Chapter One

PAIGE

How long is too long to hide from your date in the bathroom?

I look down at my watch. I’ve been in here five minutes and might have another three before Curtis, my dating-app disaster, gets suspicious or assumes the country-fried chicken sandwich I’d ordered from this fifties-themed diner isn’t settling well.

But who am I kidding? I’m long past caring what Curtis thinks. If his endless insults weren't waving red flags in my face, his fascination with dead mammals and hatred for eighties bands would be enough.

On any other online date gone wrong, I would have hopped in my little blue sedan and wished my suitor farewell, but my car had different plans today. Plans that included an expensive trip to the mechanic, leaving me without my own ride. I’d already rescheduled with Curtis before tonight, so ditching him again felt rude, so much so that I broke the cardinal rule of online dating and let Curtis pick me up from my house.

And now, I’m hiding in a bathroom.

I pace the single-user restroom, careful not to step on any of the shreds of toilet paper that litter the linoleum floor, and debate my two options—tough out this date or call one of my housemates, Missy or Ji, to pick me up. I think about sticking it out, but then I remember the corn kernels speckling Curtis’s beard and the way he keeps acting like he thinks he’s Timothée Chalamet and I’m the lucky girl he has whisked away for the greatest night of her life.

Shivers travel down my spine at the thought—and not the good kind.

Okay, phone a friend it is. I start to call Missy, but I remember she’s at a pageant meeting, so I dial Ji’s number instead. My call instantly goes to voicemail.

I end the call. “No, Ji! I need you.” I take in a deep breath, one that fills my lungs with a lethal dose of Lavender Linen air freshener.

After a moment, I call Ji once more and leave a voicemail this time.

“Ji-soo!” I say, using her full Korean name for emphasis. “Remember that time at Berkeley when Carson Silla asked you out, and he spent the whole date talking about cryptocurrency so you needed an emergency extraction? Well, my date is Carson 2.0, except replace cryptocurrency with dead boar species and you get the picture. Like, did you know people dug up a monster hybrid wild boar-pig in Georgia that weighed eight hundred pounds? A monster hybrid wild boar-pig. Eight hundred pounds. They called it Hogzilla. I shouldn't know that. Help!”

After I finish my message, I text her as well, just to cover all my bases. But an automated message instantly responds back:

Ji-soo: I’m driving right now, but I’ll see your message when I get to where I’m going.

Ack, why does Ji have to be so responsible?

Pocketing my phone in my old jeans, I pivot toward the mirror and tuck my long brown hair behind my ears before gripping both sides of the sink and bracing myself for a Super Bowl-worthy pep talk. “Okay, Paige Devons. You’ve gotta tough this out. You can do this! Embrace your inner Karen. That’s right—you are a big, bad, bossy Karen who doesn’t take no for an answer. You’re going to hike up your big-girl pants, march outside this bathroom, and tell your date you are ready to go home.”

I do a small fist pump for good measure just as several loud thuds slam against the bathroom door. Springing into action, I swing the door open and am greeted by several perturbed-looking diner patrons.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” I say with warming cheeks as I shuffle past them in the narrow bathroom hallway, making my way into the main dining area. For a Thursday night, the old diner is bursting with people, courtesy of the Buy One Meal, Get One Free advertisement painted on the glass door in neon letters.

When I return to our cherry-red booth, I slide into the seat across from Curtis and watch as he thumbs his phone enthusiastically, getting really into whatever video game he’s playing. He bites his tongue in concentration and doesn’t look up at me until his video-game avatar dies a virtual death.

“That took forever,” Curtis says, putting his phone on the table.

My date is such a gem. I’m shocked that he’s still single.

“So, I was thinking.” He pulls a flosser from his pocket. “When you finish your sandwich, I know this cool place nearby where we can go dancing after dinner.”

My stomach churns. I don’t know what horrifies me more—another hour with my date or the corn pulp about to be flung at me once it’s dislodged by the flosser between his crooked incisors.

