That’s the anything?

Cashing in on our prom promise? Isn’t that what we’ve always done? First with Emily, and later with Drew the third and his pens, with Hazel and her tea, and with all the other douche exes we’ve both had.

But not for three weeks.

More like for a few minutes, an hour, a night.

And now we’re making believe for twenty-one long days. I should be dreading it, like a twenty-one-day paprika-infused juice cleanse.

When someone cashes in a voucher for a debt you owe, it’s not supposed to be enjoyable.

But being Oliver’s pretend fiancée doesn’t sound that bad.

It sounds weirdly sort of fun, when he explains why he needs one.

Like being immersed in a great romance novel.

Hell, maybe, just maybe, a touch of pretend will eradicate those occasionally pesky tingles from my body. Satisfy a craving or my curiosity perhaps.

I confirm I heard him right. “So, let me get this straight. I wrote a letter for a contest extolling your virtues as an ex, the internet misinterpreted it, your client freaked out, and your solution is for us to pretend we’re engaged?”

He quirks up an I’m so clever brow. “Brilliant, right?”

I laugh. “That’s one word for it.” I shake my head, but I’m already in, and we know it. “A deal is a deal, and no prom promise shall be reneged on. So we better lay out the rules.”

His eyes twinkle with delight, and maybe relief too. “We should. Rules are good, right?”

“Rules are vital for any game people play.”

As if we’d planned it, we both gesture to the park as if to say, Let’s walk and talk. There’s no need to say it. It’s one of the things we do, and the park is my favorite place in the city.

We used to hop the train in from Connecticut and do teen things, and we usually ended up in the park eventually.

Heading into the park, we roll up our fake fiancée planning sleeves. “So, how did this happen? Well, besides the obvious. My letter. I’m sorry for it,” I say, and I feel like I’ll be apologizing for this for the rest of my life.

“Don’t. It was quite sweet.” His tone is neutral, though, and I can’t tell what he means. “Even if it was nearly deadly to my business.”

I cringe. “So what happened?”

“I didn’t see it at first, so I was a tad surprised when Jane alerted me to the things people were saying.”

“Ah, Jane. Looks innocent on the outside, loves gossip on the inside,” I say.

“That describes her to a T. Though it’s a useful trait in an aunt who runs the reception desk. In any case, she tipped me off, showed me the comments, then Geneva rang.” As we wander through the park, he goes into how his key new client reacted.

“And that’s when I realized, I had to cash in on the prom promise,” he continues. “But we should probably get our story straight. Like, how this happened, and so on.”

I tap my chest. “I’ve got this. You’ve come to the Queen of Brilliant Schemes. I’m thinking we keep it easy—we say we’ve known each other for ages, and⁠—”

He snaps his fingers. “You fell for me when you saw me get out of the pool. Couldn’t keep your hands off me, and we’ve been shagging like bunnies every night since.”

I blink. “Whoa.”

My mind is a carousel now. The merry-go-round of my brain whirls past an arousing array of images of Oliver unable to keep his hands off me.

Because, hey, this is my inconvenient fantasy, and in it, he can’t get enough of me.

But there is one little issue nagging at me, back where I can hear Stella’s voice in my head. “So, that’s how it happened? Your fake fiancée backstory starts with shagging?”

He scratches his head. “Yeah. I mean, how else would it start?” The corner of his lips curves up into the cheekiest of grins as we near the carousel.

Carnival music floats out from the ride, a nostalgic sound that reminds me of our times traipsing through the park on weekend escapes into the city. I told Oliver once that I planned to have my first real kiss in front of the carousel. And now we’re talking about banging.

“Right. Naturally, it started with sex,” I say, deadpan, and I’m thinking Stella is right. Good-looking men have no clue.

Women fall at their feet.

“Precisely. A very stellar shag,” he adds.

Naturally, Oliver would assume I caught one look at his banana hammock at the pool and had to get his man meat between my thighs.

God damn it.

Why does Stella have to be a soothsayer?

Oliver is surely awful in bed.

I raise a palm as we near the pretty ponies. “Or, hear me out, we could keep the bedroom part private and maybe just say something generic, like After years of friendship, we realized the one we wanted was right in front of us.”

He snorts. “Boring.”

“Seriously? That’s boring? It’s kind of sweet.”

“Nope. It’s dull. After years of friendship, we can’t just have a light bulb moment. We need fireworks.” He mimes an explosion with both arms. “A parade. A twenty-one-gun salute in honor of our hormones finally getting on the same page,” he says.

“Fine, yes. That could work. Or maybe,” I say, as if offering an outlandish idea, “how would you feel if it wasn’t about hormones? If maybe it was about—gasp— feelings?”

He sighs dramatically. “Only if we can still have fireworks. Don’t you get me, Summer?” He grabs my shoulders, gripping me. “We need the story of our fireworks.”

Fireworks. The thing we will never have because the Law of Good-Looking equals bad in bed is as inescapable as E equals MC squared.

This entire conversation is pretty much confirmation.

“Fine.” I wave a hand airily, searching for a tale that’ll satisfy him. “Let’s say one night while you were helping me plan the gym, I went over to review paperwork, we got stuck in the elevator, and all our pent-up truths came out.”

“Elevator, you say? Can we have shagged in it?”

I slug him. “Yes, you sex-obsessed pervert. You are America’s Worst Boyfriend.” I laugh, and he grabs me, putting me in a chokehold.