Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Daisy
This is the moment where I sit across from Forrest Wolfcraft in a bookstore café, with his rescue dog using my foot as a pillow, a half-eaten sandwich in my hand, and the words ‘fake relationship’ hovering between us like a seasonal craft project made entirely of red flags.
A normal woman would let them pass.
Unfortunately, I have never been accused of being that in writing.
Forrest stares at me.
This isn’t his regular stare either.
His regular stare is grumpy, observant, and mildly prosecutorial. This one is worse. This one is the stare of a man watching someone toss a lit match into a hay maze while saying, Isn’t this festive?
“No,” he says.
I blink. “That was fast.”
“It didn’t require thought.”
“Most of your opinions could benefit from more thought.”
“No.”
“You already said that.”
“I’m saying it again, for clarification.”
Puck sighs beneath the table, which feels judgmental coming from someone who tried to eat a napkin two days ago.
I look down at him. “Don’t take his side. I thought we had something.”
Puck’s tail thumps once against the floor, which I choose to interpret as support, because my emotional infrastructure is currently being held together by interpretation, turkey, and rye.
Forrest leans back in his chair, arms folded across his chest.
I hate when he does that. Not because it’s intimidating. I am a Thorn woman. I have survived family brunches where three generations discussed land boundaries, Catholic guilt, and whether a centerpiece was trying too hard. A man folding his arms will not be my undoing.
Probably.
The problem is that Forrest folding his arms makes his shoulders do things.
Unnecessary things.
Broad, irritating, former-professional-athlete things.
“You’re not making yourself part of my mess,” he says.
“That is adorable,” I tell him. “You think you invented my mess.”
“Daisy.”
“No, really. Very sweet. Every man assumes he has proprietary rights to consequences.” I set the sandwich down and wipe my fingers on a napkin, because if I’m going to propose a mutually beneficial lie, I should not have honey mustard on my thumb.
Standards are important, even when committing emotional fraud.
“I am already in a mess. Liam is marrying Carla at my family’s vineyard.
My mother has turned me into a daughter-event-planner-emotional-speed-bump hybrid.
Principal Whitcomb thinks I’m now coordinating a sports-adjacent community bonding event with fundraising included, and Carla just threatened to sue if your dinner interferes with her final walkthrough. ”
Forrest’s jaw shifts.
I point at him. “Don’t make that face.”
“What face?”
“The face that says you’re mentally moving Carla and Liam into a penalty box.”
“They’d fit.”
“Probably, but that’s not the point.”
His mouth twitches.
“You need someone to show up with you so Winterberry Cove stops treating you like a grainy video with cheekbones,” I state the obvious. “I need someone to show up with me so Winterberry Cove stops treating me like the sad little cautionary tale Liam left near the vineyard dumpsters.”
“No.”
“We’re both going to be there.”
“No.”
“Plus, we already know each other.”
“Barely.”
I laugh. “Barely? Forrest, I know your coffee order, your dog’s digestive history, your hatred of adjectives, your suspicious attachment to this table, and the fact that you pretend not to like the cranberry orange muffins, but always buy them even when Bea says they’re ugly.”
“They taste fine.”
“They taste like regret with zest.”
“You eat them.”
“I am emotionally unwell.”
He grunts, and sometimes I wonder if I should start cataloging his grunts.
They never mean the same thing. There’s the annoyed grunt, the reluctantly amused grunt, the don’t-touch-my-coffee grunt, and once, I swear, a happy grunt.
Though calling it happy feels generous. It was more like joy trapped in a basement.
This one is not angry.
This one probably says I’m wearing him down.
So I keep going, because I am nothing if not a woman with no survival instinct and excellent follow-through.
“We can pull this off.”
“Day, this is different.”
I arch an eyebrow. “Because it involves lying?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, please. You played professional hockey. You can’t tell me you’ve never lied during a postgame interview.”
“That’s different.”
“How?”
“Everyone knows those are lies.”
“Fine. This is theater.”
“No.”
“Community theater.”
“Worse.”
“Strategic narrative management?”
He stares at me, exasperated.
“What? I work at a nonprofit. We name things until they sound fundable.”
He sighs because I’m being impossible.
See? I know him. We’re perfect for this allegedly fraudulent courtship. Honestly, the paperwork should already be printing.
“Listen, Forrest, I don’t want a fake boyfriend because I need a man to prove I’m okay. I know how hideous that sounds. Very tragic-woman-standing-near-seasonal-centerpieces. But Winterberry Cove is built on optics, wine, grudges, and women pretending they don’t hear everything.”
His eyes stay on mine.
“You need optics. I need optics. This is a win-win situation.”
My throat goes tight, so I smile.
Bad habit.
“If I go back with you, they’ll still gossip,” I continue. “Obviously. They’ll probably need hydration and a snack break. But they’ll have a different story to chew on.”
