Chapter 3
THREE
Riley
Riley lay in her childhood bed, staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars she'd stuck to the ceiling in eighth grade. They were peeling now, hanging on by sheer stubbornness, which felt appropriate.
Her phone buzzed on the nightstand. Again.
She'd made the mistake of checking the group chat twenty minutes ago, and it had been nonstop chaos ever since.
Hannah: Okay but WHO IS HE
Emily: Riley you can't just drop that bomb and disappear
Jenna: I need a NAME. And a BACKSTORY.
Ryan: Is he hot?
Mark: Ryan.
Ryan: What? It's a valid question.
Hannah: Riley if you don't answer in the next five minutes I'm calling your mother.
Riley groaned and pulled the pillow over her face. This was a disaster. A complete, unmitigated disaster of her own creation.
Her phone rang.
She peeked out from under the pillow. Hannah's name flashed on the screen, along with a photo from three years ago when they'd gone wine tasting and Hannah had laughed so hard she'd snorted Chardonnay.
Riley let it ring twice more before answering. "Hi."
"RILEY MARIE MONROE."
"That's not my middle name."
"I don't care. Who is he?"
Riley sat up, rubbing her eyes. Through the wall, she could hear Tyler's music thumping—some bass-heavy thing that made the picture frames rattle. "I told you. Someone I've been seeing."
"For how long?"
"A few weeks."
"And you didn't tell me?"
"It's new, Hannah. I didn't want to make it a big thing."
"You made it a big thing the second you announced it in the group chat."
Riley winced. Fair point. "I panicked."
"Why?"
"Because of the stupid Naughty List! Everyone was going to spend the entire reunion asking me why I'm still single and if I've tried dating apps and—" She stopped herself, taking a breath. "I just didn't want to deal with it."
Hannah was quiet for a moment. Then she asked, "Is he real?"
Riley's stomach dropped. "What?"
"The guy. Is he real, or did you make him up?"
"Why would I make him up?"
"Because you're you. And you get weird about this stuff."
"I'm not weird."
"You once told my mom you had a boyfriend named Jonathan who lived in Canada."
"I was sixteen!"
"You were twenty-three."
Riley threw herself back against the pillows. "Oh my god."
"So? Real or fake?"
"He's real," Riley said, the lie smooth and practiced now. "And I'm bringing him to the reunion, and you're going to meet him, and everything will be fine. I’m tired of getting picked on for being independent."
"What's his name?"
Riley's mind went blank. She hadn't thought this far ahead. She'd been so focused on the panic of being alone that she hadn't actually considered the logistics of the lie.
"Riley. His name. What is it?"
"I'll tell you when you meet him."
"That's not how this works."
"It is now."
Hannah sighed dramatically. "Fine. But I have questions. So many questions. What does he do? Where did you meet him? Is he from the city? Does he know about Grant?"
Riley's chest tightened at Grant's name. "What about Grant?"
"You know. Your high school sweetheart. The one you definitely, totally, completely got over."
"I did get over him."
"Sure."
"Hannah."
"I'm just saying. It's going to be interesting."
"It'll be fine. Why would you even say that? Grant doesn’t care, so why should I?"
"Mmm hmm. If you say so." Hannah paused, and Riley could practically hear her grinning through the phone. "I'm excited to meet him."
"Great."
"He better be worth the hype."
"He will be," Riley said, even though she had no idea how she was going to pull this off.
They hung up, and Riley dropped her phone on the bed, staring at the ceiling again.
He better be worth the hype.
Grant. She was bringing Grant. Her ex-boyfriend. The guy she'd spent a decade pretending not to think about. The guy who still made her pulse kick up when he smiled.
This was fine. Totally fine.
Her phone buzzed again. Not the group chat this time. A private message.
Grant: You still awake?
Riley's heart jumped. She stared at the message for a solid ten seconds before typing back.
Riley: Unfortunately.
Grant: Hannah call you?
Riley: How did you know?
Grant: She called me too. Asked if I was okay with you bringing someone.
Riley sat up straight. Why would Hannah ask him that!
Riley: What did you say?
Grant: That I'm happy for you.
Riley: Very convincing I’m sure.
Grant: I'm a terrible liar.
Riley: We're both terrible liars. This is going to be a disaster.
Grant: Maybe.
Riley: So why did you offer?
The dots appeared, then disappeared. Then appeared again.
Grant: Because I'm tired of being everyone's plus-one. And I didn’t want you to have a panic attack in the group chat.
Riley smiled despite herself.
Riley: How did you know I was having a panic attack.
Grant: I know you. You always type in all caps when you're panicking.
Riley: I do not.
Grant: You definitely do.
She scrolled back through the chat. He was right. Every time she'd panicked in the group thread over the years, her messages had dissolved into capital letters and excessive punctuation.
