“Yes, it was good to see you too. Bye.”
“Bye, Noah.”
I wandered around the pumpkin patch, past a chicken enclosure, and visited black-and-white cattle in a field, all the while wondering if I should have flirted back.
Hunter would’ve been the safe option. Just some pressure relief, and a gorgeous winter husband. He was nice and my feelings for him weren’t messy and confusing like whatever I still harboured for Lewis. And, what was more, Hunter wasn’t mybrother’s best friend. I doubted that Ollie cared at all if I fucked Hunter McBride. I knew that hewould careif I fucked Lewis.
What am I supposed to do?
Calling things off with Lewis might have been the most sensible option, but I was already in too deep.
Not just because he agreed to be your fake boyfriend.
Out here, far away from the shack and all the memories that centred around it, I could admit my feelings for Lew.
I had always been in love with him, and I still felt exactly the same.
What the hell are you getting yourself into, Bright?
Back at the shack I squeezed in a quick yoga flow that I ended with a round of squats.
Best work on that butt if I want to entice Lew to plough my snow.
That evening I made a close friends list on my ArgoS and put exactly one person on it. He wouldn’t know it was just him, but I had an idea how to use it.
The pictures we’d taken so far were harmless, but I was sure things between us would … escalate. And a stubborn part of me didn’t want to share those with the world. It was dumb, of course. That was why he’d agreed to fake date me in the first place. But listening to my gut feeling had hardly ever betrayed me before. I chose to trust myself.
Lewis and my upcoming first fake date made me more nervous than I dared to admit even to myself. So I did what any reasonable person with ADHD did and rearranged the furniture in the shack. And to make sure I’d be too exhausted to think at the end of the day, I decided to throw in a deep clean.
The shack—as old as it might be—was my home for the next five months.
Might as well make the most of it.
It took me most of the morning to empty out, sort through, and clean the cupboard under the stairs. I found a few useful things: more towels and sheets and washing powder. It surprised me that my parents kept their old Primestone washer-and-dryer combo in the cottage, and even more that it still worked.
That’s one problem solved at least.
I posted a story of what I was up to on my ArgoS, one of the piles of rubbish I’d unearthed and another one of a dresser I wanted to move from the living room into the bedroom. I was fairly sure it was too heavy for me alone, but just watch me.
Nobody was stronger and more stubborn than a person with ADHD moving furniture on their own.
Twenty minutes later a knock on my door pulled me out of my hyperfocus.
“Fuck!” I cursed under my breath when I got up from the floor and my knees and back protested. And, oh my God, I desperately needed a wee.
A sheepish looking Lewis smiled at me when I opened the door.
“Lew? What …?” I broke off. “Come in. I’ll be right back. Bathroom.”
Hyperfocus was the weirdest thing ever. You sort of forgot you were human until something pulled you out of it and you noticed your full bladder or that you were starving. On cue, my stomach gave a huge rumble.
“Hey.” I went back into the living room where Lew stood by the door. He wore his usual ripped jeans and another APEX T-shirt. It was heather grey with a little stitched logo on his pec. It had no business looking so hot on him.
“Uh, hey.” He held up a brown paper bag and two bottles. “I brought you some lunch and some of the lemonade we made last summer.”
This hadn’t even made the top ten of all the things I’d expected.
“You brought me lunch?” I repeated to make sure I’d heard him right.
