CHAPTER ONE
Scottie
Ihate the way my fake boyfriend chews.
Unfortunately, his agent, my family, and the whole world expect me to hang on his every word with a doting smile on my face, which means I’m stuck watching him chomp a two-hundred-dollar dry-aged steak like it’s a cruddy piece of beef jerky.
If I were a better person, I’d think about what this says about how Jake grew up, about how once upon a time, getting enough to eat wasn’t a guarantee, and now he treats every meal like something to devour instead of enjoy.
I’m trying to be a better person.
Really.
We’re at The Grey House—a Michelin-starred restaurant in Charleston, where the very air smells like truffle oil and money.
Jake’s been looking around the restaurant wide-eyed, like even after seven years playing Major League Baseball, he still can’t believe the opulence of a place like this. And maybe it’sthe way the candlelight reflects in his brown eyes or the way he blinks too quickly that turns my irritation down from a boil to a simmer.
Then he catches me studying him.
“What are you looking at, four eyes?” he asks.
And my irritation is right back.
“You eat like a cow chewing cud,” I say with a smile that will fool any paparazzi or onlookers. I tuck a strand of pale blonde hair behind my ear before adjusting my tortoiseshell glasses—glasses I don’t actually need but that feel like armor with my little black dress and killer heels. I bring a dainty bite of pan-seared scallops toward my mouth. “Also, if you really want anyone to believe we’re dating, you should try not insulting me in public so much. Turd.”
Jake snorts and saws his steak like a caveman. “Relax, Scot. Don’t be so touchy.”
“If I’m touchy, it’s because I’m stuck pretending to adore a man who thought flirting with his GM’s wife was a sound career move,” I say sweetly, taking another bite. “You’re welcome, by the way. Anyone else would’ve let you get shipped off to the minors to teach you a lesson. You should be on your knees thanking me for agreeing to this charade at all.”
He stabs his fork into another bite of meat and points it at me. “Yeah, cuz that wouldn’t make the paparazzi freak out—me on bended knee in front of ‘the girl next door.’ I thought you wanted this done as soon as possible?”
I give a tinkling laugh meant to convince people that I don’t want to shoot lasers through him with my eyes. “On second thought, you can stay in your seat.”
“That’s what I thought, hot stuff.”
Not being able to roll my eyes at Jake is its own kind of torture.
My phone buzzes with a notification, and I discreetly check it under the table.
It’s from ReelTime, my social media platform of choice.
@TheSetupMan has shared a new moment
“I need to use the restroom,” I tell Jake. I set down my napkin, grab my phone, and calmly walk to the restroom. But the second I’m inside the stall, I feverishly click on the notification and scowl as the video takes too long to load.
The person in the stall next to me flushes, and I try not to bite my nails as I wait for my favorite face to pop up on the screen?—
There it is.
Lucas Fischer, in all his wavy-blond-hair, brightly-blue-eyed glory.
Social media says we’re supposed to hate blond men, but the only thing I can hate about him is the fact that he hasn’t sent me a single text in over a month—flirty or otherwise.
The entire time Jake and I have been fake dating.
And let’s be honest: that’s such a green flag, I could puke.
Lucas smiles at the camera. He’s not wearing his Mudflaps jersey, but he is wearing a tight compression shirt in powder blue and athletic joggers in rust red—our team colors. Around his neck are those chunky bead necklaces so popular among youth athletes right now. Every time he runs a camp for kids, at least one of them gives him a Polly World necklace. So naturally, he got some of his own made up and gives them to the kids now.
