Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Daisy
By Sunday morning, I have learned that “painless” is the most dangerous word in the English language.
It ranks above “quick favor,” above “low-key family thing,” above even “we should talk,” which is the three-word phrase that ended my engagement and several of my better cardigans.
Painless is what people say right before they reach for the wax strip.
I know this because Winnifred has called me three times since yesterday, each call more cheerful than the last, each one carrying a new idea she describes as “organic,” which is a word that has lost all meaning to me.
“Organic” used to mean produce.
Now, it means my sister-in-law wants to stage a candid photo of me looking windswept and romantically fulfilled outside her bakery which, sadly, I haven’t visited since it opened.
“It can’t look staged,” she said earlier this morning, at an hour no woman, pregnant or otherwise, should be awake. “That’s the whole point. It has to look like someone caught you living your beautiful, private, deeply in-love life.”
“I don’t have a beautiful, private, deeply in-love life. I have two jobs and a dog that isn’t mine.”
“That’s why we’re manufacturing one. Keep up.”
So now it’s a few hours before noon on Sunday, and I’m sitting cross-legged on the floor of my apartment with a mug of coffee going cold beside me, a notebook open on my knee, and a growing certainty that I have made a terrible mistake involving a man, his agent, his mother, an entire township, and a dog with the moral compass of a drunk raccoon.
The notebook says, at the top, in my own handwriting:
THE ROLLOUT. DO NOT PANIC.
I have underlined DO NOT PANIC twice, which is, I’m aware, a form of panic.
Beneath it, in Bea’s handwriting, because she stole the pen yesterday like a woman seizing a weapon:
Underline less.
I’m choosing to ignore that.
My phone buzzes against the floorboards.
Forrest: Your sister-in-law called me.
I stare at it.
Daisy: You mean your cousin?
Forrest: I’ve chosen to disown her. She used the word “organic.”
Daisy: I’m so sorry.
Forrest: Four times.
Daisy: Was one of them about produce?
Forrest: No.
Daisy: Then we’re both doomed.
Three dots appear. Disappear. Appear again.
This is the most emotionally expressive thing Forrest Wolfcraft does, and I have started to find the little gray bubbles unbearably suspenseful, like a man clearing his throat before saying something he will regret.
Forrest: She wants a photo.
Daisy: I’m aware. I’ve been assigned a vibe.
Forrest: A what?
Daisy: A vibe. Apparently I am “effortlessly thriving with a quiet, grumpy man who would die for her but won’t say so out loud.”
Forrest: That’s not a vibe. That’s a hostage situation.
I can’t help but laugh out loud.
Daisy: Here’s the actual problem. The Turning Page is off the table.
Forrest: Yes.
Daisy: Which means we need a public sighting somewhere that ISN’T the one place we actually know how to be around each other. Somewhere believable. Somewhere a person could plausibly stumble across us and report back that we looked natural.
Forrest: Define natural.
Daisy: Like we like each other.
Forrest: That’s the hard part.
Daisy: Rude.
Forrest: You started it.
I did start it.
I will not be admitting that.
The thing is, I’ve been turning the logistics over since six this morning, which is roughly the same time my brain decided sleep was a luxury reserved for people whose lives haven’t been hijacked by a fake relationship and a sister-in-law with a vision board.
Every romantic location I think of makes my skin crawl.
A cozy café? Too obvious. A pumpkin patch?
Winnifred would weep with joy and I would rather be buried in one.
A nice restaurant? We’d look like two people on a first date who had recently survived a hostage negotiation, which, to be fair, is accurate.
The problem with romance is that it photographs as a lie unless it’s already true.
So, I do the thing I do when a plan refuses to behave.
I make it boring.
Daisy: What if it’s somewhere unromantic? So unromantic that the only explanation for us being there together is that we’re actually a couple doing actual couple things.
A pause.
Forrest: Like what.
Daisy: A hardware store.
Forrest: A hardware store?
Daisy: Think about it. Nobody fake-dates at a hardware store.
There’s no ambiance. There’s no flattering anything.
There’s probably a man named Gary who wants to talk about grout.
It’s the least romantic place on earth, which makes it the most believable.
We go in. We look at things. You hold a level with deep masculine intent.
Someone from Winterberry’s Boston cousin spots us and reports back that Daisy Thorn is so settled she’s buying drawer pulls with a man. Domesticity. Permanence. Drawer pulls.
Forrest: Win mentioned Denver. Sightseeing. Her social media and the bakery’s, so neither of us has to post but it still looks organic.
Daisy: Ugh, the word organic is there. Let’s do the hardware store. It’ll be painless.
Forrest: Might not be the worst idea you’ve had.