Riley: Okay fine. Maybe I do.
Grant: So. Ground rules.
Riley: Right. Ground rules.
Grant: We should probably figure out our story. How we got together. How long we've been dating. All that.
Riley chewed her lip, thinking.
Riley: A few weeks? That's what I told Hannah.
Grant: Works for me. We ran into each other in the city?
Riley: No. Everyone knows you hardly ever leave Pine Valley.
Grant: Fair. You came home early? Or what about when you came home at Thanksgiving?
Riley: And we just...reconnected?
Grant: Yeah. Ran into each other at the hardware store or something. Started talking. Realized we still had chemistry.
Riley's chest tightened at the word chemistry.
Riley: That works.
Grant: We're taking it slow. Not making a big deal out of it.
Riley: Right. Casual.
Grant: But serious enough that you're bringing me to the reunion.
Riley: Exactly. Although you were already going to the reunion.
Grant: LOL true. But still. So, we’re going together.
Grant: Physical contact?
Riley's fingers froze over the keyboard.
Riley: What?
Grant: We're supposed to be dating. People are going to expect us to act like it. Hand-holding. Standing close. That kind of thing.
Riley's pulse kicked up. She hadn't thought about that part. Hadn't thought about touching Grant, about standing close enough to smell the pine and woodsmoke that always clung to him, about pretending in a way that would feel way too real.
Riley: Right. Yeah. That makes sense.
Grant: We don't have to if it's weird.
Riley: No, you're right. We should.
Grant: Okay.
Riley: Okay.
Grant: We can play it by ear, and see what feels comfortable. Sound good?
Riley: Yeah, that works.
A pause. Then the bubbles popped up on her screen and she waited.
Grant: You sure about this?
Riley stared at the question. Was she sure? No. Absolutely not. This was insane. But the alternative was showing up alone and enduring two weeks of pitying looks and well-meaning relatives asking why such a lovely girl was still single.
Riley: Too late to back out now.
Grant: We could tell them the truth.
Riley: And look like complete idiots? No thanks.
Grant: Fair.
Riley: Besides. It's just for the holidays. We'll fake date through New Year's, everyone will stop asking questions, and then we go back to normal.
Grant: Right. Normal.
Riley: It'll be fine.
Grant: You keep saying that.
Riley: Because it will be.
Grant: If you say so.
Riley set her phone down and flopped back against the pillows, staring at those old glow-in-the-dark stars.
It'll be fine.
She repeated it like a mantra, like saying it enough times would make it true.
Downstairs, she heard her parents laughing about something, the sound warm and easy. Her dad said something that made her mom shriek, followed by the unmistakable sound of kissing that made Riley want to bleach her brain.
Her parents had been married for thirty-five years and still acted like teenagers. It was equal parts adorable and mortifying.
Riley wondered what it would be like to have what they did. To have someone who still made you laugh after decades. Someone who knew all your stories and still wanted to hear them again.
She'd thought she had that once. With Grant. When they were seventeen and in love and convinced they'd last forever.
And then she'd left for college, and he'd stayed, and they'd both pretended it was fine. Pretended the distance didn't matter. Pretended they weren't slowly drifting apart until one day they weren't pretending anymore—they were just apart.
Her phone buzzed.
Grant: Get some sleep. We'll figure it anything else we need to tomorrow.
Riley: Okay.
Grant: And Riley?
Riley: Yeah?
Grant: It really will be fine.
She smiled, something warm and dangerous blooming in her chest.
Riley: Thanks.
Grant: Goodnight.
Riley: Night.
She set her phone on the nightstand and rolled onto her side, pulling the blanket up to her chin.
Tomorrow she'd go to the farm. She would sit down with Grant and finalize their completely unhinged plan. Tomorrow she'd start lying to everyone she loved just to save a little face as Miss Independent.
It'll be fine.
She closed her eyes and tried to believe it.
Except sleep didn't come. Not right away. Her mind kept circling back to Grant—to the way his hands had stilled when their fingers almost brushed at the festival, to the careful distance he always kept, to the fact he'd offered to help without hesitation.
Because that's what Grant did. He showed up. He fixed things. He made everything easier for everyone else.
And Riley was about to take advantage of him.
Her chest tightened with guilt she didn't want to examine too closely.
It's just fake dating. It's not a big deal. We both benefit from this.
Except it felt like a big deal. It felt dangerous and reckless and like she was about to step onto ice too thin to hold her weight.
She pulled the blanket higher and forced her breathing to slow.
Tomorrow. She'd deal with it all tomorrow.
For now, she let the quiet settle around her, the glow-in-the-dark stars overhead fading as her eyes slowly drifted shut.
Down the hall, Tyler's music went silent.
The house settled into stillness.
And Riley dreamed of pine trees and woodsmoke and a boy who used to know her better than she knew herself.