Page 12 of Fake Dating My Best Friend

I summon a smile, hoping it doesn’t look as plastic as it feels. “What?”

“So,” Roxanne says, flipping the same dark brown curls she once tried to straighten with a clothes iron in eighth grade. Coming from our resident ice queen, the forced casualness in her voice is almost jarring. “How’s business?”

I peek over the laminated edge. “Oh, you know. Booming. I’m thinking of franchising.”

“Right. And I’m thinking of giving up baking to become a professional wrestler.” Elaine laughs, her blonde ponytail swaying as she shakes her head. “The Pastry Punisher has a nice ring to it, don’t you think? I’ll take down my opponents with my signature move—the Rolling Pin of Doom.”

Hopefully, her first opponent won’t be my dear twin brother. Thank goodness he’s not in town.

“I’d pay to see that.” I bite back a smile.

Roxanne reaches across the table, gently lowering my menu shield. “Is, we’re worried about you.”

“You know what? I’m going to give Kyle some lessons,” Elaine declares, punching her fist into her palm, her eyes gleaming. “Asher said he’ll help.”

“I think,” Roxanne says with a slight curl of her lip that almost resembles amusement, “what Asher actually meant was he’d prefer to handle it himself.”

Somewhere between my lungs and dignity, something does a cartwheel. I can still see the way his jaw locked when he stepped in front of me like a human shield. It still makes me feel something I shouldn’t.

“Okay, fine.” I slump in my seat, not wanting to think about any of it. “Things aren’t great. But I’ll figure it out.”

“We know you will.” Roxanne tears a napkin into precise little squares. She’s never been one for emotional speeches. She’s the kind of girl who once dragged me to a drive-thru in our pajamas at midnight, handed me fries like they were tissues, and muttered something about how crying burns calories, so I should eat up.

Roxanne sets the napkin scraps down and then meets my eyes. “But you don’t have to go through it alone. You’ve got us. Always.”

A lump forms in my throat. I blink rapidly, determined not to cry in the middle of the restaurant.

Before I can completely lose it, Maeve appears with three steaming plates balanced expertly on her forearm. Her arrival feels like a life preserver thrown to a drowning woman.

“Here we go, girls. Pot roast for Roxanne, turkey club for Elaine, and—” she slides a plate in front of me with a soft smile that crinkles at the corners of her eyes “—my special mac and cheese with the extra crispy breadcrumb topping for Isla.”

“Thanks, Maeve. You know me better than I know myself.” I glance up, a lump forming in my throat.

Maeve pats my hand, her touch warm and comforting. “Honey, in thirty years of feeding this town, I’ve learned that mac and cheese fixes most heartaches. And I added extra cheese because, well . . .” She gives a meaningful glance toward the front door where a group of gossiping seniors are entering, “. . . some people deserve extra comfort these days.”

“You’re gonna make me cry.”

“You just eat up. I’ve got fresh apple pie for after.” She winks and bustles away, already greeting the newcomers with the same warmth she shows everyone.

“How’s your mom doing? Didn’t you say she and Victor were going out of town?” Elaine takes a bite of her sandwich, somehow managing to look elegant even with mayo at the corner of her mouth.

I twirl my fork through the gloriously gooey mac and cheese, grateful for the distraction. “Yeah, they’re visiting some of Victor’s family in Michigan. Mom was so excited about it. She’s been texting me pictures of every lighthouse they visit.”

Mom met Victor five years ago when he came to town to take over the hardware store after his uncle retired. He wasn’t a local, but his confidence and genuine smile won everyone over, especially Mom.

I’ll never forget how he showed up at our house that first winter with handmade bird feeders for her garden and somehow ended up fixing our perpetually leaky kitchen faucet while they talked for hours. They tied the knot after two years, in a small ceremony by the lake where he’d first told her he loved her.

“Your mom’s incredible, and I’m so glad she and Victor found each other. They’re probably the sweetest couple in town,” Roxanne says. I don’t miss the slight longing in her voice, though she thinks she hides it well.

“I don’t know how she did it. She kept going. Kept believing things would get better, even when everything fell apart.”

Mom never told us to stop believing in love. Even when she had every reason to.

“Sounds familiar.” Elaine spears a fry and points at me.

“Please. I’m nothing like her.”

I’ll never be like her. I don’t have that kind of strength.

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