Page 8 of Faking with Three

“Jax Thompson?” she says. “The hockey player?”

“Yep,” I say. “But enough about me. You’re doing amazing work. If you have any tips for us, I’m all ears. Would love to learn from the expert.”

Olivia lets out a laugh, but there’s an edge to it, a kind of bitterness that surprises me. She shakes her head, closing her laptop and staring down at her coffee.

“Dating,” she says, with a rueful smile. “Let’s just say I’m probably the last person who should be giving advice on it. My personal life’s a bit of a... well, you remember that whole train-wreck phase back in college?”

“Oh, yeah,” I say, laughing. “The infamous Ben incident. Pretty sure half the campus heard about that one.”

She groans, putting her face in her hands. “Please, don’t remind me. Apparently, my luck with dating hasn’t improved much since then. I had a date just last week, actually. Some guy my friend set me up with. He walked in, saw me, and his first words were, ‘Oh, you’re... different than I imagined.’ By dessert, he was ‘suddenly’ called to a meeting at his gym. Hisgym, Ethan. On a Saturday night.”

“He seriously ditched you?’

“Left me with the check, too,” she says, rolling her eyes. “So, yeah. Bit of an ironic twist that I’m working on a dating simulator, given that my own dating life is pretty much a horror game at this point.”

I try to keep a straight face, but I can’t help laughing. “So, you’re saying you’re as much of an expert onwhat not to doas we are?”

“Exactly,” she says, laughing. “Though, hey, maybe that’s what people want. A brutally honest take on modern dating disasters. We could probably scare more people off dating than anything else.”

“Hey, that sounds like a niche,” I say, grinning when an idea strikes me, and before I’ve thought it through, I’m already saying it.

“You should come on the show and meet some men here.”

Olivia raises an eyebrow, her mouth twitching like she’s caught between laughing and looking for an exit. “You’re joking, right?”

“Nope. I’m serious,” I say, feeling that spark of a good idea start to catch fire. “Think about it, Liv. You’re here for a while, right? You’re working on this dating sim that needs some serious real-life inspiration. What better way to do some hands-on research?”

She narrows her eyes at me. “That’s…”

“The best idea I’ve ever had,” I say. “You’ve got the whole ‘disaster dating life’ angle—you just said so yourself. People would eat it up. You’d be this relatable, down-to-earth person diving back into the dating scene after a rough start. And I’m telling you, our viewers would love it.”

She stares at me, expression half-skeptical, half-intrigued. I can see her doing the math, probably trying to find all the ways this could crash and burn.

“What would that even look like?” she asks, hesitantly.

“Well, we’d set you up with a few of the most eligible bachelors this city has to offer, and you’d go on some dates. Nothing too heavy. Just see if any of it clicks—or if it’s a total train wreck. Either way, it’s good TV.”

Olivia crosses her arms, giving me a look. “And what happens if it is a total train wreck?”

“Don’t worry about that for now. Guys would line up to date you,” I say, and I really mean it.

She observes me, a strange look passing over her eyes.

“You’ve got a way of making a terrible idea sound almost reasonable, you know that?”

“It’s a gift,” I say, giving her my best hopeful smile. “So, what do you think? You game?”

She sighs, but there’s a spark of interest in her eyes. “I’ll think about it.”

CHAPTER 3

OLIVIA

Ethan leans backin his chair, his fingers wrapped around a coffee mug, and I swear he looks even better than the last time I saw him. The sunlight streaming through the window hits him just right, catching the sharp lines of his jaw, the curve of his lips, and the way his dark hair falls across his forehead. It’s almost annoying how effortlessly handsome he is, especially when he’s sitting here, trying to convince me of something I already told him I wasn’t interested in.

“Liv, just hear me out,” he says, leaning forward, his eyes locked on mine. They’re blue—deeper than I remembered, like the sky right before it storms.

“I’ve heard you out,” I say, trying to keep my voice level. “But it still sounds like a terrible idea.”

---