Chapter 6 Brody #3
Deep breath. Coat. Bag. Stairs. Oh—I spot my keys and toss them into my tote. I’m ready.
The Shelby idles at my curb.
Brody gets out when he sees me. Opens my door.
He’s wearing dark jeans, a sky-blue Henley under a black jacket, and he looks—
Well, shoot. He looks downright delicious. When I catch my reflection in the window, I half expect to find myself with full-on Looney Tunes heart-shaped eyeballs. I mean…Awooga!
He looks like every book boyfriend I’ve ever fallen for. A real-life rom-com hero. He even rests an elbow on the door, leaning in that perfectly bookish-boy way.
“Morning,” he says.
“Hi.” Honestly, I’m surprised I managed that. “Thanks for picking me up.”
“Of course.” He steps back, waits until I’m settled before closing my door and walking around to his side.
Very gentlemanly. Very “contractually obligated to appear like a good boyfriend” of him.
Oh, Chloe. We’re enjoying this too much already.
The inside of the car smells like leather and light cologne. It’s clean too. No crumbs in the seat cracks, no wadded-up McDonald’s wrappers between the chairs…I feel underdressed just breathing in here.
“So,” Brody says, pulling away from the curb, one lean arm passing over the other as he turns onto the street. “Ready for today?”
“Absolutely not.” Ope! Chloe! That was an inside thought.
He laughs. The warm, real sound does something terrible to my heart and fades too quickly. “Yeah, me neither.”
I glance at him. His shoulders are relaxed, a slight smile touching his lips. But his jaw’s tight. Hands gripping the steering wheel a little too hard.
I wonder for the first time how he feels about this whole thing. Is he nervous? He has way more to lose than I do. If we’re found out, I just lose money I’ve already mentally spent on rent and pretzel M&M’s. He loses his entire career.
No pressure or anything.
“Did you watch the games?” he asks suddenly. “Thursday and Friday?”
I freeze.
Okay, so here’s the thing. I wasn’t going to watch.
Because watching him play hockey felt weird and invasive, like reading his diary or stalking his Instagram at two a.m., which I definitely haven’t done.
But then Jessa came home Thursday night with Thai food and turned on the game, and I was going to say no, but there he was on the screen—all intensity and focus and athletic grace that made my stomach do this swoopy thing—and I was riveted.
Like, couldn’t look away, forgot to eat my Pad Thai, accidentally elbowed Jessa in the face when he got slammed into the boards.
And then he got benched. Just sat there on that bench looking like a kicked puppy, trying to maintain his dignity, and my heart sort of…broke?
But I’m not telling him any of that.
“A little,” I say.
He waits for me to expand. I don’t.
“And?” he prompts.
“And…you’re very good at hockey.” It was that or You look great in hockey pads, and that didn’t seem like the right direction for my first date with my fake boyfriend.
His shoulders tense. “Not lately.”
“So you got benched. It’s not like that happens all the time. Well, actually, I have no idea if that happens to you all the time—”
“It doesn’t.”
“Right. It doesn’t.” I continue with my weird and probably very unhelpful pep talk. “So, it was just a bad game. You’ll…knock ’em dead next time. Is that a phrase? For hockey?”
Brody glances at me, the tense lines of his face melting away. He chuckles softly, shaking his head. “No, it’s not…but thanks.”
I try my best for a reassuring smile, and thankfully, his eyes are back on the road.
The rest of the drive is quiet. But it’s nice. Comfortable.
He parks on the street, gets out, opens my door before I can beat him to it.
“You don’t have to do that,” I say.
“Do what?”
“Open my door. Be”—I wave vaguely—“all chivalrous and stuff. I mean, it’s just us. No one’s watching. You can save the Prince Charming routine for when we have an audience.”
“Maybe I want to.” He grins, and it transforms his entire face, his blue eyes warm, his smile white and what looks genuine, and bam, it’s like a bomb of confetti goes off in my chest. Oh, no wonder they call him Candy. “Practice, right? Devoted boyfriend behavior.”
Right.
Practice.
This is practice. He’s practicing. You’re a practice dummy. A very well-compensated practice dummy who needs to stop reading subtext into every little thing he does.
I follow him down the unmarked stairs to Brew & Rumor’s basement entrance. The small brass plaque reading “B&R” is the only hint this place exists.
Inside, it’s like walking into a 1920s speakeasy, if speakeasies served oat milk lattes and had decent Wi-Fi.
Exposed brick, Edison bulbs, the rich mahogany bar that now serves coffee instead of bootleg whiskey.
Mismatched vintage leather armchairs sit alongside velvet sofas in deep jewel tones.
Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves are crammed with mystery novels and yellowed newspapers.
