Page 83 of My Irresistible Enemy

That left me, which was how we’d wound up on the tiny balcony of Gabe and Brooklyn’s apartment in downtown Adair, perched above an ice cream shop. You couldn’t get any quainter if you tried.

“Aiden’s always had a lot of interests,” Gabe said. “So many it’s hard to keep track of them, sometimes.”

“Really?” Nora asked. “Like what?”

“Oh God, like, everything.” Gabe laughed. “There was the two-year period when he was a kid where he was obsessed with this book of fairy tales we had. He used to cover himself in tin foil and pretend to be a knight, and he’d run around stabbing everyone with butter knives. Eventually, our mom got so annoyed that she said if he pretended to be a knight ever again, she’d stop feeding him for a week.”

Nora’s brow furrowed, like she wasn’t sure if she was supposed to laugh or not, and Gabe must have noticed it because he added, “Obviously, she was joking. But it made an impression because, from then on, Aiden pretended to be a princess instead.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Not even a little bit. He’d wrap himself up in these pink bath towels our parents had and swan around the house in them, and then lie down in the middle of the floor pretending to be Sleeping Beauty.”

Oh lord, I’d forgotten about that, but the minute Gabe said it, the memory came flying back. I could see myself lying flat on my back in the kitchen, refusing to move because I was cursed to sleep until a prince kissed me. My parents had liked that even less than me being a knight.

“Sounds like you always had a vivid imagination, Aiden,” Nora said. The camera swung towards me.

“What can I say?” I grinned. “I’ve always had a flair for the dramatic.”

“Do you still have that book?” she asked. “A keepsake from your childhood?”

“I don’t think—” I broke off, frowning. “You know, I actually can’t remember what happened to it.” I turned to Gabe. “Do you know? I can’t remember seeing it after first or second grade.”

“No, I, uh—” Gabe swallowed. “I’m not sure. I guess we just lost it somewhere along the line.”

He looked back at Nora expectantly, and she glanced down at the notebook she’d brought with her.

“Let’s talk a little bit about the more recent past. So, Gabe, it must have been a surprise to find out thatA Piece of Cakewould be shooting here on Summersea where you and your husband live.”

“It was,” Gabe agreed, smiling over at Brooklyn, who sat on his left. “He didn’t even tell me about it until a couple weeks beforehand.”

“I didn’t know!” I protested.

Gabe laughed. “What he means is that he didn’t bother to read that closely.”

“He was just busy practicing his bakes,” Brooklyn put in. “You’d be distracted too if you found out you’d been cast on a reality competition.”

“I appreciate the support,” I said to Brooklyn, “but I don’t think anyone watching at home is going to believe I practiced all that much.”

He laughed. “Still, we were happy to find out you’d be here, once you told us.”

“Now, Aiden had a bit of a role in bringing you two together, if I understand correctly,” Nora said. “Is that right?”

Brooklyn and Gabe shared a brief, panicked glance, then both looked at me. Again, all I could do was shrug. I was sure Tanner wouldn’t want the beginning of their relationship made public, but I was also sure Brooklyn and Gabe knew that.

Gabe smiled awkwardly at the camera. “Well, not in bringing us together so much as bringing some publicity to our relationship.”

“So he was the genius behind the Instagram account for you two that took the world by storm?” Nora prompted.

“I don’t know if I’d call him a genius so much as a deranged gremlin,” Brooklyn grumbled, “but yes, that was his idea.” He smiled at me to take any bite out of the words.

“In my defense, I was feeling very, very single at the time,” I said, holding my hands up. “And it was nice to believe that there could still be happy endings for people.” I grinned. “And, you know…happy endings, too.”

Nora laughed. “But you guys took the account down after a bit. Was all the fame and pressure getting to you, or did you just run out of cute pictures to post?”

“Come on, have you seen them?” I gestured to my brother and Brooklyn. “They will never run out of cute pictures to post, because they couldn’t take a bad picture if they tried.”

“Your confidence in us is flattering,” Brooklyn said before turning back to Nora. “We basically took it down because it had done its job. The account brought a lot of attention to the non-profit that we were working with, which was great. But we didn’t want our presence to overwhelm things, you know? We wanted the organization to be the story, not us.”

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