14. Rosie

Chapter 14

Rosie

Rosie : How did your date go?

Jules : Terrible.

Rosie : No! Why?

Jules : Everything she said sounded like a question. And she talked with food in her mouth.

Rosie : Just give me ONE quality you like in a woman.

Jules : A redhead. With blue eyes.

Rosie : You do know that’s the rarest hair/eye genetic combo, right?

Jules : And?

Rosie : Fine. I’m moving on to Bennett. Best of luck on your own.

Jules : That’s not the threat you think it is.

I set my phone down as a knock sounded on the door. I’d just started making a profile for Bennett on Rendezvous but got caught on the picture portion. Did I have a single picture of my brother without his lime green fishing hat on?

Dylan stood in the doorway holding my expensive, blinged-out water bottle. I reached out to take it, but he pulled it back, a furrow in his brows. “What are you doing?”

“Taking my water bottle back?” Why was I making it a question? Dylan and his ever-present scowl had me all off-kilter. Probably because he took up my entire doorway.

Or maybe it’s because you asked him to pretend to be in love with you.

Yeah, that might have something to with how I suddenly had no idea what to do with my hands or how to stand normal.

“This water bottle has my electrolyte drink in it.” He stared at me as he sipped from the straw in challenge .

He had me so discombobulated, I didn’t know what I would normally do in this situation. Laugh? Snatch the water bottle straight from his hands and drink his electrolytes as I stared him down? Ignore it completely?

“So about the whole pretending to be in love with me sitch …” I cringed. I could have done anything, anything , but bring up that up.

A mouse squeaked in the awkward silence. (Yes, there was another mouse. No, Lizzy had no desire to take care of it for me.)

Dylan covered his mouth, and I couldn’t tell if he was trying to hide a smile or holding himself back from saying something.

“Can I come in?” he asked, still in the doorway.

“Oh, yes.” I motioned him inside and indicated he could sit on the futon pad. He did gingerly, like he didn’t trust even the pad.

I’d set my lunch up on an empty, overturned box, so I sat beside him. But I’d underestimated how small the futon pad was. We were close. Way too close for someone who was maybe holding back a frown. Or a smile. It was hard to tell.

He stretched his legs out in front of him. “Let’s set some ground rules.”

My stomach twisted with sudden nerves, but I needed something to do with my hands, so I picked up my grilled cheese sandwich—my comfort food since I was little. Even when Mom was at her sickest, she could usually make one for me when I got home from school.

I used a few more cheeses than she did, and real butter instead of margarine, but it still brought me back to my childhood and to the warmth of our tiny kitchen on cold, dark winter days that never seemed to end.

I motioned for him to continue as I took a bite. He eyed the sandwich, so I offered him the other triangle. To my surprise, he took it without hesitation. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how many calories a day it took to feed someone with a body like his.

I swallowed my bite and took a drink from my disposable water bottle. “Such as?”

“I’ll need to have complete approval of anything that gets posted about me or to my page.”

I nodded. I’d planned on logging into his socials so I could post for him, but it wouldn’t be a big deal to keep things in drafts until he approved them.

“Anything else?”

“I have major reservations about this.”

“Noted. What changed your mind?” The last time I’d seen him, he’d been storming out of my store giving off not if you were the last girl on earth vibes. I’d soothed my ego with ice cream first, then my grilled cheese, and a healthy dose of meddling in my brothers’ lives, which always cheered me up.

“I posted a picture of me reading.”

I snagged my phone and searched for his account. I followed him, and a second later, I saw a notification that he’d followed me back. My stomach jumped like we’d driven over a hill.

I scrolled to the picture of him sitting on my bed, the bright yellow comforter cheerily framing in his dark-clothed body. The angle of the camera was low to the ground, the image was crooked in the frame, and he wasn’t staring at the camera at all.

“This is one of twenty selfies I took. It was the best one, if you can believe it.”

I laughed, wishing I could see his photo roll, but knowing there was no way he’d show me.

Then I noticed what book he was pretending to read. A hockey romance I’d just ordered but hadn’t read yet. It. Was. Absolutely. Perfect.

And the five thousand likes and three-hundred and twenty comments mostly agreed. There were a ton of heart eyes or flames. A few poked fun at him for reading a romance, but for the most part, the comments that had the most likes were positive and supportive.

“I’ve never had so many interactions on a post.”

I read through his few posts, most of them listing the team’s score or schedule. Things they could easily look up on the team’s website if they were interested.

“People want the personal aspect,” I replied absently as I made a mental note of what kind of posts were definitely not working for him. “Did you actually read the book?”

“No.” He scoffed.

I slowly looked up at him. “Why the disbelief? Can you not read? Or do you think men shouldn’t read romance?”

He attempted, unsuccessfully, to level me with a stare. “I don’t care what other men do or don’t read. I don’t read romance.”

“Well, starting now … you do. Because your first assignment is to read that hockey book.”

“Wait. I didn’t know I’d have homework.”

“Dylan, if we’re going to clean up your image, it’s going to require more than a few poorly focused photographs. This is an entire process. Are you really in?”

He stared at me as though seriously considering backing out. “I’m in,” he finally said.

“Good.”

“What are your conditions?”

I hadn’t actually been confident he’d agree to this scheme, so I hadn’t thought of conditions yet. “Um. We need to make people really believe we’re a couple, so whatever that … entails in public.”

“Like physical affection,” he clarified casually, as if the words didn’t send a searing fire of mortification through every vein in my body.

“Yes. And compliments and being seen together. And not flirting with other people.”

His intense gaze zeroed in on me. “If I’m in a relationship with someone, even if it’s a fake one like this, I’m in it one hundred percent.”

Whoa. I needed water. A fan. An ice cube to run under my neck. The glacial waters of the Pacific Ocean. “Okay, yeah. Mhmm.” That look, like I was the only person in the world, was burning me up. And we hadn’t even officially started dating. Something told me I had no idea what I was getting into when I dreamed this up.

My brothers would love this. Had a man ever left me so flustered before?

Lizzy crawled into my lap, probably sensing my extra warmth from across the room. She was always cold.

“Anything else?” He picked up my pink water bottle by the handle, and something about him holding it settled me. This was Dylan Savage, my grumpy neighbor, not someone to get all moony over.

“Yes,” I said mock-seriously. “You have to promise not to fall in love with me.”

He choked on his drink, his face turning red as electrolyte fluids spewed from his mouth and dribbled down his chin. What would all those women chasing him say if they could see him now? Not so sexy to be drooling in shock.

“What?” he finally croaked out.

I didn’t know if I should laugh or be irritated at his overreaction. “It’s from a movie.”

“Never seen it.”

“Clearly. Which, unfortunately, means I have to add one more condition.”

“And that is?” he asked warily.

“We’ll need to watch one formative rom-com a week so you can truly understand my psyche.”

“Is understanding your psyche strictly necessary in order for us to fake date in exchange for helping me get back on my team?”

“It is if you’re going to keep from choking to death every time I quote a movie.”

And necessary for me to keep my eye on the prize of snagging Max Eriksson and getting Dylan Savage out of Winterhaven as quickly as possible so things could go back to normal.