Chapter 10 #2
“Fake exclusive,” I clarify. “Old enough that I don’t look unstable, new enough that no one is offended they didn’t know.”
“How long?”
“Since July.”
“Wow, I got a dog and a girlfriend?” He frowns. “Busy summer.”
“You’re welcome.”
“For what?”
“For making you seem emotionally productive.”
Forrest gives me a grunt.
Not his annoyed grunt. Not his move-along grunt. This one sits lower, rougher, like a man trying to object while his common sense packs a bag and leaves town.
I write:
Rule Seven: Private but exclusive. Started in July. New enough to explain discretion. Old enough to avoid looking unstable.
Forrest leans closer to read it.
Too close.
Not touching me close. Worse. Almost close. The café air between us gets warmer, or maybe I’m having a medical incident caused by contractual fake intimacy and rye bread.
“Discretion?” he says.
“It sounds better than we didn’t tell anyone because this entire plan was born in a café while your dog judged us.”
“Puck doesn’t judge.”
Puck sneezes beneath the table.
“Puck absolutely judges,” I say.
Forrest looks down. “Traitor.”
Puck rests his head more firmly on my foot.
“That’s custody behavior,” I tell Forrest. “Very convincing. Excellent commitment from our supporting cast.”
“He’s not part of the relationship.”
“He is emotionally central.”
Forrest’s eyes narrow. “Rule eight.”
I sit up straighter. “Oh, you’re contributing now?”
“Apparently, I’ve lost control of the evening.”
“Wonderful. That’s when the magic happens.”
“No pet names.”
My pen pauses.
“No pet names?” I repeat.
“No ‘sweetheart.’ No ‘baby.’ No ‘babe.’ No whatever people say when they want everyone around them to suffer.”
I nod. “Reasonable. I don’t want to call you babe anyway. It feels illegal. Like putting a bow on a tax notice.”
“Good.”
“Could I call you pumpkin?”
“No.”
“Darling?”
“No.”
“My emotionally constipated fake companion?”
“Absolutely not.”
I write:
Rule Eight: No pet names, unless one of us is actively trying to ruin the other person’s life.
Forrest reads it.
“That is not what I said.”
“It captures the spirit.” Then, because I enjoy danger and apparently have no retirement plan, I add, “What about honey?”
“No.”
“Sweetie?”
“No.”
“My emotionally unavailable mountain?”
His eyes close, and he sighs.
“Too specific?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“My beloved hockey gargoyle?”
“Daisy.”
“You’re right. Too public. Very intimate. We’ll save it for anniversaries.”
“There won’t be anniversaries.”
“Anniversary of the lie, obviously.” I write anyway, amending it to:
Rule Eight: No pet names unless strategically required. Forrest vetoes ‘babe.’ Daisy reserves rights to ‘beloved hockey gargoyle’ in emergencies.
He reads it.
“No.”
“I wrote ‘reserves rights.’ That’s legally beautiful.”
“It’s legally nonsense.”
He takes the pen from me.
“Rule nine,” he says, voice rougher. “No using jealousy as a weapon.”
“You think I’d do that?”
“No.” His jaw works once. “I think people will try to make you.”
My mouth opens.
Nothing comes out.
A miracle, honestly. Somewhere, a committee of concerned relatives has just felt a disturbance.
Forrest looks at the notebook instead of me. “Liam will be there. Carla will be there. Their families. People who enjoy watching other people bleed politely over appetizers.”
I stare at him.
He doesn’t look at me.
“So,” he says, “if you need me close, I’m close. If you need space, I give you space. If you want to leave a room, we leave. But we don’t perform for them just because they want a show.”
My heart does something deeply inconvenient.
Rude, really.
It should consult me before making lifestyle choices.
I swallow, then nod too quickly. “Good rule.”
My voice almost behaves.
Almost.
I write:
Rule Nine: No jealousy games. No using each other to punish anyone. If one of us needs out, we get out.
“Look at us,” I say, because if I don’t make a joke, I might thank him and then become emotionally damp in public. “Healthier than expected. Still legally questionable, but showing growth.”
His mouth does the almost-smile thing.
I hate that I’ve become a woman who tracks almost-smiles.
I hate it even more that I’m proud when I earn one.
“Rule ten,” I say, lifting the pen again. “The most important rule.”
