Page 89 of Fake Dating My Best Friend

What if Asher regrets it immediately? What if he pulls away, sighs heavily, pats my head like a disappointed teacher?

Abort. ABORT.

My cheeks are boiling. I probably look like a stop sign. I need to stop. Right now.

Besides, we’d have to look each other in the eye afterward. Acknowledge it happened. And then what? Go back to being just friends? Pretend it was part of our little charade? I might as well set our twenty-year friendship on fire, toast some marshmallows, and call it a night.

“What are you thinking right now, Izzy?” Roxanne leans in and pokes my cheek. “Because you look like a tomato in a crisis.”

“She’s definitely imagining kissing Asher.” Elaine’s grin is way too smug. “Look at her. She’s practically mapping out their entire honeymoon in her head.”

“I am not!” I grab a pillow and hug it to my chest like it’s some kind of shield against my completely traitorous thoughts. “I’m thinking about . . . bingo strategies.”

“Mmhmm,” Roxanne nods. “Is that what they’re calling it these days?”

“You know,” Elaine plops down next to me on the bed, “if you really want, you can just pretend it’s fake. It’s a safe exit.”

“It’s really not ethical.” I clutch my pillow tighter, considering launching it at her head.

What I don’t tell them is . . . that’s exactly what I want to do. Let myself feel what it would be like to be his girlfriend. In a way, it’s like finally living out that childhood dream.

Without the consequences. Without the real breakup.

“Works for people who are too afraid,” she singsongs.

“Excuse me?” I gape at her. “I am not afraid.”

Elaine just gives me a slow blink. Like the time at Roxanne’s birthday party when I spent forty-five minutes in the bathroom after Asher brought a date, insisting I had sudden onset food poisoning despite having eaten nothing but crackers all night.

Roxanne moves to sit beside me on the bed. “So if Asher, let’s say,hypotheticallyleans in to kiss you, you wouldn’t flinch and panic?”

“I—I wouldn’t panic!”

“Mmm, sure.”

I let out a strangled groan and shove my face into my pillow. “I know. I know.” My voice is muffled. “I am afraid. I am a gigantic, cowardly person. But I can’t help it.”

I pull the pillow tighter around my head and scream into it.

Roxanne shifts closer, resting a hand on my back. “It’s okay, we know. We’re not telling you what to do. We just want you to be happy. We want you to have the kind of love you help other people find.”

Elaine exhales, quieter now. “Maybe sometimes, the pain of missing out on something great forever is worse than the pain of getting hurt by someone who was never meant to stay.”

I turn my head just enough to peek at her. “Have you ever?”

Suspicious.

Her gaze flicks to the side. Mochi jumps up next to her, and she absently runs a hand over his fur. I should interrogate Conner. Did he do something to Elaine? Is there something between them that I’ve completely missed? It might not be Conner at all. But the way she and my brother always seem to spark like a match to gasoline?

Yeah.Verysuspicious.

I guess I wouldn’t know, though. I’ve spent so much of my time wrapped up in Asher that I might have missed some things.

“Rationally speaking,” Roxanne says, “not everyone’s the same. And maybe all the failures before were just preparing you to meet the right person.” She gives my arm a little squeeze. “But it’s okay. We just want you to be happy. And no matter what, we’ll always be here.”

A lump forms in my throat, and I pull them both into a hug. “Thank you.”

Elaine pulls back first, flipping her hair dramatically. “But wearestill going to make you look so gorgeous that Asher won’t be able to look anywhere else.”

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