Page 37 of Fool Me

“Because I paid a little visit to her apartment, and she told me,” Julia said. “That’s why she was doing to this you—to get revenge. And you never even suspected.”

The air in Grant’s apartment felt thin as he grasped for oxygen. It was one thing for Sadie to dislike him because she thought he’d been cruel to her friends, but another altogether for her to have been plotting against him all this time. Shehadabandoned him the moment they’d arrived at the festival, sending him to get a list of foods he’d never heard of and couldn’t pronounce. If it hadn’t been for the kind people there, he might have had a meltdown in front of all those clicking cameras. She’d also made a point of commenting on his nice suit and shiny shoes on the way to the Down & Dirty Bar and had pre-arranged front-row seats for them. He remembered her laughing as she’d said,You won’t get your suit dirty just watching…probably.Had the plan been for Slinger to pull him in, nice suit and all? And why hadn’t she been concerned about all those women on the beach?

Finally, he remembered the forceful way Sadie has said, “I get to choose the dates,” on the day they’d agreed to the plan. A jittery fear had shot through him in that moment, and he had ignored it—apparently at his peril. He didn’t want to believe it, but it was hard to deny.

Legs now gelatin, Grant slunk toward the couch and collapsed back down next to Julia. His eyes blinked, but they weren’t seeing anything.

She reached up and stroked his hair, sending wave of her perfume toward him—sweet and cloying. “Aw, I know it hurts. You managed to outwit her on your own with the first two dates, but just imagine the photos of you that would be all over social media today if I hadn’t stopped those beach paparazzi? You know they would have found a way to make it look like you were in the wrong, and then Sadie would have marched off, pouting, and the destruction of #mudpuppiesinlove would have been all your fault.” She clicked her tongue. “Hard to redeem oneself after that.”

Grant could barely feel her hand in his hair. He couldn’t feel much of anything.

At least it would be easier to get over Sadie now, knowing what she had tried to do to him. He could easily chalk up the Indian temple festival and the mud wrestling as pranks. If he’d thrown a temper tantrum at either of those venues, it would have been one hundred percent on him. But paying multiple women to don tiny bikinis and flirt with him on their beach date, the date he’d tried to make as perfect for her as possible, was despicable. Doing that while knowing all the while that their previous dates had made them the latest ‘it’ couple was diabolical. His downfall would have been huge and public. Clearly, something had happened to Sadie since they’d graduated. Something had hardened her. She wasn’t the same person he’d known.

Julia, still sitting beside him, prattled on, but her voice floated to his ears as if from far away. “…but don't you worry. She’s not going to be inSurf Summer. She’s not going to be in any movie ever once I’ve made a few choice phone calls. She’s messed with you,” she pressed a fingernail into the tip of his nose, “and that means she’s messed with me. Sadie Heppner is one of the little people, and she can fry egg sandwiches for the rest of her miserable life.” She snuggled in against him, and Grant, still in a stupor, put up no resistance. “But you are not one of the little people. Now that my contract with Mark is up, we will be the ‘it’ couple, the golden duo. And we’ll show the world starting tonight at the launch party.” Her fingers wrapped around his upper thigh as she whispered into his ear. “#Juliant.”

“You broke up with Mark Briddle?” he managed to say, though his voice came out robotic and flat.

Julia’s brown eyes widened and then blinked once slowly, as if filtering her shock through her eyelids. “You truly did think that was real? My goodness, you’re sincere. We were in a contract to fake date—much like you and your devious college friend.”

Everything is fake, Grant thought.Everything.

23

It took only a few minutes to get all three of Sadie’s old roommates together on a conference call. Sadie, seated on the couch, let them know they were on speaker and that Ginny, cross-legged on the floor, could hear too.

“Hey, Ginny!” Trish said. “Long time no see! What are you up to?”

Ginny told them about her job cleaning mansions for Monique’s realty company, and Trish, Abby, and Carly each gave a sentence or two update about their lives.

Before Sadie could broach the topic of Grant and their college years, Trish brought him up herself. “Sooooo, are you calling to dish about your new crush? I’ve been loving all the pics on social media. My grad school friends can’t believe I know two stars!”

“You two are so cute together!” Abby gushed. “And I drooled over what you wore to the Indian temple festival. I’ve been sewing up a new design with your outfit as my muse.”

Sadie blinked at the phone in her hand. A live chicken might as well have popped out of the device and flown across the room. “Wait…you guys think we’recute together?”

“So cute,” Carly said, “but it’s not like we didn’t know this would happen eventually.”

Now Sadie knew they were pulling her leg. “Very funny. I never even liked him.”

“We know,” Carly said, “You hated him so much.” She laughed, and Abby and Trish joined in.

“And it about killed Grant, I think,” Trish said, still laughing. “But I guess good things come to those who wait!”

Sadie mouthed “What the…” to Ginny, who shrugged in reply from her spot on the floor. Sadie felt her palms go sweaty and rubbed them on the collar of her robe. Had she entered the twilight zone? “Come on. You guys all dated him, and he broke your hearts. The Golden Dumpster,remember?”

“I guess he did, sort of. It was more of a friendship thing, though,” Carly said.

“Yeah, much as I didn’t want it to be, it was like hanging out with your cool brother,” Abby said. “The person he actually wanted to be with was you.”

“What makes you say that?” Sadie said. A queasy feeling began roiling her stomach, as if a nest of vipers were waking from sleep.

“Well, let’s see,” Trish said. “The first thing I noticed was, he never wanted to go out to eat just the two of us. I mean, he would if I insisted, but he always preferred to make dinner at our place for everyone or bring take out back to the apartment for everyone.”

“Same with watching movies,” Carly said. “At first, I just thought he liked doing group stuff. And since Trish had already dated him, he had done a fair amount of group things with us, so it didn’t strike me as odd. Plus, he’s a super social person.”

“I thought the same,” Abby said, “but then I noticed all the little things, like how his eyes followed you wherever you moved in the room. And whenever he’d tell a funny story, he never looked to see how I’d react. He always looked right at you, Sadie.”

“Oh, my gosh,” Carly said, “he so totally did that! And when you didn’t laugh enough, he’d get that puppy dog face of his.”

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