Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Forrest
By Saturday morning, I have made three mistakes.
One, I agreed to fake date Daisy Thorn.
Two, I let Daisy Thorn write most of the rules.
Three, I brought the rules home.
That last one is on me.
Nobody should read semi-legal documents before coffee. Especially when the legal document is handwritten in ink, titled “The Ten Rules of Fake Dating a Wolfcraft,” and includes the phrase “beloved hockey gargoyle” under an alleged pet-name emergency clause.
Puck sits beside my kitchen table, staring at me with the solemn disappointment of a dog whose breakfast was served three minutes late and whose owner is clearly making poor life choices.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I tell him.
His tail thumps once.
“You wanted this.”
Another thump.
“You put your head on her foot. Repeatedly. That’s basically entrapment.”
Puck licks his nose.
No remorse.
Typical.
When I look out the window, I notice someone across the street has placed three pumpkins on a stoop, all of them too round to be trusted.
Daisy would like them.
She’d probably name them. Assign them personalities. Make one the leader of an underground organization dedicated to taking down spice lattes before December.
That’s the problem with agreeing to fake date a woman who talks too much.
She gets into your head and starts narrating seasonal produce.
My phone rings before I can start making coffee.
Mark.
Puck lowers his head onto his paws like even he understands this will be unpleasant.
Smart dog.
I answer. “No.”
“Good morning to you too, sweetheart,” Mark says. “Do you know what you need?”
“No.”
“Obviously, you don’t. That’s why you’re angry with the world.”
“Mark.”
I say his name as a warning.
Not that warnings have ever stopped Mark from walking directly into traffic with a marketing plan.
“Too soon?”
“What do you need?”
“I’m calling about your new girlfriend,” he says. “Great news finding her. Now we have to—”
“I’m not discussing her like she’s a strategy.”
“She is a strategy.”
“She’s a person.”
“She’s both, if we’re lucky.”
I close my eyes.
“Careful,” I say.
Mark is quiet for one blessed second.
Then he sighs. “Fine. Poor wording. But you understand what this does for you, right?”
“No.” I walk to the counter and turn on the coffee maker because if I have to listen to this, I need caffeine and maybe a witness. “I told you I have someone to cover that. We’ll be there the first week of November. People will believe we’re together. You need to back off.”
“Yes, but you mentioned she’s local.”
I grunt.
Mistake.
The second the sound leaves me, I regret every decision that has ever led me to giving Mark information before coffee.
“Listen,” he says, already pleased with himself. “Daisy Thorn is local, respected, connected to the vineyard, tied to the event, and already known to Winterberry Cove. If she’s with you, it tells people something.”
“How do you know all that?”
“Easy. I asked your mom.”
My hand stops on the coffee mug.
“You asked my mother about Daisy?”
“Not like that.”
“Mark.”
“I mentioned you’d gone out with a Daisy Thorn a couple of times. Tested the waters. See if she’d believe it.”
I scrub a hand over my face.
“Fuck.”
“She believed it,” he says, sounding proud of himself, which is impressive considering I’m two seconds from finding a new agent and possibly a shovel.
“My mom thinks we’re together?”
“Exactly what we need.”
“No.”
“Yes. Your mother said you and this Daisy character have been hanging out a lot. Puck loves her. You go to that café every day. She seemed very open to the idea—even when this Daisy’s part of the enemy family.”
I stare at the wall.
Why is he still my agent?
I really have very poor judgment.
Also, my mother is a menace with phone contacts and too much free time.
“I never wanted to lie to my mother,” I say.
The truth of that sits badly in my mouth.
Because I hadn’t thought about her.
Not really.
I thought about the job, the dinner, the parents, the school board, Daisy’s ex, Daisy’s mother, Daisy’s face when she said she didn’t want to go back like this.
I did not think about my own mother hearing I was seeing someone and hoping it meant I was finally becoming easier to worry about.
Now what?
Call Mom and confess I’m fake dating a Thorn?
She’ll be disappointed.
Worse, she’ll be tender about it.
I can handle anger. Disappointment is different. Tenderness is a knife wrapped in a sweater.
“Can you two start posting on social media?” Mark asks, cutting through the thought.