I force a smile. “Oh, that sounds… neat. But unfortunately, I have a big day at work tomorrow, and I should probably get home.” There. I said it. I’m so proud of me.

“That’s okay. The dance studio isn’t too far from here, and I heard a little exercise before bed will help ya sleep better. The better the sleep, the better the next day.” He smiles wide as if he’s just solved world hunger, and his wiry beard hairs shift upward, making him look like the backwoods version of the Grinch.

Okay, maybe I need to be more assertive. “Um, okay. I… I just left my cat at home, and I think she needs food. To be fed. ’Cause she’s hungry.”

Hey, all you Karens out there—step aside, most assertive woman coming through.

“Don’t you live with your friends? I saw at least one when I picked you up. Can’t she feed your cat?” Curtis asks. “What was her name?”

“Who? My cat?”

“No, your friend.”

“Ji.” I say, too cautious to give him her full name.

“Yeah, she’s hot.”

Okay, Operation Tough-It-Out is a no-go. I repeat, Operation Tough-It-Out is a no-go.

I glance around the diner, hoping that my brain can come up with a plan C. I have no car, but I do have feet, a useful asset when running away from disastrous dates. For a moment, I consider running home. The diner is situated on the outskirts of Denver, just thirty minutes from my small town in Pine Lakes, Colorado. So I’m looking at an approximate run of thirty miles, which would get me home at about… never. I would never make it that far. I haven’t run over three miles since PE class in my senior year of high school, and even then, my best friend Jordan practically dragged me the last three laps by my arm as my legs did a little Jell-O dance beneath me.

Jordan.

While his name always stirs the happiest feelings inside me like some kind of euphoric soup, tonight, it is also accompanied by an angelic choir—he’s just become my ticket out of here.

“I guess Ji could totally feed my cat,” I mumble, keeping my eyes on Curtis as my right hand fumbles—inconspicuously, I hope—in my purse. My hand clutches my phone, and I glance down long enough to press Jordan’s number on speed dial. What I’m about to do goes against the invisible barriers Jordan and I have placed around our friendship. We talk about everything with each other except dating. Never dating. But I’m desperate.

I glance down at my phone and see that the call has started. Jordan’s answered the phone. That’s when I say those three little words I’ve never used before. “Got any crawdads?”

Then I end the phone call under the table, feeling like a middle-schooler who’s just prank-called someone at a sleepover.

Curtis looks at me like I’ve had one too many orange sodas tonight, and I can’t blame him. I would think I was crazy too.

“What?” He squints at me.

“Oh, um, that’s right—you ordered fried shrimp, not crawdads.” I bump my palm on my head as if to say, Oh, silly me, and then I drop my phone back in my purse and wait.

The next fifteen minutes are filled with start-and-stop conversation as I eat the rest of my sandwich at a glacial pace, hoping Jordan got my message loud and clear.

Curtis is just asking the waitress for the check when the bell on the diner’s front door dings, and my best friend steps inside.

He’s dressed for work, but the top button of his white collared shirt is undone, and his blue-patterned tie hangs loosely around his neck. These are his nice work clothes. Wait, let me rephrase that—he’s in the clothes that make me want to raid his closet and burn anything that isn’t those clothes. Or maybe it’s the opposite. Maybe I should torch the business clothes because they make my heart sound like a conga line when he wears them.

Regardless, these are the clothes he wears specifically for important meetings with clients.

My face heats, and suddenly I feel like the girl who cried wolf, pulling out an SOS for this inconsequential date. Jordan probably came running from whatever meeting he was in. But even though I feel terrible for dragging him here, I can’t help the relief that fills me when I see him. This dingy diner just became a safe haven for me, because that’s what Jordan always does—he takes the worst places and turns them into a shelter from the storm.

His brown eyes meet mine, a hint of mischief lingering there. He runs a hand through his head of dark-blond hair before a full-hearted smile breaks across his lips. My stomach flips, and now my heart is signaling SOS for an entirely different reason.

