Page 105 of Once Smitten, Twice Shy

Kate shuts the door and smiles.

I glance between them. “What’s up? Why are you here?”

Bea’s presence makes sense, but not Kate’s. Kate’s not even working the sale today. She had a photography shoot booked this morning with a nonprofit devoted to preventing food insecurity, her photos slated to be used in a feature article. She couldn’t back out of that, even though we definitely could have used the help.

“Just wrapped up my shoot,” Kate says, “and a little birdie told me another little birdie was on the struggle bus.”

I frown at Bea. Bea doesn’t look sheepish or sorry at all. “I’ve known you since we were zygotes,” she says. “I can tell when you’re not okay, even if you say you are.”

“You didn’tknowme when we were zygotes,” I grumble, leaning back against the wall and propping my feet up on a box. “We weren’t conscious beings at that point.”

“My point still stands.” Bea plops down on the floor beside me and clasps my hand. “You don’t have to tell us, but if you want to, we’re here.” She glances toward our sister as Kate eases onto a box labeled4” x 6“ matte card stockand smiles encouragingly.

Kate then digs around in her cross-body bag and pulls out a small pastry box. “Or you can just sit here and eat your feelings.”

I hesitate for a second, then slowly reach for the box. “Maybe…I can do a little bit of both?”

Kate grins, whipping open the box. “That’s the spirit.”

—

Bea’s mouth hangs open with her dark chocolate cupcake, her expression shocked. Kate’s got cream cheese frosting on her nose from startling so badly at my news, right when she was about to bite into her pumpkin cupcake.

“Wait.” Bea chews twice, then swallows what was clearly still an uncomfortably large bite. “So you and Will have been romantic for weeks?”

“Practicing romance,” I emphasize.

“I’m gonna need a little more than that,” Kate says weakly.

I tell my sisters about Will’s and my plan, hatched in Christopher’s backyard, the practice dates, the flirty texts, the idea I had to incorporate him into our friend group to avoid raising suspicion.

“But then…practicing,” I say quietly, staring down at my hands, “it…stopped feeling like practice. It felt…”

“Real,” Bea says gently.

I glance up, meeting her eyes, searching them. “Yeah.”

Bea smiles and pats my hand. “I have some experience with how the lines between rehearsing and reality can blur when you’re pretending with someone.”

“You do?”

Bea squints an eye and tips her head from side to side. “Yeah,” she says sheepishly, glancing between Kate and me. “Jamie and I, when we were first”—she makes air quotes—“ ‘dating,’ we weren’t really. We were faking it.”

My mouth falls open. “Youwhat?”

Kate kicks her feet in the air, squealing delightedly. “What aturn! I didnotsee that coming!”

“Well,” Bea says, meeting my eyes, “I mean, you and the douche waffle and the friend group were all up in our business, trying to pair us up when we didnotwant to be paired up, so we decided we’d fake date and get you all super invested in us, then break up in epic fashion and crush your hopes, teach you a lesson about meddling.”

“Jesus, BeeBee.” I blink, stunned. “I…Wow. Ineverpicked up on it being fake. I didn’t even catch a whiff of a performance.”

“That’s because,” she says, a smile lifting her mouth, “it really wasn’t, at least, not for long. Of course, at first it was, but we quickly figured out we were going to be garbage at passing as a couple unless we spent some time together and got to know each other well enough to pass as a believable couple. So we started hanging out, talking, trying to understand each other, and…we ended up falling for each other.”

A disbelieving smile breaks across my face. “You fell in love whilepretendingto love each other.”

She nods. “Yeah, we did. I mean, we hit a bit of a bump in the road, of course—”

“Because of him.” I refuse to even say my ex’s name. We all know whom I’m talking about. Guilt sits heavy in my stomach. “That’s why you broke up, wasn’t it?”

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