“No.”
“Forrest.”
“She doesn’t have social media, and I’m not posting anything.” I set the mug down too hard, then breathe through my nose because mugs are innocent. Usually. “Especially not if it makes her a target.”
“Target?”
“I’m not adding public attention, so people can pick apart her face, her body, her past, or why she’s with me.”
Mark exhales like I am being difficult instead of correct. “This is how public image works.”
“Not with her.”
“You understand people will find out eventually.”
“People can find out in person.”
“That is a terrible strategy.”
“It’s not a strategy. It’s a boundary.”
“Fine. No social media, yet.”
“No social media ever.”
“We’ll revisit.”
“We won’t.”
Puck lifts his head when I start pacing.
“Also,” I say, “Boston is off-limits.”
“What does that mean?”
“No interviews about how love made me less of an asshole. Don’t package my life so you can sell my brand.”
“I’m trying to get you hired.”
“I can get myself hired.”
“Can you?”
The tone is so irritating I almost laugh.
Almost.
“Because your mother is the one who called me to help you with this hiring,” Mark continues. “I’m doing it for free. Now, if I can get something extra out of this deal—like a brand selling fidget toys for angry assholes—well, that’s a bonus.”
“My mother needs to stop reaching out to you.”
“Your mother is entertaining.”
“My mother is a menace in a small town with access to gossip and casseroles.”
“And yet, you want to move there.”
“That’s the only place that might hire me as a hockey coach. I get experience, prove myself, and maybe I can move somewhere else later.”
“You didn’t apply anywhere else,” he says.
I stop pacing.
“What?”
“You heard me. You decided this was the only place that might take you. That’s not the same as knowing it.”
“I don’t pay you to psychoanalyze me.”
“No, you pay me to tell you when you’re screwing up your career. Consider this under my purview."
“I’m hanging up.”
“Of course you are. Because someone says something true, and suddenly you remember you hate phones.”
Puck watches me from under the table.
Judgmental dog.
Disloyal, too.
Mark lowers his voice. “You’re not only good for one place, Forrest.”
I don’t answer.
I hate that sentence.
Not because it’s cruel.
Because it isn’t.
“Shit happened,” he says. “You didn’t—”
“We’re not reliving the past.”
“Fine.” His tone snaps right back to business because Mark has the emotional recovery time of a cockroach in expensive shoes. “Then tell me how we’re going to monetize this amazing new relationship.”
There it is.
The circle back.
The man could find a revenue stream in a funeral program.
“I’m not letting this get ugly,” I say.
“Then don’t. But if we’re finally turning a page on your image, why not make it public?”
“What’s the point?”
“You’re Forrest fucking Wolfcraft,” he says, as if the name means something outside the damage attached to it. “People love you.”
“They didn’t love me,” I say.
The words come out before I can dress them up.
Mark goes quiet.
Good.
“They loved the bad boy of hockey,” I continue.
“The hits. The fights. The postgame glare.
The clips where I looked like I might break a man in half and then score twenty minutes later.
They loved the penalty minutes when they came with playoff wins.
They loved the temper when it sold tickets, jerseys, beer ads, debates, highlight reels, and whatever else made men in suits money.
“They loved calling it passion when it helped the brand,” I say. “Fire. Edge. Grit. Intensity. That’s what they called it when it wasn’t a problem.”
Mark says nothing.
I keep going because apparently Saturday morning is where my restraint goes to die.
“Then I fucked up publicly, and suddenly the same thing that sold became proof I was dangerous. Not intense. Not competitive. Not good television. Dangerous.”
My jaw tightens.
I force it to loosen.
“People didn’t love me. They loved a version they could cheer for until it embarrassed them.”
“You didn’t want to clear your name.” Mark sighs. “You took the hit, and here we are.”
“No. That’s the problem.”
For once, he doesn’t argue right away.
Puck pads over and presses his head against my leg.
I look down at him.
His timing is either perfect or manipulative.
Probably both.
“Daisy isn’t going to be part of that,” I say.
Mark’s voice turns careful. “You like her.”
It’s not a question.
I stare at the coffee mug.
