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Alex
Yara’s and my photograph made front page news for the Honey Creek newspaper, and we became inseparable after the Snack on Hillstack. Seeing her open up to me, trust me enough to see her fall apart, made me want to do the same with her. I wanted to share my bad days and my good. I wanted to tell her things that I kept to myself. I wanted to show more of me the way she showed herself.
Being around her was making me better. Being near her was making me whole again.
Between the training with Feliz, dog park trips, and fake dating activities, we seen each other more often than not. I wasn’t complaining about it at all. Being around her made the long days feel less hard.
But dog training wasn’t the only kind of training that was taking place. One early morning while we were apple picking, I had to sit her down on a hayride and call her out.
“I ran into Avery the other day, and she told me you’re letting people get away with robbing you,” I mentioned.
“Since when are you and Avery on speaking terms?”
“Since she told me to call you out on the fact that people are taking advantage of you at your shop, and you won’t listen to them and beat them with bats.”
She laughed, and I wanted to kiss each of her dimples. “It’s really fine. The festival helped me a lot.”
“And what about after that?” I asked her. “After that money is gone? Yara, you can’t continue this. So I am going to train you now.” I placed my hands on her shoulders and stared straight into her eyes. “We are going to practice you telling these people to piss off. I’ll be the customer, and you’ll be you but like a me version of you.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You want me to be a black cat?”
“Exactly!”
She rolled her shoulders back and shimmied a little. “Okay, got it. I can do that. Let’s do it.”
I rubbed my hands together and lowered my brows. “Hi, Yara. I know I owe you almost a thousand dollars. But you see, my grandmother’s best friend’s secret lover Lloyd needs a hip replacement and—”
“Oh my goodness, is Lloyd going to be okay?!” she cut in.
I pointed a stern finger her way. “Yara, no.”
She pouted. “Oh, right.” She cleared her throat and puffed out her chest. “I’m sorry to hear about Lloyd, and I’m sending you my thoughts.”
I patted her knee. “Well, sweetheart, thoughts and prayers aren’t going to pay for Lloyd’s hip. You know, it’s his fifteenth surgery in the last five weeks, this poor guy. And this is the final one that will heal him from his toes to his forehead.”
Her eyes flashed with emotions over a fictional character. “Poor Lloyd!”
“Goldie!”
“What! Sorry, that’s a lot of surgeries and—”
“Goldie.”
She sighed. “I’m sorry you’re going through that, but if I wish to keep this dog day care open, we have to charge people for the services.”
I leaned in and whispered, “And I, Yara, know that my services are worth what I’m charging.”
She nodded and repeated my words. “And I, Yara, know that my services are worth what I’m charging.”
I whispered again, “Now pay up, you cheapskate, before I call my sister to beat you up.”
She laughed. “I’m not saying that.”
“You should say that.”
“I’ll consider it.”
I leaned back. “Seriously, Yara. Stop letting these people walk all over you. Be stern. Be direct. Be bold. And when they try to make you waver, stand strong. Don’t bend.”
“Don’t bend.” She nodded. She grasped my hands with hers. “Now that that’s handled. Can I ask you something very important and very serious, Mr. Black?”
“Anything.”
She inched closer to me and locked her eyes with mine. “Can we get a few pumpkins after this, then go home and carve them? And can you make some super yummy apple dessert with these? And then we can roast pumpkin seeds?”
I chuckled. “That’s your serious question?”
“Yes. Extremely serious. And I know that our fake relationship is supposed to be for outside activities and such, but…I figured even if we are just friends, maybe we can do friends dates inside.”
Friends.
Why did that word feel so deeply painful to me? When did my heart’s position shift on the idea of her, too? There was a day when I thought the mere idea of her was ridiculous. Now, I couldn’t imagine a morning without her knocking on my door for morning walks. I couldn’t imagine not seeing her smile, hearing her laughter, and holding her hand—fake or not.
I liked her.
I liked her so much that it made me want to vomit because I knew whatever we were was simply to get Cole off her back. But at some point, the pretending began to feel a little too real.
Then again, I wasn’t certain I’d ever started to pretend in the first place.
