“Come with me.” I grabbed her forearm and yanked her toward the back hallway, my mind clicking.
“I was kidding!” Neil yelled with a laugh.
“Oh, let them go,” my mother said. “They probably need a moment to themselves—we barged right into their love nest unannounced.”
Inside my room, I closed the door and spun around. Felicity’s face was drained of color except for two splotches of red on her cheeks. “Oh my God,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
But Felicity had started to pace along the foot of my bed. “I shouldn’t have opened my big mouth to Mimi. I knew this would happen. I just didn’t think about the consequences of your family hearing the news and being so happy about it! And it’s not just them.”
“What do you mean?”
“When I turned on my phone this morning, I saw that Winnie had sent me a bunch of headlines about us—we’re front page news!”
“We are?”
“Yes! My follower count skyrocketed overnight. I’ve got tons of DMs. My notifications on Dearly Beloved are blowing up. And my mother—Frannie, I mean—left me a voicemail, which I haven’t listened to, but I can imagine what it’s about.” She stopped moving and put her hands up to her face. “Now I have to tell everyone the truth—that I made it up. This is so embarrassing.”
“Okay, hang on.” My mind was spinning. “Maybe we don’t have to tell everyone that.”
“Huh?”
I ran a hand through my hair. “Maybe we can just—go with it.”
“Go with it?”
“Yes—for a little while at least.”
Her head drew back. “Why?”
“You heard my mother. She’s finally going to leave me alone. Maybe everyone else will too.”
Felicity stared at me like I was nuts. “Are you serious?”
“Yes. I’m tired of being harassed by everyone around me about my lack of a personal life. I’ve got a lot of work to do to get ready to testify, and if people think we’re engaged, they’ll give me the space to do it,” I said. What I didn’t say was, Also, being your fake fiancé will mean I get to spend a lot of time with you, acting like you belong to me, perhaps in ways that don’t always involve clothing.
“For how long?”
“Just while I’m here,” I said. “I only rented the house for three months. I have to be out by August fifteenth.”
She did the math. “So one month?”
“Right.” I felt strangely liberated by the idea of inhabiting this other version of me for thirty days—the guy I would be for her if I could. “What do you think?”
She smiled. “I think there’s going to be a lot of disappointed Prancin’ Grannies out there.”
“So you’ll do it?”
“Of course I will.”
“It’ll mean lying to your family . . . are you sure you’re up for that?”
She chewed her bottom lip for a moment. “But we’re not hurting anyone. My family will actually be overjoyed. The only problem will be when we have to end it. But I guess we could just call it off when you go back to San Francisco.”
“Sounds reasonable.”
“Except that I said we were getting married next month! Shit!” She thumped her head with the heels of her hands.
“Look, let’s not worry about that right now.”
“But we have to get the story straight, Hutton. We need a script.” Felicity shook her head, her eyes wide. “Otherwise I’m liable to go rogue.”
“We can come up with a story.” I glanced at the closed door. “For now, let’s just try to get rid of them.”
Felicity laughed. “Maybe if we just stay in your bedroom, they’ll take a hint.”
My stomach muscles tightened at the thought. “I wish.”
I threw a shirt on before we went back out to the kitchen, where my hopes of brooming everyone out the front door were quickly crushed. Coffee had been brewed, Neil was cracking eggs into a frying pan on the stove, my sister was peeling oranges, and everyone was enjoying the donuts.
“Come sit, you two,” said my mother, setting out two full mugs for us on the marble island. “We want to hear all about how you popped the question.”
“That’s private, Mom.” I slid onto the edge of a stool next to Felicity.
“Come on, just tell us,” Allie cajoled. “And let’s see the ring.”