I think about Daisy’s handwriting. Daisy’s ridiculous rules. Daisy saying no falling in love with a smile too bright to be honest. Daisy putting obviously after it like the word could save either of us from knowing better.
“This isn’t about liking her.”
“That’s an answer people give when it is absolutely about liking her.”
I should deny it.
Immediately.
Aggressively.
Instead, I pour coffee into the mug and say nothing.
Mark laughs once, low and far too pleased. “Well. That complicates things.”
“No. It clarifies them.”
“How?”
“She’s not a campaign.”
“I never said—”
“You did. In every way that matters.”
He exhales. “Fine. Then what is she?”
I look at the handwritten rules on my kitchen table.
The coffee in my hand goes untouched.
Puck sits beside me like a furry moral compass with terrible recall around squirrels.
What is she?
A fake girlfriend.
A Thorn.
A woman who made a list of rules to keep both of us safe and still somehow wrote herself straight into the parts of my life I’d stopped letting people near.
“She’s helping me,” I say.
“That’s all?”
No.
Not even close.
“She’s helping me,” I repeat. “So, I’m not letting you turn her into collateral.”
Silence.
Then Mark says, “Understood.”
He doesn’t mean he agrees.
He means he understands where the wall is.
That’ll have to be enough.
“For the record,” he adds, “a local girlfriend who already knows the community is still good optics.”
“Mark.”
“I’m saying it once.”
“You’ve said it seventeen times.”
“Fine. I’m done.”
“Good.”
“Except one thing.”
“No.”
“You need to tell your mother before she hears it from someone else.”
I hate him again.
Temporarily.
Professionally.
Possibly personally.
“I know.”
“And even when you’re protecting Daisy, you might want to tell her everything,” he states. “She needs to know before someone ambushes her, and it gets ugly. Maybe she has to make choices too.”
I . . . I didn’t think about it. “I know.”
“Protection means they know what they need to be protected from,” he insists. “Also, you need a consistent story.”
I look at the rules again because that’s easier than telling her, Oh, by the way, I’m a social pariah and you might want to be aware of what could happen if they believe you’re with me.
“Our relationship started in July,” I say out loud. “It’s private but exclusive.”
“Sounds doable. Why don’t you call me when you’re less charming?”
“Never, then.”
“Progress,” he says, and hangs up before I can.
The apartment goes quiet.
Puck rests his chin on my knee.
I should drink the coffee.
I should call my mother.
I should text Daisy and tell her Mark knows too much, my mother believes too much, and this fake thing already has more moving parts than a playoff penalty kill.
Instead, I sit down at the kitchen table and read the rules again.
Rule Ten: No falling in love, obviously.
Obviously.
Daisy wrote that word like a dare she hoped neither of us would accept.
I touch the edge of the paper, then pull my hand back because I’m not that far gone.
Not yet.
Puck huffs.
“Don’t start.”
He blinks.
“I’m not calling her.”
He blinks again.
“I’m making coffee.”
The dog stares at the full mug already in my hand.
“Fine,” I mutter. “I’m drinking coffee.”
I take one sip.
It’s terrible.
I forgot the filter.
Of course I did.
I set the mug down and pick up my phone and text her. See, not calling her.
Forrest: Mark, my agent, talked to my mother.
I stare at the message.
Too ominous.
Too much like a family emergency.
I add:
Forrest: No one’s dead. Coffee is, though.
I send it.
The response comes almost immediately.
Daisy: I’m sorry, did you murder coffee?
Forrest: Accidentally.
Daisy: That’s what all coffee murderers say.
I almost smile.
Almost.
Then another text appears.
Daisy: I knew about your mother. The entire town knows. Thank you for this (loud sigh).
Forrest: At least my mother believes we’re together.
Daisy: Your mother and the entire town. We need to rearrange things. I should’ve added a rule eleven. Don’t open your big mouth.
Forrest: I told my agent.
Three dots.
Gone.
Three dots again.
Daisy: We’re fucked and not in a good way. There’s not even a happy ending to brag about. Fake dating you is currently rated zero out of five stars. Confusing plot, poor communication, no kissing, and somehow your mother is already a supporting character.