Page 105 of Fake it ’Til Fall

Forrest: But there won’t be social media. No Boston sightings. No using The Turning Page or anything here.

My fingers pause over the screen.

Daisy: Aww. You’re honoring the contract again.

Forrest: Don’t sound surprised.

Daisy: I’m not. I’m touched. It’s very inconvenient.

Forrest: Recover quickly.

Daisy: See? This is why no one lets you write sympathy cards.

Forrest: Great news. I won’t be the one writing sympathy cards in this fake relationship. I’ll offer to do dishes instead. Only during fake dates.

Daisy: Deal. Romantic, practical, and mildly appliance-adjacent. Very on brand.

I look down at the notebook.

THE ROLLOUT. DO NOT PANIC.

Maybe that’s the problem. A rollout sounds like a launch. A campaign. Something with captions and angles and two people pretending not to know where the camera is.

Forrest and I are bad enough at pretending when no one is watching.

Adding a performance in Boston would only make the lie look shinier.

And shinier is always easier to spot.

Daisy: So what? We just show up in Winterberry and let people notice?

Forrest: Mom mentioned she’d love to have us for lunch soon. Next weekend, if possible.

Daisy: If we visit your mom, we’ll have to visit mine.

Forrest: See, we already have two dates and it’s not even Monday. What else can we possibly do there?

Daisy: Help at the vineyard over the weekend. Mid-October means peak foliage, harvest crush, tasting room traffic, vendor calls, crate labeling, checking event spaces, and my mother pretending the grapes personally betrayed her by ripening on a schedule.

Forrest: Sounds relaxing.

Daisy: It’s basically a spa weekend if your spa includes manual labor, family tension, and women named Marlene asking if you’re “really ready to date again.”

Forrest: I can carry crates.

Daisy: Good. I can carry emotional baggage. Between us, we’re a full-service couple.

Forrest: Fake couple.

Daisy: Right. Sorry. Full-service fraudulent couple.

Forrest: Better.

Daisy: This is going to be awful.

Forrest: Probably.

Daisy: Oddly reassuring.