Page 33 of As They Are
“He’s also single, by the way.” Tammy smiled and leaned in. “In case you think he’s a better choice.”
Mollie laughed but covered her mouth. I could only gape at Tammy. “I ... Well, no. That won’t happen.”
“Sure. Definitely not. But if it helps, Henry’s a good guy. If Jude screwed up, you have options.”
“Maybe it wasn’t Jude who did it. I could be terrible at relationships.”
Mollie huffed. “Now, hang on a second. We’renotblaming ourselves for shitty men.”
“I’m not saying it’snothim. I’m just saying that I could have been part of the problem.”
Tammy hummed. “I’ll let you in on a secret. When I meet a woman with a great personality and she’s having relationship problems, it’s usually not her that’s the issue.”
I rubbed my chest, feeling warmth growing at her comment. She was just being nice to a newcomer. It didn’t mean anything. “All right, fine. You’d ... mostly be right. Kinda.” I thought of the fake relationship. It made everything so complicated.
Tammy narrowed her eyes as she appraised me. I thought she was going to question me, but someone called her to the table. I watched her go, but when I turned, Mollie was staring at me.
“So, are you finally gonna tell me what Jude did?”
“It was just one comment.”
“And it was enough to break the two of you up?”
“We were never together.”
Mollie blinked. “I’m sorry, what?”
“We were fake dating. For the show.”
“Hang on. But you flirted.”
“Yep.”
“Andkissed.It was all fake?”
“I wanted it to be real.” I shrugged. “He didn’t.”
Her jaw dropped. “You have to bekidding me.How dare he! You’re a catch!”
I messed with my straw. “Not to him. I thought I could get him to change his mind, but obviously not.”
“Fuck, Wren. I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine.”
She looked at me as if I were a stranger. And she was right to. Iwasa stranger. Both to myself and to her. “It’s not fine.”
“Mollie, it has to be. I have a second season to do with him and it’s in my contract.”
Her eyebrows furrowed. “Seriously? They’re making you do it?”
“Our romance is a part of the show. And I signed on for the second season before he turned me down.” I sighed and sat back. “It’s why I wanna work on the library. At least if I’m working on something I care about and hanging out with you, I can feel like I’m not losing it.”
“Are you sure there’s no way to get out of this?”
“Not that I can find. And if I keep working with them, they’ll invest in more and more. Imagine what I could do.”
Madison had already offered the idea of many seasons beyond the second once I was finished with my projects. If I took it, I could give that back to the library too.
