The navy turnout jacket swallows me, smelling like smoke and pine and something metallic. It’s too big. I look like a child who stole her dad’s coat. I refuse to take it off.
“It’s cold,” I lie.
“Sure,” she says, laughing.
I grab my coffee, cupcake, and what’s left of my dignity and head out.
Tonight: trivia. Later tonight: charity bonfire in the town square. Always: pretending not to stare at Clay’s hands.
Lucky me.
The ladies’ book club meets in the back of The Copper Kettle, which is hilarious because they talk louder than the Friday soccer dads. When I walk in, they all swivel.
“There she is!” Marta from the post office squeals. “Where’s your fiancé?”
“He’s on shift,” I lie. “He’ll meet us at the bonfire.”
“Oh, good,” she says. “We can test your chemistry there.”
“I did not consent to being a town science experiment.”
They ignore me.
We pair off for trivia. I get shoved in the front with a whiteboard and a dry erase marker that smells like terror. Categories flash up on the projector:
– Small-Town Romance Tropes
– Fire Safety
– Spicy Scene Guessing Game (??)
– Know Your Partner
“Uh,” I say, lifting my hand, “we’re still early days, so?—”
Marta winks. “That’s okay. We know more about him than you do.”
“Comforting.”
“Question one,” she says, adjusting her glasses. “How old was Clay when he joined the Hotshots?”
I blink.
Everyone else writes.
“You’re kidding.”
“Tick tock, lovebird.”
I write 20 with a question mark.
They look at me like I just spilled soup on the Constitution. “Twenty-two,” Marta says, tsking. “You two need to talk more.”
By the time trivia is over, my brain is a casserole of gossip. I know what year Clay won the Firehouse Chili Cookoff, what river he pulled a drunk fisherman out of, and that he once dated a nurse named Kendall for a week but she didn’t like dogs.
I also know I cannot let the town out-know me about my own fake fiancé.
Which is how I end up at the bonfire early, in boots and paint-streaked overalls over a thermal shirt, hair in a messy knot, standing there sweating in the cold like an idiot because I’m nervous.
