Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 148473 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 742(@200wpm)___ 594(@250wpm)___ 495(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 148473 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 742(@200wpm)___ 594(@250wpm)___ 495(@300wpm)
Fable squeezes my arm. “Friend, I really get it. So…is that what it’s like for you? You kind of can’t get enough of him?”
That’s exactly what it’s like. But if I admit that, am I just like them? Not that that’d be a bad thing—Everly, Josie, and Fable are all in happy, stable, committed relationships. But I’m in a fake one with an expiration date. As much as I adore Asher, I can’t pretend I’m where they are. It’s different. Messier.
Plus, I don’t want to fall back into my old patterns, clinging to things that aren’t meant to last. Lord knows I hold on too hard, like I do to that book of my mom’s I brought to Asher’s home. The idea makes me feel exposed, vulnerable, more than I want to be, more than I’m naturally prone to be.
“It’s just an arrangement,” I say, trying to mask the uncertainty creeping into my voice. “Friends with benefits, but we’re married…technically.”
Josie snorts. “You’re living with him, sleeping with him, hanging out with him…How are you not going to fall in real love with your fake husband?”
I open my mouth to protest, but nothing comes out. I don’t have an answer to that because it’s terrifyingly possible. But it can’t happen. It can’t because my fake husband is my real best friend. And if I hold on too tight as his wife, I might lose him as my friend. That’s not a risk I’m willing to take.
“Because I’m too much of a mess!” I blurt out, half joking but half serious. “I have so much going on—there’s no room for new emotions. Besides, I don’t even know how to act with him, much less feel with him.”
Everly gives me a sympathetic look. “You’re not a mess.”
I side-eye her. “But I am. I promise you, I am.”
Josie shakes her head. “We all think we’re a mess. We’re just working through things, trying to be the best versions of ourselves. That’s what you’re doing too. Maybe there is room for new emotions.”
Leighton leans in, her gaze soft but intent. “But it sounds like that’s what you’re already feeling with him, isn’t it?”
I pause, her words sinking in. Sure, maybe there are new emotions slipping in, but they can’t be love. Not yet. How could I handle that on top of everything else? My life is already chaotic—between the Sea Dogs mural commission, and the new projects my agent mentioned (including a plant-based café that begged me to come in this week and draw a painting of a tree with hummingbirds on the wall and I could not resist, because…hello, dream job!), and me trying to finally, after years of trying, carve out a meaningful career, and now Asher…it’s too much.
Especially when I think of my mother and her final wishes for me. Follow your dreams. The last piece of advice she ever gave me. What if I get distracted from my dreams? What if I end up like Dad, losing sight of everything else because I got too caught up in a romance?
I can’t let that happen. Not now, not when everything is finally falling into place.
“Feelings,” I say, sidestepping the topic. “I’m feeling too many of those damn things. That’s sometimes the problem.”
The bartender arrives with our drinks.
I lift my mojito, trying to quell the rising panic in my chest with a toast to, well, to this thing I deeply need—friendship. “To The Padlockers. And your uncanny ability to get anything out of me.”
Josie clinks first, peering at me through those glasses. “I’m surprised, Maeve. You’re usually an open book. It took you long enough.”
Everly lifts her glass. “For the record, I confessed early about Max.”
“And I told you all practically the morning after things happened with Wesley,” Josie adds, and out of the corner of my eye I catch Leighton fiddling with her napkin, then her earrings. The flower ones specifically. Hmm. That’s some nervous energy right there.
I clear my throat. “Does anyone else have anything she needs to get off her, ahem, bosom?”
The table’s quiet for a long beat, and slowly, we all turn to Leighton. “What?” she asks, with wide blue eyes.
“Spill,” I demand, stabbing the table.
She lets out a long, anguished sigh. “Fine, I had a thing with Miles Falcon late last summer before I knew who he was and that he works for my dad, and it won’t happen again, and it can’t happen again. And you really can’t say a word.”
“Last summer?” Everly’s voice shoots up. “Before the start of the season.”
Leighton nods guiltily. “It was pre-season. One night. Well, one day too. One amazing day together,” she says wistfully.
“Like a perfect date one day?” Josie asks, voice both sad and hopeful.
“Pretty much,” she says.
“Wow. That was before I saw you again in your dad’s office in the fall. Before you took pictures of the community center gardening event,” Everly says. That was one of the promo shoots Everly arranged when she was rehabbing Max’s image a few months ago.