Daisy: I’m framing that. “Not the worst idea you’ve had” — Forrest Wolfcraft. Going right above my desk.
Forrest: That’s not what I said.
Daisy: It’s more convenient the way I phrased it. Grammar matters.
Forrest: Don’t.
Daisy: Too late. It’s in ink.
Forrest: Everything with you is in ink.
Daisy: Ink is commitment. That’s probably why you hate it.
Forrest doesn’t answer right away.
Which is fine.
Completely fine.
I am a grown woman. I do not require immediate validation from a man who once described a romance novel as structurally irresponsible.
Still, I stare at the screen like it owes me child support.
Forrest: Ink is evidence. Different thing.
Daisy: Spoken like a man who has never owned a planner with stickers.
Forrest: Proudly.
Daisy: Stickers create morale.
Forrest: Stickers create clutter.
Daisy: And here I was, thinking fake dating would broaden your world.
Forrest: It’s Sunday morning. My world can stay narrow until noon.
I smile.
Then I immediately look around my apartment like someone might have witnessed it.
No one has.
Somehow, this is worse.
Daisy: Fine. Back to the hardware store.
Forrest: No.
Daisy: You said it wasn’t the worst idea I’ve had.
Forrest: That wasn’t an endorsement.
Daisy: It was close enough. I’m emotionally flexible when praise is scarce.
Forrest: Hardware store does feel staged. Think about it, Day. There’s no way a couple would take a picture unless they’re figuring out flooring and the floor would be the only thing they’d photograph.
I stare at the message.
Rude.
Also devastatingly correct.
Daisy: You’re only saying that because you’re afraid I’ll make you hold a level with romantic conviction.
Forrest: I’m saying it because no one from Winterberry is going to accidentally see us buying screws in Boston.
Daisy: Please never phrase anything like that again.
Forrest: You chose hardware.
Daisy: I chose domestic credibility.
Forrest: You chose grout-adjacent theater. Cute, but not what’s needed.
Then I set the phone down because I need to remember this is logistics.
Not flirting.
Not whatever strange little pulse moves through my apartment every time Forrest answers me like he’s annoyed and paying attention in equal measure.
The phone buzzes.
Forrest: Honestly . . . and I’m going to regret this. If we do this, it should be in Winterberry.
My hand stills.
Winterberry.
The word changes the room. The coffee smells colder. The notebook on my knee stops looking like planning and starts looking like proof that I am willingly walking back into a town that watched me leave.
Daisy: That sounds terrible.
Forrest: Yes.
Daisy: Comforting.
Forrest: I know you don’t like it, but it’s practical.
Daisy: I hate when practical has a point.
Forrest: Same.
Forrest: But there won’t be social media. No Boston sightings. No using The Turning Page or anything here.
My fingers pause over the screen.
Daisy: Aww. You’re honoring the contract again.
Forrest: Don’t sound surprised.
Daisy: I’m not. I’m touched. It’s very inconvenient.
Forrest: Recover quickly.
Daisy: See? This is why no one lets you write sympathy cards.
Forrest: Great news. I won’t be the one writing sympathy cards in this fake relationship. I’ll offer to do dishes instead. Only during fake dates.
Daisy: Deal. Romantic, practical, and mildly appliance-adjacent. Very on brand.
I look down at the notebook.
THE ROLLOUT. DO NOT PANIC.
Maybe that’s the problem. A rollout sounds like a launch. A campaign. Something with captions and angles and two people pretending not to know where the camera is.
Forrest and I are bad enough at pretending when no one is watching.
Adding a performance in Boston would only make the lie look shinier.
And shinier is always easier to spot.
Daisy: So what? We just show up in Winterberry and let people notice?
Forrest: Mom mentioned she’d love to have us for lunch soon. Next weekend, if possible.
Daisy: If we visit your mom, we’ll have to visit mine.
Forrest: See, we already have two dates and it’s not even Monday. What else can we possibly do there?
Daisy: Help at the vineyard over the weekend. Mid-October means peak foliage, harvest crush, tasting room traffic, vendor calls, crate labeling, checking event spaces, and my mother pretending the grapes personally betrayed her by ripening on a schedule.
Forrest: Sounds relaxing.
Daisy: It’s basically a spa weekend if your spa includes manual labor, family tension, and women named Marlene asking if you’re “really ready to date again.”
Forrest: I can carry crates.
Daisy: Good. I can carry emotional baggage. Between us, we’re a full-service couple.
Forrest: Fake couple.
Daisy: Right. Sorry. Full-service fraudulent couple.
Forrest: Better.
Daisy: This is going to be awful.
Forrest: Probably.
Daisy: Oddly reassuring.
Forrest: I’m gifted.
Daisy: Let’s not get ambitious.