9. Salem
SALEM
Ididn’t notice the city.
Not at first.
What I noticed was the noise—it hit me the second we stepped outside, like I’d been under the hood of a car too long and forgotten the rest of the world was running without me.
The doors closed behind us, and I stood there on the sidewalk, letting it settle.
Cars moved past in steady lines, people crossing without hesitation; everything was loud and alive in a way that should have pulled my attention outward.
It didn’t. He was still there, close enough that I could feel it without looking, which was irritating. I told myself it was proximity, the leftover edge of a room we’d been trapped in, but my body wasn’t particularly interested in that explanation.
I glanced at him. That was a mistake. To say this man was good-looking was an understatement.
“That,” I said, hooking my thumb over my shoulder toward the building, “felt like joining a contract with a very polite cult.”
His mouth twitched. “They did seem cult-like, didn’t they?”
“I was careful not to accept any drinks they offered.”
“They definitely had a plan for us.” He glanced back at the building. “I feel a little blindsided.”
“Exactly. I am glad we are on the same page. It’s impressive, considering we’ve spoken for approximately three minutes.”
“Less.”
“Great. Love that for us.”
He nodded toward a restaurant on the corner with warm light spilling out onto the sidewalk. It was the kind of place that looked like it had a good burger. “You okay with that?”
“Yes.”
He stepped ahead of me and pulled the door open. I walked past him, catching a faint trace of something warm—cedar, maybe, or something close to it. Clean. Like he’d come straight from somewhere that smelled like wood and work, which, given that Rowan had mentioned a hardware store, tracked.
Inside, the warmth hit along with the low hum of conversation and the quiet clink of glasses.
Nobody looked up when we walked in. Nobody recognized us.
It was a beautiful forty-five seconds before I remembered the video had just shy of 900k views and climbing, and that statistically, at least one person in this restaurant had probably seen it.
We followed the hostess to a table near the window.
I slid into my seat and picked up the menu, mostly so I had something to do with my hands. Across from me, he didn’t open his. He was watching me.
I set the menu down. “So. We’re doing this.”
“Looks like it.”
I leaned back, staring at him the way I studied an engine I hadn’t worked on before.
He didn’t look like someone who said yes to things easily. Too controlled. Too aware of the room. I probably looked the same. What an incredibly well-adjusted pair we were going to make for the internet.
“You don’t seem like a ‘pretend to date a stranger for charity’ kind of person,” I said.
“I’m not.”
“But you said yes.” I tilted my head. “Why?”
His jaw shifted slightly. “It’s not about the PR, and no, I don’t need the money.”
“Charity guilt?”
“That is likely the bulk of it”
I held his gaze. That answer was inconvenient. I had been hoping for something I could argue with. “Okay. That’s annoyingly respectable.”
“Sorry.”
“I don’t like it. It makes it very hard to argue with you. And for our future fake relationship, just know—I like to argue.”
“I’ll try to be worse.”
“Please do. It would help me out.”
A server appeared, setting down waters. She looked at Ethan the way people looked at things they wanted and were trying not to make obvious, which—fine.
I got it. I was sitting across from the man and experiencing something adjacent.
She smiled at him, then turned to me with the energy of someone remembering there was a second person at the table.
“Can I get you anything to start?”
I smiled back. “Water’s great, thanks.”
She left.
Up close, without the chaos of a haunted house or a conference room, he was—a lot.
Tall in a way that made the space around him feel slightly recalibrated.
Broad-shouldered. Dark hair he’d clearly run a hand through several times.
Still, in the particular unfair way of someone who looked like that in skeleton paint at eleven at night, he was gorgeous in regular clothes in lighting with nothing helping him at all.
We ordered. When the server left again, the quiet settled back in.
I traced the edge of my glass. “I wasn’t expecting the money, but it helps.”
It came out more honest than I meant it to, but I didn’t want anything else to feel like a lie, given that we were already pretending enough.
“That’s kind of the point. They make it hard to say no.”
“Yeah.”
He turned his glass a quarter turn, not quite looking at me yet. “If the charity wasn’t also personal to me because of Liam, I probably would’ve had an easier time walking away.”
“Liam?”
“Miles’s little brother. Miles is Alba’s husband—my best friend.
Miles got custody of him right out of high school.
Liam was six or seven. A couple of years later, he got sick.
Leukemia. In and out of that hospital for what felt like a lifetime.
Miles and Alba made some kind of promise in the middle of it—that if he made it through, they’d build something out of the other side of it.
That’s where the foundation actually comes from. ”
“Is he okay now?”
Something in his face eased. “Yeah. Still annoying. Still convinced he’s the funniest person in any given room. He’s a junior at Pullman now.”
“Good school,” I said. “If you’re not a Husky fan.”
He tilted his head. “I heard you were a mechanic?”
“Gray Harbor Auto,” I said, shrugging. “Lead mechanic. I came in as a receptionist and fell in love with fixing cars.”
“What kind of cars do you like working on?”
“Anything with a problem. Vintage Fords are my favorite. There’s a 1967 Mustang that comes in a few times a year, and I genuinely look forward to it more than most things in my life, which probably says something about me.”
“It says you know what you like.”
“Or that I need better hobbies.”
“It could say that too.” He chuckled.
“What about you? Hardware store. Did you always want that?”
He was quiet for a second. “No. I was in law school. My grandfather got sick, and I came back to Gray Harbor, and then he passed. The store was just there. Needed someone.” He looked at the table briefly. “It was temporary.”
“And now?”
“Now it’s been two years, and I know where every product in the building is.” He glanced up. “I have a plan to sell and move on from Grays Harbor, though.”
I nodded slowly, turning my glass in my hand. “What kind of law?”
“Corporate.” A beat. “Did what I was supposed to do. Then I realized I hated most of it. I was thinking about switching to criminal, but before anything official happened, I left.”
I smiled slightly. “Well. For what it’s worth, you seem like someone who’s good at fixing things.”
“That’s what Miles says.”
“Miles sounds smart.”
“Don’t tell him that. He already thinks he’s right about everything.” He paused. “To be fair, he usually is. Unless he’s up against Alba, in which case she’s always right.”
I laughed. “I can see that.”
“Okay,” he said, reaching for his phone. “We should make this official. First selfie. Foundation hashtag. We’re contractually obligated.”
“Right. Yes. The job.”
He moved closer, his shoulder brushing mine as he held the phone out and angled it. I was aware of how warm he was, which was not information I needed but cataloged anyway.
He took the photo, sent it to me via social media, then started scrolling through my grid with unhurried confidence. “…is that you painted yellow?”
I looked at my phone. The first post I had ever made—a throwback from when I was five, dressed as a Teletubby.
“Teletubby phase,” I said with great dignity.
“How long did it last?”
“Longer than I’ll admit.” I blushed.
That wasn’t the most embarrassing thing but still not the coolest thing about me, either.
He wiggled his eyebrows. “I have a thing for Laa-Laa.”
I grabbed a napkin and threw it at him. He caught it, laughing, and leaned back into his seat with an easy, familiar energy, like we’d been doing this for years instead of an hour.
Which was a problem, I realized.
Our food arrived, which was convenient timing because whatever that moment had been turning into needed an interruption.
A few events. A temporary arrangement. He didn’t date, apparently, and this was a PR romance. Clear lines.
Except it didn’t feel simple. Not when talking to him felt this easy. The worst part was, I wasn’t sure I wanted to pull it back, even if given the opportunity.