Page 28 of Fake it ’Til Fall

Tonight, she’s sitting at my table with mustard on her sleeve, a sandwich in her hand, my dog pressed against her leg like he’s filing adoption papers, and that damn smile on her face.

The fake one.

The one she uses like a door she can lock from the inside.

I hate that I know the difference.

Daisy takes another bite of the sandwich I bought her and looks at me like I’m the problem.

Which is funny because out of the two of us, she’s the one planning her cheating ex-fiancé’s wedding at her family’s vineyard while working two jobs and pretending a sealed granola bar counts as a daily meal.

“You’re doing it again,” she says.

I look down at the romance novel she shoved at me like a dare. “Reading?”

“Staring.”

“I’m not staring.”

“You are. It’s your forensic sandwich face.”

I turn a page. I don’t read a word. “Not a real thing.”

“It is now. You look like you’re trying to decide whether I’m eating correctly.”

“You’re not.”

She pauses with the sandwich halfway to her mouth. “There’s an incorrect way to eat a sandwich?”

I reach across the table and tap one crumb off the edge of the book before it can fall onto Puck’s head. “You’re turning dinner into a weather event.”

“Puck offered himself to the crumb gods.” She looks down at my dog and softens so fast it pisses me off. “He’s very generous with spiritual matters.”

My dog, traitor that he is, rests his chin on Daisy’s boot and sighs like he has never known comfort before this woman with mustard on her sleeve and too many feelings in her face.

My giant, emotionally needy dog with a vendetta against paper products and a disturbing attachment to Daisy Thorn.

“You ruined him,” I say.

Daisy looks down at Puck, then back at me. “With love?”

“With attention.”

“Those are often related. I understand why that confuses you.”

I should not enjoy that.

I do.

That’s the problem with Daisy. She says things that should annoy me, and they do, but they also wake up some part of my brain that’s been half-asleep for years. She talks like a person trying to win an argument with her own nervous system. She can insult me, ring up a customer, recommend a book, and emotionally dismantle herself in the same ninety seconds.

She is exhausting.

She is also the only person in this city who looks directly at me without flinching, flirting first, or waiting to ask about hockey like my career is an old injury she’s entitled to press.

At The Turning Page, I’m not the guy from the clips.

Not the name people say with a wince before adding, Talented, sure, but he’s an asshole and a cautionary tale for everyone.