“You deserve someone who wants you. Who chooses you first. Who knows how special you are.”
“That would be nice, if only he existed.” Sadness fills me, and I blink rapidly. I will not cry.
The weight of being alone hits me like a dump truck. It’s not even that I really care about Rex. It’s that if he—the one guy I thought would be single forever—is getting married, it means that I may truly be unlovable. There’s a voice in my head telling me I’m overreacting, but his note has stung me to my core.
“There’s another option, you know.”
“What?”
Silence fills the line. I watch as a pelican walks along the sandy white beach, looking for some scrap of food. The waves crash into the rocks near the lighthouse, pounding as hard as my heart is.
“You can take me.”
My stomach flips in a way that has nothing to do with Rex and his engagement. Heat fills my cheeks, and a fire ignites in my stomach. I brush my hair away from my face as my throat constricts.
Luke Haverbrook has been my best friend since we were four. When we were thirteen, after we almost kissed, we made a promise to never cross that line.
Now, suddenly, it feels like that promise and our friendship could become dangerously complicated.
If I took him and it went wrong, I wouldn’t just feel embarrassed in front of everyone; I could also lose my best friend. The thought sobers me. The thought of risking my friendship with Luke makes losing Rex mean absolutely nothing. But the thought of him pretending to be my boyfriend in front of everyone fills me with a pure shot of excitement. Everybody would be shocked, and I wouldn’t mind just a little bit of positive attention on me.
chapter two
Luke
“Wait, what?” Mia’s familiar tone sounds just as shocked as I feel.
I can imagine her standing there with parted pink lips. I bet anything that her blonde hair is in a messy ponytail, and she’s twirling a few strands of hair between her fingers.
“What did you just say?”
“You can take me,” I say again softly. “Want to be my girlfriend?”
She’s quiet, and I laugh loudly so she knows it’s a joke. If she needs a reason to believe I’m not being deadly serious, I will give her one.
“Luke, what are you saying?”
“I said, do you want to be my girlfriend?”
I quickly FaceTime her, and she answers immediately.
“Hey.” I grin and smile when I see I was right about the ponytail.
“Hey.”
I watch her nostrils flare as her eyes narrow. Mia wears her emotions on her face, and I can always tell what she’s thinking. It’s been that way since we were four years old and playing in pre-K. Back in the days when she stood up to bullies for the both of us.
I can still remember when Kenny took the last two cookies off of the plate in first grade and she went up to him and demanded he give me one of the cookies.
When he ate the first cookie right in her face, she pushed her little shoulders back, glared at him, and then said, “You give Luke his cookie, or I will pull your pants down.”
She then turned to me with a crooked little smile, which was missing a front tooth.
Seconds later, Kenny gave her the cookie, which she ceremoniously brought over to me.
“You didn’t need to do that, Mia,” I mumbled, though I happily took the cookie from her.
“Best friends stick up for best friends.” She beamed at me and hooked her little arm in mine, and we found our seats and read our books.
