Page 55

Marlowe set her things down by her grandmother. “Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

“Ha!” Grandma responded. “Not when Jace is down by an hour and a half.” She flipped over her crib cards. “Read ’em and weep. Looks like someone’s getting her bathroom painted!”

Grandma moved her peg into the winning spot—cackling was probably the right word to describe her laughter. Jace rubbed his forehead and scowled.

Marlowe pulled her laptop out of her bag. “I told you not to play her.”

“She’s cheating,” Jace said. “I just can’t figure out how.”

Grandma stood from her chair. “Let me know when you’re available to pay off your debt. Marlowe will need to take me to the store to buy some paint first.” She shuffled off toward the hallway, still cackling.

Marlowe sat down beside him. “Please tell me you’re letting her win because you’re a nice guy who wants to do service for a little old lady.”

Jace grunted and began putting away the cribbage board. “That would make me look better, wouldn’t it?” He swiped the cards into his hand in a neat pile. “First of all, it’s statistically impossible for her to get as many fives as she does. And second, how can she add that fast? Math wasn’t even around when she was young.”

Marlowe helped him with the board without comment. According to her teacher, she was going to have to work sixty hours a week. Maybe eighty. For years.

“How did your class go?” he asked, focusing on her instead of his losses. “Any better this time?”

“Only slightly.” How much should she say about the class? “On the plus side, it turns out the phrase ‘customer acquisition cost’ has nothing to do with kidnapping, so I won’t be going to prison any time soon.”

“Good. Good.”

“I did think about the vision board during class, which is probably why I’m not crying.” Stewing was a more accurate term. Worrying was also a fitting description.

“I’m glad it’s working. Let’s go over your homework.”

He wanted to stay? She shouldn’t read too much into that. She pulled out this week’s worksheets but hesitated as she put them on the table. “Grandma already owns a bunch of your time. You want to give more to me?”

He took the worksheets from her and flipped through them. “Business principles are good for me to learn. Medicine is a business too.”

She slid her chair closer to his so they could study together. Once again, Jace patiently explained the terms he knew and looked up what he didn’t. When they were in the middle of the cash flow worksheet, Jace’s phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket. “I’ve got to make sure this isn’t work calling for some emergency.”

It wasn’t work. Marlowe caught Jennifer’s name on his screen before he slipped it back into his pocket. He didn’t even send her a message. He just went back to helping her estimate startup costs.

Marlowe didn’t know what surprised her more, that Jennifer called him or that he ignored the call. Marlowe’s concentration was broken. “Do you still talk to Jennifer even though you’re not together?”

“Occasionally.” His gaze was on the worksheet, so she couldn’t quite tell from his expression how he felt about that.

“I would’ve thought you weren’t speaking to each other.” She hadn’t meant for her voice to sound disapproving, but it did.

He glanced at her, curious. “Why would you think that?”

“Because after you broke up with me, you never spoke to me again. I thought that’s how you did breakups.”

He cocked his head at her. “I would’ve answered if you called me.” He seemed to realize the contradiction in his words and added, “I’m busy studying with you right now or I would have answered Jennifer. I’ll call her back later.”

This didn’t tell Marlowe what she wanted to know. She couldn’t ask him how strong his feelings for Jennifer were or whether he was beginning to care about her. And realistically, she knew she was foolish to even hope he cared about her that way. The whole reason they were fake-dating was so that Marlowe could make Jennifer look better. She should’ve kept that fact foremost in her mind before she started daydreaming about wedding photos.

When was she ever going to learn to safeguard her heart?

Marlowe wrote the answer they’d come up with on the worksheet. “What does Jennifer think about the two of us fake-dating?”

“I didn’t tell her,” Jace said as though it should be self-evident. “I’m not about to tell her how much my family dislikes her.”

“Oh,” Marlowe said, “then maybe she’s calling you because Riley and Olivia sent me pictures of the two of us at the river. I put them on my social media and tagged you. I said I’m in a relationship with the world’s greatest boyfriend.”

Jace blinked at her, but before he could protest, she added, “I had to for authenticity’s sake. Your family would have thought it was strange if my status said I was single and I didn’t make any mention of you.”