Page 19 of No Summer Hotter than You

“Yeah! I did! I made you a special vanilla syrup,” I said, taking the seat across from her. I noticed the way she quickly uncapped her pen. “Someone sure is excited to get the ball rolling.”

She shot me a pointed look. “Evelyn and her cousin are arriving later today. If we don’t get it together, then all of this will unravel and hit the fan.”

“You sound so pessimistic about this,” I scoffed. “Are you that worried that we’re not going to convince them? We’ll be fine.”

“I’m not worried. I just want to make sure we both know what the rules are and what we’re in for.”

“Fine.” I grabbed the pen out of her hand and the legal pad from her side and started writing. “Number one, we can’t tell anyone that our relationship is fake besides Julie, Andy, and Jonathan. If anyone would call us out on our shit, it’d be them anyways.”

“You have to add Jackie and Alicia to it too.”

I gave her an unconvinced look. “I don’t trust them.”

“Anthony, they’ll be fine. The last person you should worry about is probably yourself. The chances of you slipping and telling everyone this is all a lie is significantly higher than them.”

Feeling flustered about how accurate she was, I muttered, “Fine. Moving on to two. If anyone asks, say that we gradually fell in love with one another after . . .” I started to trail off, unsure.

“After we bought this duplex together.” She sounded slightly irritated. “See? We need to get this down if we want it to work because you don’t even remember what we discussed last night in the rideshare home.”

I shook my head at her as she sipped her coffee. “We talked about so much that I simply forgot. Besides, it would add a touch of authenticity if I can’t pinpoint how we fall in love, right? We’ve been friends forever, so I’m sure people would still believe me even if I say I can’t remember.”

Her lips pursed a bit into a little pout. “I think we should still have a story about how we supposedly fell in love with one another.”

“Fine, we can say that we fell in love last year—after your accident. If we go with that, I’ll remember it easier.” I noticed the way Shoua blinked after an unreadable emotion flashed across her eyes. “That’s fine, right? Or?—”

“It’s perfect.”

I smiled. “Great. Three, touch or peck one another only when necessary. If we have to kiss on the lips, then go for the corner.”

“Fine by me. For four,” Shoua continued. Although her voice was serious, her face said otherwise. A bright blush had quickly crept up her neck as I noted down our number three. “We can’t tell my family that we’re together, even if it’s fake.”

“Why not?” I frowned. “That defeats the purpose of this whole ordeal, Shoua. I doubt Aunt Sue and Evelyn are going to believe us if your family doesn’t even know.”

“They’ll just find out when everyone else finds out,” she said as she shrugged, almost too casually. “Look—I just don’t want my mom going around and saying things, all right? You know how much she loves to gossip.”

True. Shoua’s mom was a huge gossiper. Although my mom and Auntie Yee—Jonathan and Julie’s mom—loved to talk, they only talked about family drama with their siblings. Shoua’s mom, on the other hand, was a talker. She knew all the ins and outs about practically everyone in the Hmong community.

“That’s the last thing we need,” I said, writing it down. “Five?”

“No dating other people in the duration of this.”

“Is sex added into that?”

“For the love of god, Anthony, can’t you keep your dick in your pants for at least a month?—”

“No, it’s not that. All I’m saying is that if we’re not allowed to date other people, then we shouldn’t be having sex with other people either,” I countered. “It’ll be suspicious if you or me leave the bar with other people if we go out.”

“Sure, if you’re all right with that. No dating or sex with other people.” Shoua nodded.

“Six, this will all end the moment Aunt Sue, Evelyn, and Kelvin leave,” I said with certainty. I quickly jotted it down and passed Shoua the legal pad.

“Perfect.” She quickly looked everything over and then up at me. “Looks like we have a plan.”

I stuck my hand out to hers and we shook on it. Shoua was right. We needed to talk about all this to outline the rules of this fake relationship was.

“I’ll see you later,” I said, getting up from my chair. “Evelyn and Kelvin are arriving right at noon, so we need to head out around eleven-ish to go get Aunt Sue at my parents’ place.”

Shoua sipped on her coffee, looking bored. “Yay, I’m so excited.” Her voice was flat with indifference.

---