I glance at her as I merge onto the highway. “We fix it. A real date. Not a performance. Just us.”
CHLOE
We fix it. A real date. Not a performance. Just us.
The word real lands in my chest like a stone dropped into deep water, and I’m nodding before my brain catches up to what I’m agreeing to, which is how people end up in cults or time-shares or other situations that are universally assumed to be bad news.
“Okay,” I manage. “I’m free Monday.”
Earth to Chloe—what part of “fake boyfriend” do the two of you not understand?
He glances at me as we merge onto the highway. “All right, then, Monday it is. I’ll pick you up for dinner. Seven.”
I turn to the window and thank God for the darkness hiding my furiously blushing face.
Minneapolis slides past in streaks of light and shadow. The skyline glitters against the winter sky. We cross the Mississippi, and the bridge lights reflect off the dark water below. Normally I’d think about how pretty this is, how the city looks like something out of a movie at night. But right now I’m too busy trying to remember how to breathe like a normal human and not think about the fact that we’re alone in this car and his cologne smells amazing and I am absolutely not prepared for whatever’s about to happen.
The silence stretches.
“You okay?” Brody asks.
I glance back, my hair falling around my shoulders like a curtain.
“Yeah. Just tired.” I aim for casual, land somewhere near desperately trying not to have feelings. “Long night.”
Snow drifts past the windshield in lazy flurries, caught in the headlights. The wipers sweep it away in a steady rhythm.
Now it’s quiet. Loud quiet. I should say something. But my brain has apparently clocked out for the evening, leaving me with nothing but the hyperawareness of him beside me—the way his hands rest on the steering wheel, the line of his jaw in the dashboard glow, his left leg propped up slightly, reminding me of his knee pressed to mine at the coffee shop just this morning. How was that less than twelve hours ago?—
“Can I ask you something?” His voice cuts through my spiral.
I answer way too quickly. “Sure.”
“The bowling. You were incredible tonight. How did you get so good?”
Oh. That’s not so bad. Safe territory.
“College,” I say, relieved. “Freshman year. My roommate dragged me to league night, and I was surprisingly not terrible.”
“What position?” He sounds genuinely curious. “Or is that not how bowling works? I clearly have no idea.”
“Anchor. I went last.”
“Of course you did.” Something changes in his tone. “Most pressure. Most responsibility.”
I glance at him. He’s watching the road, but there’s this expression on his face—understanding, maybe. Like he just puzzled something out.
“Yeah,” I say quietly. “I guess.”
We stop at a red light. He looks at me.
Really looks.
Not the performance look from the party—the one designed to convince my family we’re madly in love. This is different. Searching. Like he’s trying to see past all that to whatever’s underneath.
My throat tightens.
“Why bowling?” he asks. “Out of everything you could’ve been good at?”
