Page 5 of Summer Kisses

I frowned. "And what do I get out of this?"

"You get to make your grandmother happy?—"

"But what happens when she finds out the truth?" I asked, because she would. There was no keeping secrets in this town.

"By then, I'll have the show I want, and you could keep making cameo appearances."

"You know I don't play video games." He'd tried for years to get me to play, and I didn't have the patience for it. I preferred books to electronics.

"You don't really play. It's more like you're commenting on what's going on in the game. I create the video game feed first, and then I record me speaking about what's happening. You can watch a few to get the hang of it."

"I don't know about this. I don't want to lie to Grandma."

"Mabel was quick to believe that it was true. There was no doubt in her mind that it was real."

"She's been asking for years when we were going to get together. To her, it's a foregone conclusion."

"And to you?"

I rolled my eyes. "We're friends. If there was something between us, then we would have acted on it years ago." Lies. All lies. I'd suffered in silence while he dated other girls. No matter how much I liked him, I was never willing to take the risk and tell him the truth. I couldn't lose him.

"The point is that it's believable. It's not so far from reality that people on the island won't believe it. We'll be seen together, post a few things to our social-media pages, and get you filming the show. Then I'll apply for the kids' designation."

"And then what?"

"We can quietly break up."

"How long do we have to pretend to be engaged?" My heart was racing with the possibilities. Would he hold my hand? Would we need to kiss to make it appear real? What else did he expect of me in this arrangement?

"A few weeks, maybe even a month or two?"

"We go through with the engagement party," I said, feeling resigned to this crazy plan.

"That will be the perfect post to my social-media pages."

Brady moved his chair so that it faced mine, taking both of my hands in his, his knees bracketing mine. "I'll never hurt you. We'll do this as long as it's good for both of us. When one of us wants out, we'll end it."

I wanted to know what would happen if one of us caught feelings, but I was fairly positive that would be me, and I would keep my mouth shut about that.

Chapter Two

BRADY

I'd gotten a response today to my request; I needed a girlfriend to make my show more family friendly. I was determined to make it accessible to everyone, and I needed to avoid the pitfalls of similar shows where the hosts resorted to swearing or reality-show style clips to be more entertaining.

I was stuck on how to go about getting a girlfriend when Hazel stood up with that ring on her finger. Her grandmother said she was engaged, and when she asked to who, it was natural to say it was me. I knew she wasn't even dating anyone, and it fit with the narrative I needed. As best friends, we'd been hounded for years about whether we'd secretly hooked up at some point or whether we'd ever get together. So it was believable.

Mabel took my offer and ran with it better than I could have imagined. Now I had a fiancée I could share on my social-media pages. I knew Hazel would do anything to keep her grandmother happy, and if her believing that we were engaged for a few weeks or even months helped, then I was all for it. "It's a mutually beneficial arrangement."

"I suppose it is." Hazel pulled her hands out of mine.

I missed the contact, but I couldn't reach for her again. She was my fake fiancée, not my real one. Whenever I imaginedgetting married, it was to Hazel. I had no idea how I'd manage to breach the perennial friend line, but the possibility was always at the back of my mind.

I'd loved Hazel for as long as I could remember, but I wasn't sure when things changed from being friends to an attraction. I saw her riding her bike by my house one day, and she piqued my curiosity. I grabbed my bike and followed her, bugging her until we were friends.

She was a much-needed break from my family. At her house, it was just her and her grandparents. Mabel always had a baked good on the counter for me to eat and offered me sage advice about staying out of trouble.

I think Mabel was just happy that Hazel had a friend who talked her out of reading books all day. Even when Hazel didn't want to leave the house, Mabel would tell her she had to go on a bike ride with me. She was my partner back then, and I hoped Mabel would unknowingly assist me now.

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