I am hopelessly, passionately, and unrequitedly in love with my best friend.

JORDAN

I quickly park my silver Kia Sorento on a patch of nearby grass, one in a line of many crookedly parked cars, and look up at the aging diner. It resembles a vintage refrigerator that’s been knocked on its side and given windows.

Looking down at my Find My app on my phone, I use the dot with Paige’s face to confirm that she is, in fact, in this diner and has not been chopped up in some alleyway. Momentary relief hits, but then panic resurfaces. She’s never used our “only in emergencies” phrase before, and I can’t stomach the idea that Paige could be hurt.

I rush out of my car toward the diner, nearly knocking down a teenage waitress texting outside. My heart is pounding with thoughts of Paige in danger, being harassed by some jerk, but then I see her through the window, smiling her polite smile at someone, and it tells me what I need to know.

She’s safe.

I bend over, resting my hands on my knees like I just finished a marathon, before loosening my tie and unbuttoning the top button of my dress shirt. I can breathe again. I walk a little farther until I get a better view of her date through the window. I’m surprised to see a burly guy with a long beard—he’s not at all Paige’s type. But then again, I guess I don’t really know her type. Paige and I kind of have an unspoken understanding between us. We don’t talk about our dating lives. It’s the one part of Paige I’m happy not knowing about.

Paige gives her date a weak smile that is completely void of the singular dimple that often adorns the left side of her face. She’s wearing a wolf T-shirt we bought as a joke our junior year of high school—clearly the height of fashion. Wow, she really brought out the big guns for this one. I can’t imagine a scenario in my mind where this date makes sense.

I start towards the door, a grin parting my lips as I forge a plan. Since Paige called me out of my meeting, and she seems relatively unscathed, I’m going to have a little fun. I twist my dad’s ring from my index finger and pocket it before entering the diner.

The diner’s about the same temperature inside as outside, which is saying something in the month of June. The place is a dump, but apparently a good one, considering the crowd here tonight. I make eye contact with Paige, and her shoulders slump in relief. I smile at her because it’s Paige, and nothing in this world lights me up like she does—especially when I take her by surprise.

“Paige!” I yell from across the diner. Silverware stops clinking, and the hum of conversation comes to a sudden stop, like that part in movies when a record scratches and everyone pauses what they’re doing. It’s that, except Elvis Presley’s “Jailhouse Rock” keeps playing from the diner’s vintage jukebox.

Paige’s eyebrows arch upward. Her relief turns to embarrassment as she realizes how I’m planning to rescue her. Her eyes go wide, and she gives me the most minuscule shake of her head.

But I just nod, my way of saying, Oh, we’re doing this. I prowl toward her—yes, prowl. “Paige Devons,” I say in a deep, torn-up voice when I reach her table. “I know we said we’d go our separate ways when you left me in Bali”—we’ve never been to Bali, but it’s the first place I think of—“but I can’t do this.”

I thump my hand over my heart like I’m a man in the throes of love and try not to laugh as Paige’s vibrant green eyes narrow into daggers. “The striped sandals, the fire hydrant on Ninth Street, the rain gutter on my mom’s roof…” I spout the random list of things based on the items I see from my vantage point in the diner, then I stop and give her an inflamed look. “I can’t see anything anymore without being reminded of you, babe.”

Paige hates “babe” as an endearment. It reminds her of the pig. But when she hears it, I watch as her embarrassment turns to sly determination, and I know she’s in this with me.

She gasps. “Andy-Randy!”

My eyebrow quirks up.

She bites back a smile. “You’ve got to be kidding me, babe,” Paige says. “I never left you in Bali. You left me.” The passionate denial in her voice rings true—her love of reality TV is paying off tonight. “Your sister told me you didn’t love me anymore.”

I don’t have a sister, but regardless, I hear a full-blown gasp from the table behind me.

“My sister?” I huff. “She doesn’t know what I want. She just wants to be the first to the altar.”

“And you, babe? What do you want?” Paige asks, voice sultry now.

