I don’t saydon’t what.
They know.
Chapter 8
Tavi
Dylan’s truck is clean.
I don’t know why I expected it to be a dirty mess of fast-food wrappers and muddy floor mats and weeks’ worth of junk mail, but it’s clean, with a tomato-shaped air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror and not a speck of dust to be seen on his dashboard.
“What’sdon’t?” I ask him as I strap in, cuddling my purse with Pebbles inside it.
He slides me a look, sighs, and shakes his head. “They’re activating the Tickled Pink gossip chain to open bets on when we start dating. That’s what’sdon’t.”
I stick out my lower lip, suspecting he knows I’m putting on the Tavi Lightly Show but doing it anyway because there’s still comfort in my public shield. Besides, if I don’t, I might have a panic attack at the idea that I’m stuck here with him all day instead of sneaking away to my own little hidey-hole, where I truly need to work on my chocolate empire. Naomi has a meeting with a potential investor on Thursday, and I have to overnight her some new truffle samples.
“You wouldn’t date me?” I ask, hating myself a little more with every airheaded syllable that comes out of my mouth. “Even now that you’re ... single?”
He squints at me harder as he hits the button to start his truck. “Who’s the real Tavi Lightly?”
“That isnotan answer to my question.”
“You want real from me, you have to be real in return.”
“Honestly, Dylan, there’s no benefit tometo making you internet famous. But there’s all the benefit toyou. Do you know the one thing a woman hates more than anything? It’s when she realizes what was under her nose the whole time after she sees someone else going after it. Second worst? When the only thing the newitcouple in question, featuring the guy who got away, ever tells anyone iswe’re just friends. You mark my words—the minute you hit five hundred thousand followers on TikTok for being ‘the Tickled Pink Plumber who hangs out with Tavi Lightly,’ telling people we’re ‘just friends,’ you’ll have your pick of every single eligible woman on the planet. Andthenwon’t she see what she was missing?”
He sighs.
It’s not the same kind of sigh that Phoebe’s boyfriend, Teague, makes, but it’s also not the sigh of a man looking forward to having a socialite influencer riding along for plumbing emergencies today.
Good thing he owed me a favor. I get the feeling he might back out otherwise, and Ineedhim to do this.
Success is the only metric Gigi recognizes. I need this to be so successful she has no choice but to acknowledge I’ve done what I need to do to re-earn my trust fund.
I’ll still find an investor—what Gigi giveth back, Gigi could also taketh back againth—but I could really use some breathing room until I do.
“It’s okay if you’re not ready to date yet,” I offer. “I guess this is like finally letting your heart break or something?”Good job, Tavi. Play theditz.“Don’t worry. I won’t say another word about it. And we’re going to have so much fun today! I promise. You won’t regret this. We can even get a T-shirt store up and running for you when this takes off. It’ll be, like, an alternative revenue stream. Those are super important.”
He finally quits staring at me like I’m the world’s biggest inconvenience, and he pulls away from the curb outside Café Nirvana.
I spot Phoebe across the street. Teague and his brother, Jonah, are next to her, and Lola’s hanging out with them too.
I tense, waiting for the moment Lola glances this way and spots Dylan and realizes he’s hot, but of course she doesn’t look this way.
Not when Teague’s brother is rich and single. Jonah’s newer to town than we Lightlys are, and he’s not permanent, but when he’s here visiting Teague, like this week, he attracts themostattention.
Eye roll,as Bridget would say, though you can’t argue with results.
Teague, Jonah, Phoebe,andLola standing in the square?
It has a flock of tourists gathering in groups up and down the sidewalks along the square, snapping photos and whispering and undoubtedly getting ready to go spend their money in all the little stores that are still open around here.
Maybe not the tire-and-lube place that shares a building with Café Nirvana, but definitely everywhere else.
It’s way more tourists than were here when we Lightlys descended on the town, but still not enough to justify Patrice reopening her spa or Jane opening a real brewpub.
Phoebe’s talking to someone else in the groups, someone I don’t know, while she gestures to the half-finished, reclaimed-by-nature Ferris wheel that was started like forty years ago when the town thought it would stay famous for thatPink Goldmovie. My big sister is tall, slender, and blonde, and until the past few weeks, I never would’ve considered calling her a friend.
