Page 24 of Plotting Summer

“That’s not happening.” I gesture to the whole of me. “This is friend-zone material. Not double-dating material.”

“Yeah right. I totally saw how he helped you out of the boat earlier. It was so sweet.”

“I promise you, that’s Tristan being Tristan. He made it crystal clear—on multiple occasions today—that we’re just friends.”

She pushes herself to a sitting position, her brown eyes locked on me. “What exactly did he say?”

I give a messy explanation of our previous conversations along with the whole arrangement and how it came about, all while trying to ignore Jane’s perpetual, and completely unhelpful, smile. To prove my point, I pull out my phone and show her the text he sent when he got my number.

TRISTAN

TRISTAN PALMER

That’s it. No playful comment or teasing. Just his name. “See … friend zone.”

Her lips purse thoughtfully. “Even if you’re right, which I’m not sure you are, it doesn’t matter. Now that you’re spending more time together, he’s totally going to fall for you and make all those dreams of yours come true.” Jane’s always been a glass-half-full person, and I love her for it, though I have to take her optimism with a grain of salt. Or a large chunk, depending. Her eyes go wide. “It’s the friends-to-lovers trope. Oh, and obviously secret crush.”

“What’s the trope for my stealing his name and writing a fictional romance book about us?”

Her head quirks to the side as if she’s taking my question seriously. “Definitely secret identity with a last-to-know twist. Or possibly hidden past. Though yours isn’t very dark.”

I groan and throw back my head. “Why didn’t you stop me from using Sunny Palmer as my pen name?”

“Are you kidding me? That’s the absolute best author name in existence. And the poetic justice …” She gives a contented sigh. “So romantic.”

“Unrequited love,” I mumble, all too aware of what my actual trope would be if they truly existed in real life.

“More like belated love epiphany.” Jane’s hand comes to rest on mine. “You just wait. By the time you leave, Tristan’s going to be completely smitten by you.”

I laugh, but in a humorless way. “Especially once I tell him my secret identity.”

Jane goes still. “You’re going to tell him?”

I grab the magazine I bought at the store and open to the dog-eared page, flipping it so she can read the article, The Hunt for Sunny Palmer.

Her eyes enlarge as she reads it to herself. After a minute she glances up. “Do you think they’ll figure out you’re Sunny Palmer?”

“I have no idea, but that’s honestly why I agreed to his plan. My hope is that if Tristan and I can actually become friends, I’ll be able to tell him before he finds out some other way. He deserves a heads up to the kind of chaos that might ensue if anyone does figure it out.” The very thought of the impending conversation has my stomach souring.

“Did you send the article to Maven?”

“Yeah. She texted back during dinner. She says not to be too concerned, though we’re going to fine-tune our PR strategy on the off chance the news does get out.”

Jane’s eyes are moving across the page again. “This is crazy. You’re in a magazine! How cool is that?” She smiles at me, but it lessens when she sees my unenthusiastic expression. “Obviously the reason for it isn’t the best, but they’re talking about you. I bet you’ll see a huge spike in book sales.”

“They’re talking about Sunny Palmer, not me. At least for now. Which is why I need to figure out how to tell Tristan in a way that …” My words trail off. For someone who writes books for a living, phrasing things in real life is no easy feat. “Basically, in a way that won’t make me look like some sort of love-crazed nutjob.”

“He’s not going to think that. Honestly, I bet he’ll be touched by the whole thing.”

See what I mean about the optimism? Her and Tala both, apparently. “Yeah, in a how-sweet-but-I’m-going-to-lock-my-doors-and-never-talk-to-her-again sort of way.” Which is the reaction I’m expecting, so I have to be okay with it. “I’m hoping if I lean into the ‘In high school I may have had a bit of a crush on you and did something a little wild and a lot stupid’ side of things, it won’t go over as poorly as it otherwise could.”

“Well, I honestly can’t believe you’re going to tell him. That’s big. Like really big.” She pauses. “Does this mean you’re going to tell other people too?”

“Just my family, but I feel like I can’t until Tristan knows. He needs to hear it from me first.”

“Well, if it means you’ll come home more so I don’t have to travel two hours every time I want to see you, I’m all for it.” She lies flat on the bed again, staring up at the ceiling. “Where do you think he’s going to take you tomorrow?”

I do likewise, stretching out on the bed next to her, my legs dangling off the edge. “I don’t know. It has to be somewhere on Sunset Harbor, since that’s the whole point of it.”