“Good boy, Gus,” I say when he sees a squirrel running in the street on our walk and doesn’t chase it.
We round the block and head back to the house. I’m dogsitting Gus for the next few days while his owners are out of town visiting colleges with their son.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. When I see it’s a text from Sophie, I smile.
Sophie: Hey! Are you free to meet up tonight?
Me: Yeah, absolutely! Wanna meet at Spanky’s? I could totally go for their fries.
Sophie: That’s perfect. See you soon.
That evening, I walk into Spanky’s and see Sophie sitting at a booth in the back.
She stands up and hugs me.
“Thanks for coming to see me on such short notice,” she says. “I went ahead and ordered you some fries.”
“You’re the best.” I grab a few and chow down. “So what’s up?”
She hesitates for a second.
“Is everything okay?” I ask.
She nods quickly. “Yeah, everything’s fine, I just…” She takes a breath, then leans closer to me. “I overheard you and Camden by the restrooms at Bella and Blomdahl’s wedding.”
I frown, confused. “Okay…”
“I was leaving right as you guys were talking…about why you got married. How you did it for the health insurance. How it was a marriage between friends, nothing more. But then you caught feelings.”
“Oh.” My nerves kick up. Sophie knows. She knows that my marriage to Camden started as a sham.
Crap.
Panic swoops through me.
She grabs my hands in hers, worry flashing in her own eyes. “I’m sorry. That came out wrong. I’m not going to report you or anything. I just brought it up because, well, that’s kind of how Xander and I started.”
I stare at her, shocked. “What?”
“We didn’t get married, but the start of our relationship wasn’t real. It was fake.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” She lets out a shy, embarrassed laugh. “He was kind of a playboy for a while and wanted to be taken more seriously. And my dad was really overprotective of me and treated me like a child constantly, so I wanted to set boundaries by taking control of my dating life. So Xander and I agreed to fake date for a few months.” Her cheeks flush. “But it didn’t take long for us to catch real feelings for each other.”
My eyes are big as I listen to her tell me this. “I had no idea. You and Xander seem crazy about each other. I would havenever in a million years guessed that it started as something fake.”
Her smile is shy. “We have an unconventional love story, that’s for sure. And no one other than my best friend, Dakota, knows. But now you do too,” she says. “I just wanted to tell you because I don’t know anyone else who has gone through something similar. Sometimes I wish I could talk about it with someone who’s been through what I’ve been through. So if you ever want to do that, I’m here for you.”
A warm feeling hits me. I squeeze her hand in mine. “Thanks, Sophie. That means a lot. And hey, thank you for not being upset.”
“Why would I be upset?”
I sigh. “I think a lot of people would be mad to know that the reason Camden and I got married in the first place was so I could get health insurance. A lot of people would think I’m a gold digger. Or a fraud. Even if I tried to tell them that we eventually caught feelings and our marriage is one hundred percent real now.”
Sophie shakes her head, a pained look on her face. “As a doctor, I know just how awful and demoralizing navigating our health insurance system is. I know how difficult it is for people to afford treatments and medication—how evil some insurance companies are when they outright deny coverage to people who need it,” she says. “There’s nothing wrong with what you did, Ellie. No reasonable person would ever fault you or Camden for getting married for the reasons you did.”
I let out a breath, feeling calmer.
