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Ian nods. “Anything to get people not talking about me and my bullshit, apparently.”
His tone sounds almost defeated, and it takes all I have not to reach across the table and grab his hand if only to try to comfort him. I’ve done my best over the years to avoid the gossip about Ian, and suddenly, I’m wondering if that would have been time better spent on a burner account kicking social media ass on his behalf.
“Well,” I say, my voice teasing, “I could always take out the naysayers.” I punch my open palm. “Handle the problem.”
“No,” he snorts. “I know how you ‘handle problems.’ ”
“If you’re talking about Kevin Powers—they never proved it was me.”
He arches a brow. “Are you saying you didn’t put a dead fish in his duffel bag?”
“He fractured your collarbone!”
“During practice! It’s hockey,” he laughs. “People get hurt.”
“Yeah, well,” I grumble. “He was always too rough with you.”
“His jersey smelled like fish for weeks.”
“Well, whoever put that fish in his bag was probably justified.”
That forlorn expression is gone now, and in its place is a warm smile that I know too well. It’s half the reason I was so obsessed with him. It’s hard not to be, when he smiles like that.
“You made like three dozen cupcakes to cheer me up.”
“I was just trying new recipes,” I sniff. “It was totally coincidental.”
He arches a brow. “Oh, was it?”
“Okay, no,” I admit. “I was totally trying to cheer you up.”
“But then I threw up all over Bea’s rug. If I didn’t have the fracture, I think she would have whooped my ass.”
“No one told you to eat seven in one sitting, Cupcake.”
His grin widens, setting off a flurry of little flutters in my stomach.
“Well, I was very grateful that someone had my back,” he says softly.
I nod, feeling my cheeks heat. I don’t say that I’ll always have his back, because it sounds lame even in my head. I focus my attention on a bit of chipped nail polish on my thumb, going for casual. “So, what do you think?”
His brow cocks. “What do I think?”
“Yes. About all of this. Is this something you want to do?”
“It’s not just up to me, Lila, it’s up to you too.”
“That’s not what I asked. I asked if it’s something you want to do.”
I don’t know if it’s my tone or my words that take him by surprise, but I can tell it does from the small part to his lips, the widening of his eyes. I watch a dozen emotions play across his face as he considers the question, finally looking resigned and somehow small despite his massive frame when his shoulders slump.
“I won’t lie to you and pretend it wouldn’t be nice not to hear about strangers picking apart all my bad decisions for once, but I mean it when I say it’s not just up to me. My team tells me that this could be good for you with views and all, and if that’s true, then yeah, I think it’s great that we could help each other out. But that being said, I would never want to push you into something you’re not comfortable doing. We haven’t really spent the sort of time together that we used to in a long while. We’re just getting our footing back in this friendship, and if you think this is too weird, then I will stand by that one hundred percent, our teams be damned. I’ll tell both of them to go fuck themselves before I let them pressure you.”
I feel stunned by his confession, and a little touched too. He looks so serious, so sure of himself that he would handle all of this if it’s not something I want. That is definitely the Ian I remember. He was always one breath away from diving into a problem headfirst if it meant making sure someone he cared about didn’t have to. It’s just one of the many reasons I was always so gone for him. Still, the mention of his own troubles and the buzz about his past tugs at my heartstrings.
I want to ask about it, want to in a way I have for years but have been too chickenshit to do so—but I keep my mouth shut instead, thinking. Logically, I know that agreeing to this farce wouldn’t actually require us to do much. Hanging out, being seen a little bit, teasing the public, as it were—it’s nothing. Or it should be nothing, if you don’t have complicated feelings for your partner in crime. And would it even work? Would anyone really care if Ian and I looked a little too friendly?
Movement catches my eye outside the window we’re sitting in front of, and I notice a couple of girls standing across the sidewalk, not-so-surreptitiously taking a picture of the pair of us with their phones. When they notice me watching, they both have the grace to look sheepish, quickly scuttling away.