“You. I want you, babe.” I get down on one knee, my pants scraping against the browning linoleum floors, and pull the ring from my pocket.

Her eyebrows rise with exaggerated delight as if my dad’s oversized ring has been on her wedding Pinterest board for decades. I’ve seen a picture of Paige’s dream ring, which is nothing like this, but she’s looking at my dad’s ring like it’s everything she’s hoped for and more.

“Oh, babe!” Paige gives me a wide smile, flashing her adorable dimple. “Yes! Yes!”

I stand up, and she jumps out of the booth and into my arms. I lift her off the ground, which is not hard to do since I’ve got a good eight inches on her five-five frame.

She whispers into my ear, “I’m going to kill you.”

I grin as if the words are sweet nothings. “Oh, Paige, you romantic, you,” I whisper back.

The whole diner is cheering, a crowd of people gathered around like we’re street performers paid to give them a good show. Some dad’s even got his little girl on his shoulders.

I know what’s supposed to come next. Any romcom worth its salt would insert a meaty kiss right about now, but Paige and I have never crossed that line and never will. It’s not that Paige isn’t fun or witty or beautiful, because she’s all of that. She’s got these killer green eyes that look like grass in the summertime and this rich-brown hair that puts dark chocolate to shame. Not to mention that dimple—I love that dimple. But Paige is my best friend, as in platonic. We’re often together but never “together.” She dates, I date, and we’re good with that. Why fix what’s not broken?

I drop Paige’s feet to the ground, and she gives me a big smile, one that’s clearly for the sake of our charade.

“Andy-Randy, you are just the cutest.” Paige leans in closer. “Now, let’s get out of here.”

That’s when I remember Paige’s date. I got so caught up in our act that I forgot why I was here in the first place. I turn to the guy. His eyes are wide, and his jaw is slack. Regardless of Paige’s reason for wanting to ditch this guy, I just ruined his night.

“Sorry, man,” I say, and I mean it.

The least I can do is pay for their dinners. I take two twenty-dollar bills from my wallet and give them to him. His eyes light up, and he leaves one of the bills on the table and pockets the other. Apparently, any grievance he’s had over my impromptu proposal to his date has been quickly overshadowed by the fact that he’s twenty dollars richer.

Paige gets her purse out of the booth then grabs my hand, not in the we’re a happy couple kind of way but more like a lobster clamping its prey. She starts forward, my hand grasped tightly in hers, and we pass dozens of well-wishers on our way out of the diner.

Paige gets in the passenger seat of my car and shuts the door before glaring at me. The ferocity of her stare hits me with the force of a stuffed animal, soft and adorable.

“You are such a brat.” She slaps my arm.

“I’m sorry—I don’t know who you’re talking to. Am I Andy or Randy?”

She slaps me again, and I laugh before starting my car and shifting into Reverse.

Paige eyes me as I drive away from the diner. “You know I’m terrible at improvising.”

“Oh, I know. The Sound of Music, junior year?”

“Ugh.” She buries her head in her hands. “Don’t remind me.”

“I’ll never forget the way Cade ended up singing both Liesl and Rolf’s parts, like some kind of confused narcissist.”

“I couldn’t think of the lyrics,” she moans.

“Oh, I know. We all knew.” I can’t help but laugh at the memory. Best musical I’ve ever been to.

“I’m glad you were so entertained.” Paige glares at me again, but the muffled sound of her ringtone pulls her attention away. She fishes her phone from her purse and answers.

From Paige’s side of the conversation, I can tell that it’s Ji. They talk for a moment. Paige says something about hybrid boar-pigs and bathrooms, and I don’t even attempt to interpret that. Several moments later, Paige says goodbye, puts her phone back in her purse, and tosses it into my backseat before leaning against her headrest.

“Now, are you going to tell me why your bearded lawn gnome merited the emergency phrase?” I ask, curiosity getting the better of me.