The rumor wall—covered in typewritten anonymous tips and conspiracy theories—takes up the entire back wall. Someone’s added a new one since last week:
The truth about the Blue Ox losing streak: cursed hockey sticks or poor conditioning?
“This place is incredible,” Brody says, looking around like he’s stumbled into Narnia, except with better coffee.
And I wonder…He brought me coffee from here just days ago, so why does he act like he’s never been here? Or maybe he ran through the drive-thru?
Anyway, “I know. I’ve been coming here since college.” I point to a corner table tucked between bookshelves. “That’s my spot.”
We order lattes for both of us and egg bites. The barista, Marcus, recognizes me and winks. “Special occasion?”
“Work meeting,” I say, maybe a little too quickly.
Marcus raises an eyebrow but doesn’t comment.
We settle into the corner. The vintage lamp casts warm light across Brody’s face, highlighting his jaw, the tired shadows under his eyes, and it hits me.
He didn’t sleep well.
Join the club. I’ve been awake since four a.m. running worst-case scenarios like my own personal horror-movie marathon.
“Okay,” I say, pulling out my phone and opening my Notes app. “Basics first. Timeline. How we met. How long we’ve been together. We need our stories to match, or Derek’s going to smell blood in the water.”
“Right.” He stretches his impressive legs out. His knee bumps mine under the small table. “Maybe we should just…stay close to the truth?”
“All right…so…” I try not to look at him. Jessa did say we could use the story in an official capacity. “Barcelona?” The word sticks to my lips.
Brody’s brows pinch, hesitation heavy between them, but he gives a nod.
Okay. We’re doing this. I tap the screen of my phone again and type:
Met six months ago in Barcelona.
He leans into my space, peering at the notes over my shoulder, and I swear I can feel his body heat setting my shoulder on fire. But like…don’t lean away just yet. “Ran into each other again two weeks ago.”
“At a coffee shop,” I say.
Brody frowns, his head tilting. “Not Ironclad?”
The explanation slips out without a thought. “We told that girl at the shop we were dating. It wouldn’t make sense for that to be our first time seeing each other again.”
Huh. Maybe I’m more equipped for this whole lying thing than I thought.
I don’t want to think too hard about what that means about me.
Brody’s lips part. “Ah. Smart. Okay, so we met again at the coffee shop.”
“Classic Hallmark meet-cute. The spilled coffee, hands touch, the whole goopy thing,” I add, already typing it down.
“And realized we still had—” He pauses, his gaze lifting from my phone to meet my eyes.
“Chemistry.” I say it like it’s a fact. My brain just spits it out.
And now it’s too late to take it back, so I double down.
I type it. Try to ignore the fact that every single one of my brain cells is collectively screaming because his knee is touching mine.
It’s very loud inside my head right now.
“And we’ve been seeing each other for two weeks.
Casually. Taking it slow because we’re both busy professionals who don’t rush into things. ”
“Seeing where it goes,” he adds.
“Right. Just…seeing if there’s something there.” I add a note:
Keep it vague. Don’t oversell.
“Is there?” He’s looking at me now. Not at my phone. At me.
“Is there what?”
“Something there.”
My brain short-circuits, and for a moment, all I can do is blink. “We’re—I mean—for the story—”
“I’m asking for the story.” But his eyes say something else entirely.
And there goes my heart again, and I have to remind myself that he’s literally an image pro. He probably wrote the book on meaningful eye contact. How to Appear Sincere for Publicity Purposes, Chapter 7: The Smolder.
“Yes,” I manage. “For the sake of the story, there’s definitely something there.”
“Agreed.” He takes a drink. Doesn’t break eye contact. “So, how’d it happen—our meeting in Europe?”
Oh, thank goodness. Back to facts. Heartless, feelingless facts.
We both know how we met. He chased down a thief. We spent the evening together. Danced. Shared a life-changing kiss. And then he left me standing outside my hotel, wondering if I somehow made the whole thing up.
But that’s not the story we’re selling.
That story makes me look pathetic. Girl falls for charming guy, guy disappears, girl agrees to be his fake girlfriend for money six months later. That’s not a Hallmark rom-com. That’s a Lifetime movie. And not even a good one.
“Your sister’s—what’d you call it? Bridal-cation?—still works,” Brody says. “You were there with bridesmaids. I was visiting the city. I still chased down the purse snatcher. We still spent the evening together. I still walked you back to your hotel.”
“And we didn’t exchange numbers because—”
“—it felt like a vacation moment. Something perfect we didn’t want to ruin by dragging it into reality.”
No dance by the fountain. No kiss under the orange tree. As agreed, those parts of the story stay off the table.