Page 7 of The Guy Who Fake Dated Me

I gave him a nod before I pulled my phone out of my pocket and scrolled to Alex’s number. Alex ran the ferry, which should be returning from the north this afternoon. If he hadn’t passed them yet, there were two places along the way that might be able to send us some fresh crab legs.

“Sorry, Boss,” Vincent said as we walked away.

“Don’t be sorry because we’re selling more food than we can get a hold of.” I shot him a reassuring smile. “This is one of those first-world problems that we’ve trained for our entire lives.”

Sky, my Alaskan Malamute, raised his head from his bed by the front door as we neared the kitchen. Shane had taken him for a run that morning, and he’d been sleeping ever since. He blinked his blue eyes a couple of times. “You really let yourself go after that moose thing, buddy.”

The dog let out a very human-like huff before he put his head back on his paws.

Sky had become my fur baby, which I would never admit to anyone, and he’d also become one of the biggest problems between Victoria and me. She was afraid of animals, even my goofy, fluffy dog who wouldn’t hurt a fly.

Well, except when he’d decided to attack a moose, but I figured that had been hard-wired instincts kicking in.

I’d never considered getting rid of him before, and I wasn’t now, but each time I looked at him, I was reminded that Victoria had reservations about animals, and I didn’t know how to handle that.

Not that it mattered, considering we were restricted to flirting and we’d only see each other at the wedding, then probably when Rachel had her first kid.

Lucky for me, I had too much going on to take time for wallowing. We needed crab legs, and I needed to get my head on straight.

When I looked closer at my phone, I found one last message from Victoria.

Victoria:Give Shane my warmest greetings!

She’d ended the text with a waving emoji and then a kissing face.

Was that last bit for Shane and Rachel, or was it for me?

Chapter 3

-Victoria-

“Why do we come here again?” I asked my cousin, Kyle.

We stood outside our favorite Mexican restaurant, which looked like a fortress stuck between a set of train tracks and several wide roads, waiting for Kyle’s girlfriend, Natalie, to arrive. The late October sun shone down on us as if apologizing for the killer rainstorm the day before.

“Because the food is delicious.” Kyle glanced around. “And because we like to pretend that we’re not white and nerdy.”

I laughed at the reference to one of my favorite songs.

Kyle was more than a head taller than me and got his brown hair and easily-tanned skin from his mom’s side of the family. He wore basketball shorts and a T-shirt and made it look good. I sort of hated him for it.

Especially since I’d put some effort into my ensemble—I was wearing my favorite white cropped pants and pink top and had curled my hair like a boss—because he’d finally agreed to let me meet this girl.

Granted, Kyle’s efforts at the gym made him a prime target for ogling women, while my curves were too much for most guys.

Their loss.

Kyle pulled out his phone and glanced at it. “Sorry, Natalie is late.”

“It’s okay.” I’d been dying to meet this mysterious woman ever since she and Kyle had started going out the previous month. I was willing to wait to see who had beguiled my favorite cousin.

“She says she’s just a few blocks away.”

“Great.”

Kyle squeezed his phone and kept glancing in the direction Natalie was supposed to be coming from.

“You’re a mess,” I laughed. “You must really like this girl.”

---