“Thanks, Heidi. I’ll see you soon.”
I hang up the phone and drop my head in my hands, letting out a rare curse. “Holy shit.”
I don’t call Maverick right away.
In fact, I don’t even call him that day. Nope, my big ole chicken self waits a full twenty-four hours after Heidi’s call before I even get up the courage to open our text messages.
And then I stare at my phone for several minutes, typing and deleting, trying to figure out how to bring up the subject.
This is why, when my phone suddenly vibrates with an incoming message from him, I yelp and drop my phone in surprise.
MAVERICK: Colin thinks we need to do something this weekend. I guess we can go to that market again if its open.
It’s the perfect opening for me to bring up the wedding. We could easily get some photos on the ferry ride to the island. When we all met for coffee earlier in the week to check in, Colin said we needed to post more on social media, to which Maverick just laughed. Apparently, he doesn’t have a social media presence except for the one Colin manages for him. I agreed to share a few photos but have yet to do so.
Okay, Sadie. Time to just rip off the Band-Aid. The worst that could happen is he says no and you have to come up with an excuse for Heidi.
SADIE: Actually, I won’t be in town this weekend. My friend is getting married over on Vancouver Island.
MAVERICK: Oh. Okay.
SADIE: They’re expecting you to come with me. If you want to.
I wait for him to respond, sitting on my hand so I don’t chew my nails from the stress of it all. When he finally does, I exhale in relief.
MAVERICK: Fine. Send me details. Colin says we need to make sure people see us doing shit.
I’ll save the wholeonly one cabinthing until later, I guess. Switching over to my email, I send a quick message to Maverick and Colin with details for the weekend. Then I get up, go to my bedroom, and pull on some comfy clothes before grabbing my keys and a bottle of wine from my fridge and heading out to my car.
Twenty minutes later, I’m knocking on Ali’s door. She opens it, her eyebrows raising as she takes in my harried expression and the wine.
“What’s going on?”
I push past her, not answering until I’ve opened the wine, poured some into a coffee mug, and taken a long drink.
“Maverick is coming to the island with me for Heidi’s wedding. We have to share a teeny-tiny cabin. And I haven’t even booked a leg wax.”
She approaches me slowly, taking the bottle of wine, and pouring some for herself. I drain my mug and make grabby hands at the bottle, needing a refill.
“Let me get this straight. You’re spending the weekend with your hot fake boyfriend, in a romantic cabin, and you’re worrying about a leg wax.”
I give her a hard look. “The leg wax is just one of my many problems.”
“I mean, I get it. Priorities. Last thing you need is your hottie baseball boyfriend thinking you’re a Sasquatch with hairy legs. But that’s an easy fix, one phone call. No big deal. So what’s really going on.”
I move to Ali’s not-lumpy couch and slump into the corner. “He’s a good guy, Ali.”
“Yeah, you’ve said that.” She sits down next to me and sets the bottle on the table. Such a good friend. “And?”
“And he’s really hot.”
“Still stating the obvious, babe.”
“And even though I only said yes to this insanity because I wanted to make Dirk suffer, I also want this to work out for him. I want to help him fix his image and get the public to see he’s not who the media makes him out to be.”
Ali’s still looking at me, waiting for me to get to the point.
“So far, all of our dates together have been carefully planned PR stunts, designed for media exposure. They’ve all been for him. For his career. Now I’m asking him to spend an entire weekend with me, convincing people he doesn’t know or care about that he’s actually with me. What if…what if he can’t? What if it all falls apart this weekend? Then his career will be ruined, and it’ll be my fault. And Dirk will find out I’m a pathetic loser that agreed to fake date a baseball player for revenge.”
