“He started it.”
“I’m finishing it,” Grandma June declares. “Both of you, out of my kitchen. We’ve got serious baking to do. And I want all these cookies cut out before breakfast.”
“What if I want to help?” I protest.
“You want to hover and make googly eyes at Clare,” Maddie corrects. “There’s a difference.”
She’s not wrong. I do want to stay here, want to watch Clare laugh and see her eyes light up when she successfully cuts a perfect star-shaped cookie. I want to memorize the way she looks with flour in her hair and happiness on her face.
I want to forget that this is all pretend.
“Go,” Clare says, shooing me toward the door. “Let us work in peace.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.” But when she looks at me, there’s something in her expression that tugs at me—she really is comfortable here.
As I head toward the living room, I catch Evan’s knowing look.
“What?”
“Nothing,” he says, but his grin suggests otherwise. “Just... she fits too well. Watch out.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means,” he says, clapping me on the shoulder, “that you’re looking at her like she’s something you want to keep. And that terrifies you.”
He’s right, and that’s the problem.
Because watching Clare bake cookies with my grandmother, seeing her laugh at Maddie’s terrible jokes and accept Mom’s fussing with grace—she’s a littletoogood at making me forget this is all pretend.
Too good at making me want things I can’t have.
Too good at making me remember what it feels like to hope for something real.
Chapter Eleven
Morning Thoughts
Clare
The hot shower was supposed to wash away the memory of waking up tangled around Mitchell, like he was my personal space heater. It didn’t work.
I can still feel the ghost of his arm around my waist, the steady rhythm of his breathing against my neck, the way his body had curved protectively around mine in that ridiculously small bed. For a few blissful moments, before full consciousness kicked in, it had felt natural. Right. Like I belonged exactly where I was.
Then reality crashed back, along with the mortifying realization that I’d basically used him as a full-body pillow all night.
He’d been awake when I stirred—I could tell from the tension in his muscles and the careful way he was breathing. But he’d stayed perfectly still, letting me extract myself without having to acknowledge the intimacy of how we’d been sleeping.
Such a gentleman. Even when his fake girlfriend turns into an octopus overnight.
Now I’m sitting at the Drake family breakfast table, freshly showered and trying to pretend my skin doesn’t still tingle from the memory of his warmth, while Karen piles enough food on my plate to feed a small army.
“You’re too skinny,” she declares, adding another pancake to my already overflowing plate. “Mitchell, make sure she eats.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he says, sliding into the chair beside me. He smells like soap and warm male—distracting enough to make my pulse skip. “Though Clare’s pretty good at taking care of herself.”
His knee brushes mine under the table, and I have to bite back the urge to lean into the contact.