer.

At this point, I’m not saying I’d propose to any moderately attractive man with central air and a Costco membership, but I would make eye contact for too long in the produce section.

Two, cobblestones are not romantic after a twelve-hour workday.

They are ankle traps with historical significance and absolutely no respect for women in affordable boots.

Paul Revere did not ride through these streets so I could lose a heel outside a Dunkin’ and pretend I meant to walk like a wounded flamingo.

Three, if you move to a city to prove you are fine, the city does not care. It will take your paycheck, steal one glove from every matching pair you own, and allow you to have a quiet emotional collapse beside a man eating tuna from a plastic container on the T.

Not that I’ve done that.

Recently.

And in my defense, the tuna man was breathing like he was training for the Olympics in mayonnaise consumption, so really, anyone would have cracked.

Thankfully, the Turning Page is warm when I push through the door for my evening shift, all coffee steam and cinnamon and old paper, which should feel comforting, except my left boot is making a small clicking sound with every step.

Not a cute click. Not a chic, city-girl click.

More like my footwear has reviewed my life choices and is trying to distance itself from me in public.

Which is fair. My footwear has seen things.

“Daisy,” Bea calls from behind the counter, her silver braid draped over one shoulder. “You’re six minutes late.”

“I’m cultivating a mystery.”

“You’re limping.”

“My boot is going through something.”

“One of you should.”

I point at her because I have no reasonable defense, and my personality is mostly finger-pointing under pressure. “That was hurtful, and unfortunately well-timed.”

Bea’s the boss. She owns The Turning Page, which is technically a café and technically a bookstore. Neither word quite covers it, though.

Not when the rain hits the windows. Not when the lamps turn everything honey-gold.

The place has floor-to-ceiling shelves along the left wall and mismatched tables scattered across old wooden floors.

Two velvet chairs sit by the front window, both of them having witnessed more breakups than any therapist should allow.

In the corner, there’s a tiny stage where local poets punish us with feelings every Thursday.

I love it here.

That is unfortunate because love, in every form, has proven financially irresponsible.

My day job is reputable. That’s what I tell my mother, at least. I’m the office manager for a nonprofit that runs literacy programs, after-school tutoring, and community grants.

I manage donor records, calendars, reimbursements, volunteers, office snacks, printer meltdowns, and one executive director who uses “urgent” as punctuation.

It sounds impressive when I say it quickly.

It also pays like “nonprofit” is less of a tax status and more of a personal threat.

So, three nights a week—sometimes seven, depending on how aggressively my bills are flirting with violence—I come here after the office. I make lattes, restock books, wipe tables, sell pastries, and pretend my feet haven’t retained legal counsel.

They have. I saw them drafting a complaint this morning.

Bea looks me over. “Your phone’s been buzzing.”

I glance at my bag beneath the counter.

Of course it has.

My phone only buzzes for three reasons: my mother asking if I’m eating enough, my bank sending me alerts with the emotional tone of a disappointed Victorian governess, or someone from my past choosing violence in lowercase text.

None of those are ideal.

I consider ignoring it, which is the closest thing I have to a wellness practice.

“Daisy,” Bea says.

“What?”

“You made the face.”

“I have many faces.”

“You made the one where you pretend you don’t know your own life is chasing you.”

I blink at her. “That is wildly specific.”

“It’s also the face you made when your landlord raised your rent and you tried to convince me you could survive on lentils and vibes.”

“I lasted four days.”

“You cried into a scone.”

“It was a rare, emotionally available scone,” I argue. “You don’t ignore that. You seize the pastry. Carpe gluten, or whatever.”

Bea folds her arms.

I sigh, reach for my purse, and pull out my phone with the enthusiasm of a woman retrieving a possum from a chimney.

The screen lights up.

And there it is.

Exactly what my evening needed.

Because apparently, starting over in Boston comes with a fourth thing no one tells you.

You can leave your old life behind.

Your old life, unfortunately, may still have your number.

“It’s probably work,” I lie, because I’m getting really good at that. You know what they say. Fake it ‘til you make it, or fake it until everyone stops asking follow-up questions, and you can go cry in a bathroom with flattering lighting.

“You’re at work.”

“My other job.”

“That’s exactly why you shouldn’t answer.”

Excellent advice.

