Page 81 of Play Along With Me
I realize I'm grinning at my phone like a teenager with her first crush. Not a good look for a near-thirty professional faker of relationships.
"It's complicated," I tell Marcos, which might be the understatement of the century.
"Isn't it always?" he says with the world-weary wisdom of someone who's witnessed countless coffee shop romances bloom and wither. "Two more hours until close. Think you can handle it while I do inventory?"
"No problem," I assure him, grateful for the distraction of work.
But as the afternoon stretches into evening, my phone continues to buzz with texts from Jake. What starts as follow-up about dinner plans evolves into an ongoing conversation about everything and nothing—his favorite books growing up (mostly sports biographies but secretly The Hobbit), my disastrousattempt at making sourdough during the pandemic ("It achieved sentience and tried to stage a coup"), his pre-game routines ("Less weird than some goalies, but I do have to put my left pad on first"), my collection of weird coffee orders from the café ("A guy yesterday asked for a 'moistened cappuccino,' and I'm still trying to scrub that phrase from my brain").
It's easy. Too easy. The back-and-forth feels natural, like we've been doing this for years instead of days. And beneath the banter, there's a current of something else—a connection that's becoming harder to dismiss as merely part of our charade.
By the time my shift ends, I have three new texts from Jake, and the uneasy feeling in my stomach has transformed into full-blown panic. This isn't fake anymore, not on my end. And I have no idea what to do about it.
"You've been texting Hockey Jesus for three hours straight," Leila observes as I sprawl on my couch, halfway through a pint of ice cream, some reality show paused on the TV. "Either this fake relationship is very detailed, or there's something you're not telling me."
"It's just maintaining the cover story," I say unconvincingly. "His parents think we're dating, so we need to have, you know, couple knowledge."
"Couple knowledge," Leila repeats skeptically. "Like his childhood pet's name and his favorite ice cream flavor?"
"Exactly," I nod. "Rocky was a golden retriever, and it's mint chocolate chip. Very important fake girlfriend information."
"Uh-huh," Leila says, reclaiming her spoon. "And do his parents have access to your text message history? Can they see how often you're communicating with their son? Or is this just for your own... thoroughness?"
I hate when Leila uses logic against me. It's unfair and annoying and unfortunately effective.
"It's just... it started as updating about dinner plans, and then it kind of... continued," I admit.
"Because you like him," Leila states, not a question but a conclusion.
"I don't know him well enough to like him," I counter weakly.
"You've had dinner with his parents, brunch with his parents, met his ex-girlfriend, and texted him approximately nine thousand times in the past forty-eight hours," Leila points out. "That's more quality time than you spent with Trevor the Penmanship Dad in your entire relationship."
"That was one date, not a relationship."
"Exactly my point," Leila says triumphantly. "So stop pretending this is still just a favor for a stranger. You're into him."
I groan, burying my face in a couch cushion. "It doesn't matter if I am. This whole thing is pretend, Leila. How do you transition from 'I pretended to be your girlfriend to help you avoid awkwardness with your ex' to 'Actually, I'd like to be your real girlfriend now'?"
"You could try saying exactly that," Leila suggests. "Radical honesty."
I stare at her like she's sprouted a second head. "Have you met me? I deflect genuine emotions with jokes. It's my entire personality."
"It's not your personality, it's your defense mechanism," Leila corrects gently. "There's a difference."
She's right, of course. Humor has been my shield since childhood—a way to deal with my parents' messy divorce, the constant moving between their homes, the feeling of never quite belonging in either place. If I could make people laugh, they wouldn't notice the sadness underneath. If I cracked jokes first, I controlled the narrative.
By high school, I was known as the funny girl, the one with the quick comeback, the one who never took anything too seriously. It was safer that way. People expected humor from me, not vulnerability. And I delivered.
The pattern continued through college, through my relationship with Daniel, through every job and social situation. Keep them laughing, keep them at arm's length. Don't let them see the soft parts, the scared parts, the parts that want more than what I've convinced myself I deserve.
"It's worked pretty well for me so far," I say finally.
"Has it?" Leila challenges. "You're posing as the fake girlfriend of a guy you actually like because it's safer than admitting you might want something real. That doesn't sound like it's working to me."
"He asked me on a real date," I say. "After the dinner with his parents and Jessica. He said he wanted to take me out—no parents, no exes, just us."
"And?" Leila prompts. "That's good, right?"
