Page 53 of The Roommate Lie

She nods, and I can’t help what happens next. It’s an impulse. A byproduct of all the lectures I’ve received over the past two days from some mean old birds.

Sliding our paper back toward me, I add one more item to her Naughty List. My favorite item.

3. Make Alice’s ex jealous

That surprises her. As if Alice had never considered that angle before, as if she hadn’t been thinking about her ex at all. But the delight on her face is unmistakable. I could see that look every single day and always want more.

She holds up her glass. “To our to-do lists.”

Dread mingles with the excitement in my stomach, but I ignore it. Fake dating Alice is the worst idea I’ve ever had, the worst choice I could ever make. It won’t last, and losing her is going to bring me to my knees.

But I raise my glass. Clanking my Dr. Pepper against her raspberry lemonade as I walk straight into a disaster. “To our to-do lists.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

ALICE

When we get home, I have my fake-Jason short story figured out. Less than two hours later, the draft is finished. Maybe it isn’t the epic romance I planned for those characters, nothing like the manuscript I struggled with for almost a year, but it’s better than that.

It’s finished.

Goodbye, Fake Jason.

Once I get back to Texas, it’ll only take a few days to finish his story off completely, to get it edited, formatted, and out of my writing life once and for all. And I can’t wait.

But for now? It’s time to write something new.Finally.

Back at Terry’s Bistro, Charlie helped me figure that out too. After we finished our to-do list, we harnessed the power of his Fishbowl of Destiny technique to nail down my newest heroine, Constance Bright. Now she gets to meet the man of her dreams at a masquerade ball.

What bliss.

I love reading scenes like that in other people’s novels. I’m not sure why I’ve never written a masked ball of my own, but I’m ready to make up for lost time. Excitement bubbles in mychest as I open a new document on my laptop. Before I can start writing, Lydia gets home from her internship at the local art museum, and all that excitement fizzles.

She greets me as Cookie paces by her feet with his beloved stuffed bee. Instead of greeting her back like a normal human being, I make things real weird, real fast. Unable to shake a question that’s followed me around since we met.

“Are you…interested in Charlie? Because, if not?—”

Lydia cuts me off with a squeal of delight, her eyes brimming with Ultimate Joy. “You andCharlie?”She clasps her hands and beams at me, getting it all wrong. “This. Is.Amazing.”

No.

No, no, no.

I wave my hands. “Oh—it’s not—I mean, he’s nice, but we aren’t—he isn’t—I’m not.” I almost pass out in a frenzy of anxiety, but then I find the right words. Familiar words. “Charlie’s great, but he’s not my type.”

It’s true. I said that at bingo, and I meant it. I’ve been a Grump Girl as long as I can remember. Stormy men are my one true weakness, and I’ve been the lone sunshine in every relationship I’ve ever had. But those words hit different tonight.

Charlie is the opposite of grumpy, the opposite of my type, but something inside me flinches when I say it. Like how you can’t help wincing when a bad note squeals across the strings of a violin. I tell Lydia he isn’t my type, and something about that confession feels…off.

I push that uneasiness aside and try to explain. “We want to fool the Victorian. She keeps writing stuff about Charlie, so we’re going to fake date while we do some sightseeing. That way, she can’t accuse him of being a rake.”

Wait—what?

Our plan makes no sense. I don’t realize it until I have to explain everything out loud, but my brilliant idea sounds ridiculous. Why can’t we just sightsee as friends?

I have to remind myself we’ve already tried that. We’ve been going around Ponderosa Falls as friends since I got here, and that hasn’t kept the Victorian from pretending Charlie is up to no good. But what’s going to stop her from jumping to the wrong conclusions again? From seeing our new fake love story and deciding he’s still up to no good?

Plot holes.

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