“Good. So we’re in agreement.”
“Absolutely. No catching feelings. Strictly business.” I hold out my hand toward him. “Should we shake on it?”
Ben takes his eyes off the road long enough to shake my hand. His fingers are warm and slightly rough against mine. “Agreement.”
But as I settle back in my seat, watching the city lights blur past the window, I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve made a promise I’m not going to be able to keep.
The truth is complicated. I’ve been halfway in love with Ben since I was a teenager. I’ve spent years carefully managing those feelings, keeping them locked away in a part of my heart I pretend doesn’t exist. I’ve dated other men, built a life that doesn’t revolve around him, and convinced myself that what I feel is just the afterglow of a teenage crush.
But tonight changed something.
Sitting next to him in that restaurant, watching him smile at Red and Marnie’s stories, feeling his hand in mine even though I understood it was for show. Tonight, those carefully buried feelings started clawing their way back to the surface.
And now I’ve agreed to marry him. Fake or not. I’m going to wear a white dress and walk down an aisle toward him. I’m going to promise to love him forever, and even though the words will be lies, part of me will mean every single one.
We’re going to go to Japan together. Just the two of us. We’re going to share hotel rooms and romantic dinners and all the intimacy of a real honeymoon, while pretending that none of it means anything.
“You okay over there?” Ben asks. I realize I’ve been quiet for too long.
“Just thinking about everything we need to do. Planning a ceremony in two months is going to be insane.”
“We’ll hire a wedding planner. The best one in Chicago.” He switches lanes smoothly. “Money really isn’t an issue.”
“If you say so.” I lean back against the headrest, suddenly exhausted. “Ben?”
“Yeah?”
“What if people figure it out? What if someone realizes we’re faking it?”
“They won’t. We’re good at this, remember? Tonight proved that.”
“Tonight was dinner. A ceremony is bigger.” I pause. “More complicated. More chances for things to go wrong.”
“Then we’ll have to be extra careful.” He glances at me again. There’s something reassuring in his expression. “We can do this, Freya. I understand it seems crazy, but we can pull it off.”
I want to believe him. I want to believe that we can go through with this elaborate charade without destroying everything we’ve built together and separately over the years. But deep down, I’m terrified that the ground rules we just established are going to be the first casualties of this beautiful disaster we’re walking into.
No catching feelings, we declared.
As if feelings were something you could control with contracts and handshakes and rational decision-making.
As if the heart ever listened to the head when it came to matters of love.
Ben pulls up in front of my building. I realize with a start that the evening is over. In a moment, I’ll go upstairs to my apartment and try to process everything that happened tonight. Tomorrow, we’ll start planning a fake ceremony that’s starting to feel more real than anything else in my life.
“Thank you,” I mention as he puts the car in park. “For dinner, for everything.”
“Thank you for saving me. Again.”
“What are friends for?”
“I’ll call you tomorrow. We should start making lists of everything we need to do.”
“Lists. Right.”
I get out of the car and wave goodbye. I watch his taillights disappear into the traffic. Then I walk up to my apartment, pour myself a very large glass of wine, and try to convince myself that agreeing to fake-marry my best friend is the smartest thing I’ve ever done.
It’s not working.
