“Deal,” I tell her.

Three minutes later, we emerge from the ladies’ room with powdered noses and fresh lipstick. We stand for a moment, scanning the crowd.

“Having a good time?” she asks me. “How’s it going with Ryan?”

“I’m having an amazing time,” I confide. Just hearing his name gives me a happy little shiver.

“I know you told me in the coffee line that you were both acting, but I have to say, it doesn’t look pretend,” Chloe says.

I laugh. “He’s seven years younger. A masseur at O. We’re not exactly, you know, compatible.”

A waiter squeezes between us with a huge tray of wedding cake slices and strawberries, interrupting my words for a moment or two. A noisy group of guests shifts to make room for him, and he passes through without an accident.

“Not compatible on the surface, I mean. Most people would never guess we have as much in common as we do. We’ve been friends since the day we started work, and we hang out, but — I don’t know — something feels different now. Remember what you told me that day in your office, when I was so upset?”

“Remind me,” she smiles.

“I think you said that I would never find the right person if I was totally focused on Jamey. Actually, I think you said ‘the wrong guy,’ but that was Jamey.” I take a deep breath. “There’s just one problem.”

“What’s that?”

“Ryan really is pretending. He’s doing it for me, as a favor, so I don’t have to look pathetic in front of everyone. I’m pretending, too.”

“No, you’re not.” Chloe’s reply is so fast, so matter-of-fact that I gape at her.

“What?”

Chloe spots Nick across the room and waves, then turns to me and puts her hand on my arm. “There is one thing I know for sure,” she says seriously. “One of the most dangerous things you can do in a relationship is assume you know what the other person is feeling. Never, never assume. Talk to him. I see the way he looks at you. It’s really obvious you have deeper feelings for him, too.”

“I know. I need to talk to him.”

“Sooner rather than later, Carrie. I think he’ll surprise you.” She gives me a quick hug before chasing down Nick, the two of them laughing as they begin to dance.

Nick doesn’t step on Chloe’s feet even once.

RYAN

I heard that.

Loud and clear.

“...not exactly, you know, compatible.” Straight from Carrie’s mouth to Chloe’s ear. No ambiguity. No what-ifs. No does she or doesn’t she?

She doesn’t.

For someone who was pretending, last night was so real. Maybe I made it more real than it really was.

No maybe.

I did.

Shit. My heart speeds up in my chest like a motorcycle at full throttle, gaining asphalt, eating gravel. It’s trying to climb out of my chest and run away.

Flee.

Escape.

She doesn’t feel what I feel. This really has been fake for her. All those kisses, the touches and the caresses, the making love —

Stop it.

Not making love.

Fucking.

Zeke’s right.

We fucked. That’s it. That’s all it was. Carrie’s been pretending and the sex was what— an afterthought? A rebound from Jamey? I was just a convenient tool for her.

I was a tool, all right.

A fine, slippery sweat breaks out all over me, down my back, rippling across my shoulders, coating me in a wet armor that chills me as much as it heats my shaking skin.

I need to get the hell out of here.

I was so wrong.

The only way out, though, is past Carrie and Chloe. Might as well walk on hot coals while balancing all my body weight on the tip of my cock.

That would be preferable to this.

Deep breath, Donovan, I tell myself, remembering every point of failure in my life. The time I lost the spelling bee in third grade. Who thought it would be a good idea to add a silent W to wreckage? Dangling from Mr. Aglioti’s fence. Asking Rachel McMasters to junior prom and having her laugh in my face.

Being tossed in the pool at high school after-prom by the football quarterback. Didn’t even need a linebacker to manage that with my scrawny self back then.

None of that compares.

Not one fucking bit.

I was wrong about Carrie, but I was right, too.

Right to be afraid.

For the last two years, she’s been dating Jamey. I’m a nice guy. Carrie’s fun to be around. But I’ve been friend-zoned the entire time.

A sick laugh comes out of me, turning into a cough, making me curl into myself from the searing pain in my gut as the emotional punch kicks in.

The taste of her. Open-mouthed kisses that made me open my heart. The feeling of sliding into her, how she grasped my hips, her sighs and moans of pleasure making me feel whole. The prism of life turning slightly, allowing me to see Carrie differently, to be seen by her as more than a friend, as an intimate, as someone more.

“It doesn’t look pretend,” I hear Chloe say, the words loud enough to cut through my pain, earnest enough to turn me stupid again, filling me with hope.

The crowd of wedding guests jostles and shifts, laughing and calling out. For a minute I can’t hear a thing, but then Carrie laughs. “Ryan really is pretending. He’s doing it for me, as a favor, so I don’t have to look pathetic in front of everyone. I’m pretending, too.”

That’s it.

I take a few fast, shallow breaths, hands curled into fists, and look sharply to my left.

Jamey’s standing there, watching me. He’s heard every word. He’s looking at Carrie with a perplexed expression.

Then he catches my eye and shrugs unhappily.

My ears fill with the sound of jet engines starting, the whoosh of my own blood beating against my ears and skull too exquisite, too full. I walk past them. Carrie gives me a startled look, then waves.

I wave back, Chloe a blur of big eyes and a wine glass that glitters in the sun. Carrie’s face is flushed and she looks a little guilty, like I caught her doing something wrong.

The walk to the hotel room is a blur. Packing takes two minutes when you don’t care, all my shit thrown into my suit bag and zipped up, shaving cream and deodorant rolling around in the bottom. I storm downstairs to valet parking and wait impatiently, crawling out of my own skin, my body trying to shed it like poison.