“The Thorn woman and the Wolfcraft asshole,” he states.
“See? Already more dynamic.”
“Daisy.”
“You need this more than I do, Forrest,” I say with so much conviction I almost believe myself.
“I’m there for just a week. You, on the other hand, need the perfect optics to get a job.
You need someone who can make you look less like a man whose emotional range begins and ends with bench-pressing a door. ”
“I’ve never bench-pressed a door.”
“That is exactly what a man who has considered it would say.”
“Parents need to see me with someone who trusts me,” he says.
“Yes.”
“You trust me?”
“Yes,” I respond. “Inconveniently. Against several internal advisories.”
He sighs. “Rules.”
I blink. “What?”
“If we do this—”
“We’re doing it?”
“If,” he repeats, glaring.
“Fine, we’ll go with ‘if.’” I grab my pen so fast the cap shoots off and rolls under the table.
Puck lifts his head.
“Don’t eat that,” Forrest and I say at the same time.
We look at each other.
I refuse to acknowledge the tiny domestic horror of that.
Forrest retrieves the cap, sets it beside my notebook, and I write RULES at the top of a clean page.
Then I underline it twice because I am a woman who respects structure, even when the structure is built over a sinkhole.
“Rule one.” I scribble. “No grunting.”
His eyes narrow.
“That’s not a rule.”
“You’re right. It’s unfair when you mostly communicate through grunts.” I cross it out. “Fine. No excessive grunting. I’m a generous negotiator.”
“I’m not signing that.”
“You haven’t been offered signing privileges yet.” I tap the page. “What do you want, rule maker?”
He clears his throat. “No kissing.”
“No kissing ever?” I ask.
“Yep.”
I shake my head. “That won’t work.”
“Why not?”
“Because if we’re fake dating in Winterberry Cove during a wedding week and a community dinner, someone will expect kissing.”
“Who?”
“Everyone. Mothers. Aunts. Carla’s bridesmaids. Possibly the pumpkins.”
“Pumpkins don’t expect kisses.”
“Decorative pumpkins absolutely do. They’re judgmental by nature.”
“Fine.” He exhales. “No kissing unless necessary.”
I write:
Rule One: No kissing unless absolutely necessary.
Then I add: Definition of necessary pending.
“Cross it out,” he says.
“No. This is how contracts work.”
“It’s not a contract.”
“It is now. I’m using ink.”
He looks toward Bea. “Do you have wine?”
“It’s a café,” Bea calls without looking over.
“Whiskey?”
“Tea,” Bea offers.
“You should get a liquor license,” he mutters.
I point my pen at him. “Rule two. No lying about things that matter.”
“We’re already lying.”
“Fake origin story is allowed,” I say, ignoring him. “Fake emotional stability is negotiable. Fake liking pumpkin spice is prohibited.”
“Why would pumpkin spice come up?”
“It’s November in New England. It’ll absolutely come up.”
Rule Two: No lying about things that matter.
Rule Three: No fake liking pumpkin spice.
Forrest stares at the page. “That’s not a rule.”
“It is in my jurisdiction.”
“You don’t have jurisdiction.”
“I have the pen.”
I continue:
Rule Four: No rescuing, managing, fixing, or deciding things ‘for Daisy’s own good.’
Forrest’s expression goes still.
I look at him. “I mean it.”
He takes the pen from me, his fingers brushing mine just long enough to make my very professional nervous system behave like it has never seen a man before.
Then he writes beneath it: Unless Daisy asks.
I stare at the words.
Then at him.
“Acceptable?” he asks.
No. It is quietly devastating, and I am busy.
“Fine,” I say.
My voice behaves.
Barely.
He slides the pen back.
“Rule five,” he says. “No using The Turning Page version of us for performance.”
I frown. “Meaning?”
“This.” He gestures between us, then at the coffee, the notebook, the half-eaten sandwich, Puck’s head on my boot. “This stays private.”
Oh.
That is unexpectedly decent.
Annoyingly decent.
He doesn’t want to turn the real parts into props.
Unfortunately, I do not have an emotional filing cabinet prepared for unexpected decency from Forrest Wolfcraft. I’ll percolate on that later.
“Fine,” I say. “I’ll try not to do . . . that.”
His eyes narrow. “That is not what I said.”
“It’s what you meant.”
Rule Five: The Turning Page stays ours.
Forrest reads it upside down.
“Obviously,” he says.
The way he says it makes the word feel less obvious.
Rude.
“Rule six,” he says. “No social media.”
“Agreed.” I write it down. “I deleted all my social media after my breakup.”
“For health?”
“No. Because I reported three of Carla’s photos while spiraling at two in the morning and decided the internet had become a crime scene.”
“Rule seven,” I say. “We’re private but exclusive.”
Forrest looks at me.