Naturally, I ignore it, since my phone starts ringing again.

I pull it from my purse, and the screen lights up with three missed calls from my mother, one voicemail, and a text from my brother, Soren.

Soren: Call Mom before she calls me again. She just asked my assistant if I’m avoiding “a family matter of spiritual urgency.”

My stomach drops so fast it feels physical.

My mother uses “spiritual urgency” when someone is sick, engaged, pregnant, divorcing, wearing the wrong shoes to Mass, or refusing to acknowledge a seating chart crisis.

It’s a wide net, emotionally speaking. A dragnet, really.

One minute you’re living your life, the next you’re wanted in three emotional jurisdictions.

Another text arrives while I’m still staring.

Mom: Darling, please call me when you have a moment. I wanted you to hear this from me.

I know before I know.

Isn’t that rude? The body can be so smug with its little predictions. It doesn’t ask permission. It doesn’t wait for facts. It just opens the trapdoor and says, Here it comes, idiot. Hope you wore emotional kneepads.

I did not.

Obviously.

The café keeps moving around me. Milk hisses under the espresso wand. Someone laughs near the romance shelves. Rain taps lightly against the front windows, polite as a guest who fully plans to overstay.

I call Soren instead.

He answers on the second ring. “Daisy?”

“Why is she calling me?” I ask, because greeting people is for women whose mothers don’t weaponize concern before dinner.

A pause.

That pause is worse than words. My brother is a man who has negotiated contracts with people who own islands. Silence from him is not casual. Silence from him is paperwork with tabs.

“Are you sitting down?” he asks.

Obviously, I want to say, “Listen, I’m standing beside a pastry case, which is basically the same thing if you’ve accepted baked goods as emotional furniture.”

I don’t.

My family thinks I’m at home after my respectable day job, probably drinking tea and living within my means like a woman in a fancy vitamin commercial. They don’t know I’m in a financial situation so fragile a pharmacy charge could finish me.

I haven’t informed them yet that I’m working extra shifts at a bookstore café and pretending it’s for whimsy.

I might never tell them—or anyone—that I’ve considered selling feet pictures on the internet, then rejected the idea only because my left boot currently sounds haunted, and I refuse to enter the adult content market with subpar production values.

“Daisy,” Soren says, softer now. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, never been better.” My voice comes out bright enough to qualify as fraudulent. If emotional fraud were a crime, I’d be doing hard time in a beige jumpsuit.

He exhales.

I can picture him in some glass office, jaw locked, wearing a suit worth more than my grocery budget, already trying to solve a problem I haven’t admitted exists.

“Well, then . . . Liam’s getting married.”

The café slips sideways for half a second.

Not literally. I remain upright because women named Daisy Thorn do not collapse in independent bookstores.

We overperform. We smile. We ask people whether they want oat milk while privately reconsidering the last decade of our romantic history and wondering if it’s too late to become someone mysterious who owns linen.

“Oh,” I say.

That’s it.

Oh.

Apparently, language abandons women in their thirties and leaves them with vowel sounds. I can’t wait to see what happens at forty. Maybe I’ll communicate exclusively through blinking and receipts.

“I’m sorry,” Soren says.

That almost makes me laugh. Soren Thorn apologizing is like spotting a deer in traffic. Beautiful. Startling. Probably a sign something has gone terribly wrong.

“Why are you sorry?” I ask. “You didn’t agree to marry him when he proposed.”

“No, but I offered to break his nose once he cheated on you.”

“Which I appreciated,” I say. “Very medieval. Very on-brand. Honestly, one of your better brotherly moments.”

My free hand slips into the pocket of my apron before Bea can see my fingers curl.

“But it’s all good.”

Soren goes quiet.

Not because he believes me, but because he loves me enough not to make me prove I’m lying.

“The wedding is the first week of November,” he continues, because apparently we’re seasoning the wound now.

Of course it is.

Fall in Winterberry Cove isn’t a season.

It’s a full production with wardrobe, sponsors, baked goods, family expectations, and committees that believe cider requires governance.

The whole town turns gold and red and deeply invested in other people’s business.

There will be twinkling lights. There will be tasteful pumpkins.

There will be women who knew me at seventeen watching my face to see if it cracks, which is exactly why I won’t be going.

I’ll never go back to Winterberry Cove.

Never.