“Oh, so, so many reasons why.” She blows out a breath. And that breath tells me all I need to know about the kind of day she’s had. I mentally reroute us to a new destination and start driving to the one place that always puts a real smile on her face.

She puts out her fingers as she recounts her date’s offenses. “He’s got the manners of a pubescent tween, he thinks TOTO is overrated, and he’s a taxidermist.”

This contains so many Paige-isms that it’s hard to know where to start unpacking. “A taxidermist? What’s wrong with that? Someone’s got to stuff the animals in the natural history museums.”

“Yes, but I don’t want to be Mrs. Taxidermist,” Paige says.

“Mmm, well, I guess it doesn’t matter. He was a goner from the moment he insulted TOTO.”

She throws up her hands. “Right? Thank you. He said ‘Africa’ was overplayed. It’s a classic. You can’t overplay a classic.”

“Gosh, the gall of this guy,” I tease.

Paige hits my arm again. I smirk. Paige loves all music, but her first concert was TOTO, and ever since, the band has been on the list of things you don’t cross her on.

“Why did you go out with him in the first place?” It’s the question that’s been burning in my mind ever since I saw him.

Paige squirms and starts picking an invisible thread off her T-shirt. “He didn’t seem so bad online.” She doesn’t expound, and by her aloof response, I can tell our discussion on dating has come to an end—w

hich I don’t mind one bit.

“And your car? I didn’t see it in the parking lot,” I say, doing my best to change the subject.

“Dory broke down today.” She uses the name we bequeathed her little blue car in high school.

“What, again?” Oh, yikes, it has been a day for Paige.

“Yep.”

“Poor Dory.”

“Yeah, that’s what the mechanic said when he told me the transmission needs to be replaced. She’s going to be the death of me.”

“After a day like today, you know what you need?”

“A pomegranate face mask and America’s Got Talent?”

I grin. “If you have time, I was thinking Trello Park.”

Paige sucks in a breath of air and instantly perks up. “Uh, yes. I will make time. You’re my hero. You know that, right?”

Paige and I continue our easy conversation as we drive through several tree-lined streets before getting onto the highway and driving toward Trello Park in Pine Lakes. Paige pulls her long hair into a ponytail with a hair tie she left in my cup holder a week ago, and we talk about her big day at work tomorrow. Since January, Paige has been a copywriting intern for Wonderman & Fleck, a local advertising agency. But this internship was only meant as a stepping stone to get Paige out of Colorado and into her dream job in California.

Ever since attending college at UC Berkeley, Paige has had her heart set on working for Z3 Group, a thriving ad agency in San Francisco. They won’t seriously consider her unless she has at least an internship, which is why Paige took the one at Wonderman & Fleck.

A few weeks ago, Paige decided she wanted more work experience to pad her résumé before applying to Z3, so she talked to her current boss about making her internship at Wonderman & Fleck a full-time copywriting position. Tomorrow, she’ll find out if she gets the job or not.

I can tell Paige is nervous—she’s gnawing at her bottom lip like it’s corn on the cob. I can’t imagine how tense she must feel. Her internship ends next month, so if she doesn't get the job tomorrow, it will be a hit to her career plans.

“Hey.” I tap my knuckle against her leg. “Tomorrow will be great. No one’s as good with words as you. They’d be crazy not to promote you.”

She rolls her eyes and gives me a wry look. “Uh, Andy-Randy?”

Okay, improv-wise, she’s got a point. But give Paige a pen and some paper, and she’ll transform the most two-dimensional product into a living, breathing thing.

“Andy-Randy was just another bit of your genius,” I insist. “It was catchy and rhymed. I’m pretty sure Famous Amos and StubHub would get behind me on this one.”

She laughs. “I’ll be sure to mention that next time I apply for a job.”

“Do that.” I loosen my tie completely and toss it into the back seat. “But seriously, Paige. You can market anything because you see the best in everything.”

“Aw, you softie.” Paige’s heart-shaped face brightens with a smile, then she leans forward and tugs at her shoelaces.

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