Page 83 of Bonfire and Bliss Bookstore

“Oh, he loves it. Not as much as he loves having Tally right down the path in the cottage, though. I swear my son works to steal his uncle Jesse’s girlfriend daily.”

I giggle. “It’s sweet.”

We pull up beside Walker’s old F-150 and, when Billie puts the car in park, she turns to me with a soft expression.

“You don’t actually have to tell me anything, Penny,” she says. “We can make some tea and then I’ll drive you home after. We don’t need all the girls’ night antics.”

My lips twist. “I think I could use a little girls’ night antics.”

Billie’s face lights up. “Really?”

“Yeah, really. But maybe I’ll just spill all the tea right here. That way, if you do any surprised shrieking, we don’t wake the house.”

Billie snorts. “Okay.”

“God, I don’t even know where to start.” I let out a heaving sigh. “I guess it all started with me and my big mouth.”

Billie shifts in her seat so that her back is against the door and she’s facing me completely.

“Remember the last time you saved me after Monty saw me topless?”

Billie laughs. “Yeah, how could I forget?”

“Well, that wasn’t even the worst thing that happened that day. After that, he witnessed my complete humiliation—repeatedly—because everyone in town is determined to set up Poor Pathetic Penny—”

Billie frowns. “You aren’t pathetic.”

“Tell that to the second man who offered to be my fake boyfriend after Babs tried to have a ghost whisperer purge me of my bad luck.”

“What?”

I shake my head. “It’s honestly too hard to explain. The point is, after Monty witnessed my utter humiliation he offered to be my fake boyfriend.”

Billie hums. “What does he get out of it?”

“Well, I kind of told Monty that I knew why his books weren’t selling and gave him a detailed list of everything wrong with them.”

“You didn’t!”

I cover my face. “I did.”

“What did you say? What did he say?”

I blow out a heavy breath as I tell her everything; how I told Monty his books were boring, how they were missing romance, chemistry, the very thing that kept a reader turning the page.

“How did he react?” Billie asks.

“Well, he nearly kissed me.” Her mouth drops open, and I hold up a hand. “He was just trying to prove a point. He said something like”—I drop my voice in a bid to imitate him—“ ‘If you think I can’t kiss you like I’ve been aching to do this my whole life…’ ”

“Shut up!”

“Exactly,” I squeal dramatically. God, it feels good to confide in someone.

“So then what happened?”

“He offered to be my fake boyfriend…which of course I said no to at first. But then he said he really needed help learning how to write romance and he figured if we did this, I could help teach him how to write a good book boyfriend.” She hums and nods along, urging me to continue. “So, I agreed. Two stones one bird and all that jazz.”

Billie’s face contorts. “Huh?”