“No kissing unless necessary is already rule one.”
“I know. This is bigger.”
“That concerns me.”
“As it should.” I tap the pen against the notebook. “Rule ten: no falling in love.”
Forrest looks at me.
Not at the notebook.
At me.
And suddenly I am very aware that I’m sitting across from a man whose hands could probably fix a cabinet, carry an injured dog, or ruin my ability to make rational decisions near baked goods.
“No falling in love,” he repeats.
“Standard fake-dating rule.” I force a bright smile. It feels like stapling a ribbon over a leak. “Very common. Possibly required by law. I don’t make the genre conventions, Forrest. I merely respect them.”
His gaze stays on mine. “You worried about that?”
I laugh.
Disqualifyingly fast.
“With you?” I ask. “Please. I’m a woman of taste.”
“You recommended me a romance with fake abs on the cover.”
“That man had emotional availability in his eyes.”
“That man had airbrushing in his eyes.”
“Don’t be cruel. He got paid to look delicious, fictional, and like he pays attention during hard conversations.”
Forrest grunts.
There it is.
The grumpy grunt.
Possibly my favorite.
Deep. Difficult. Annoyed at the world, at me, at himself, and possibly at the concept of feelings requiring witnesses.
I point at him. “That grunt needs a footnote.”
“No.”
“That grunt had chapters.”
“It had no chapters.”
“It had a prequel.”
“It had indigestion.”
“From the sandwich agenda?”
“From this conversation.”
“Excellent. Then we’re both suffering.”
I write carefully, because my hand has decided to be dramatic:
Rule Ten: No falling in love.
Then, because I am me and I cannot leave a perfectly terrifying sentence alone, I add a comma and then the word, obviously.
“That’s all ten,” I say, flipping the pen between my fingers with the composure of a woman who has not just written a rule that feels like yelling at the weather.
He taps the notebook.
“One more.”
“There are ten rules. The title is very clear.” I, of course, write a title.
He growls and it’s beautiful to hear him bothered. “Then call it an amendment.”
“That sounds serious.”
“It is.”
I lean back. “Fine. State your amendment for the record.”
“No lying when it’s just us.”
I blink.
“We can lie to them,” he says. “We can do whatever this is in Winterberry. Hold hands. Answer questions. Let people think what they want. But here?” His fingers tap once beside the notebook. “The Turning Page. Puck. Coffee. This table. No lying.”
I shrug, because I have a deep commitment to pretending reasonable emotional standards do not affect me. “Very dramatic of you, though. Just for the record.”
He grunts.
“That one means you know I’m right.”
“That one means write it down.”
I do, and then read out loud, “The Ten Rules of Fake Dating a Wolfcraft.”
Bea looks over from the counter. “Oh, this should be good.”
I freeze.
Forrest slowly turns his head.
Bea smiles. “What? I live here.”
“You own the café,” I say.
“Same thing.”
Forrest mutters something under his breath that sounds suspiciously like, “Witness protection.”
I ignore both of them and read.
After I finish, Bea sets two mugs on the counter with more force than necessary. “I’m pretending I heard none of this.”
“Thank you,” I say.
“I heard all of it.”
“Less thank you.”
She points at Forrest. “You hurt her, I’ll poison your coffee.”
Forrest doesn’t blink. “I’ll probably be the one with the headache by the end of that week, but it seems like no one will care.”
Bea points at me next. “You hurt him, I make you work poetry night alone.”
I gasp. “That is excessive.”
“Then behave.”
“We are behaving,” I say.
Forrest grunts.
I point at him. “See? Agreement.”
“That was not an agreement,” he says.
“It was emotionally adjacent.”
“So,” I say, aiming for breezy and arriving somewhere near legally nervous, “we’re fake dating.”
“Not until November,” he says. “And only for one week.”
“Obviously.” I roll my eyes. “I’m not trying to trap you into a timeshare.”
Then Forrest caps the pen, slides the notebook back to me, and says, “Eat your sandwich, girlfriend.”
My heart stumbles.
My mouth saves me.
“Grumpy,” I say, picking up the sandwich.
He grunts.
And there it is.
Our first official term of endearment.
This is the beginning of a beautiful fake relationship.
We’ll fake it until the end of fall.
What could go wrong?
Other than my entire personality, obviously.