Fake Dates & Ice Skates: (The North University Series Book 1)

I wake up and my face feels sticky and wet. It’s almost as if I’ve woken up from a bad dream where I was crying because even after I’ve wiped my face, it feels wet again. I wipe my face again, too tired to open my eyes and it becomes covered in wetness. But then I realise it’s because I’m in a relationship with a damn puppy.

Miles leans over me, shirtless, pressing kisses all over my face and chest and I can tell it’s barely even light outside. It’s still winter so it gets bright later in the day but the fact that I can hear the faint chirp of birds is not a good sign.

“What do you want from me?” I groan, trying to push him off me but he continues to kiss my face.

“I want you to get up,” he demands between kisses.

“What time is it?”

“Six,” he says, smiling.

“And you think that’s an acceptable time to wake me up, why?”

“Because I’ve got a surprise for you,” he sing-songs, pulling me up into a sitting position. He pushes the hair that’s stuck to my forehead out of my face and kisses me deeply. I don’t think I’m ever going to get used to this feeling. The overwhelming sense of calm that I get whenever he’s around.

“Oh that makes this so much better,” I say sarcastically when I pull apart from him.

“It’s going to be worth it.”

It better be.

I drag myself up out of his bed, still wearing his shirt and his boxers. He watches me as I get up and I realise that he’s already half dressed. His hoodie hangs on the back of his chair at his desk and his jeans are unbuttoned. What am I missing?

“Why are you already dressed? How long have I been sleeping for?” I quiz and then I gasp dramatically. “How long have you been watching me sleep for?”

“Stop asking questions and get ready, woman,” he challenges, throwing a pillow at me.

He follows me into the bathroom, watching as I brush my teeth. My hair is in desperate need for a cut and since I’ve been borrowing the hair products that he uses and it’s making my hair more wavy than usual. Miles leans against the sink, crossing his arms as he watches me apply moisturiser to my face, rubbing it in slow circles.

“In case it isn’t obvious, you need to hurry up,” he presses. I glare at him and his smile widens. “Please?”

“Why? Where are we going?” I ask through a mouthful of toothpaste. He laughs at me and shakes his head. I spit out the toothpaste and rinse my mouth, turning to him. “You can’t rush beauty.”

“You’re beautiful every day without even trying, baby,” he says seriously, wrapping his arm around my waist to pull me into him. He kisses me on the forehead. “Now hurry up. Kennedy and Scarlett are already on their way there.”

That gets me excited. Whatever Miles is up to involves my girls so I already know that it’s going to be a good day. Even if I’ve had to wake up at the buttcrack of dawn to see whatever it is he’s surprising me with. I finish getting ready, putting on my favourite blue jeans and white sweatshirt, not exactly sure what I’m dressing for.

Miles doesn’t really do surprises. I don’t either. So I know that this must be special. When I meet his impatient ass downstairs, he’s already waiting by the door, my tote bag on his shoulder, ushering me towards him. I pick up my pace and meet him at the door, no idea what I’m walking into.

*

“No way,” I say for the fourth time.

“Yes way,” Miles says.

“No. Freaking. Way,” I say again, punctuating each sentence with a push in his arm.

“Yes way,” Kennedy and Scarlett scream in unison. Miles grins at me, rubbing his arm as if I really hurt him.

“I think I’m going to pass out,” I say, needing to find something to hold onto. I step back from the curb, careful not to turn myself into roadkill and I inch closer towards the bookstore. It feels like I’m dreaming. I must be because there is no way that I’m standing outside the indie bookstore that I’ve been dying to go to since I heard it opened. There is also no way that Scarlett got us all tickets to a book signing with Jasmine James.

“Do you think it was worth waking up early for?” Miles asks.

“Yes! If you had told me that this is where we’re going I would’ve got up way earlier,” I say truthfully.

Jasmine’s first book came out at the same time that I had finally started to get deeper invested in writing. It was a perfect fluffy romcom that she wrote about her and her now husband. It gave me the inspiration to finally pursue my writing more seriously and it gave me the opportunity to find writing communities online and other books like Jasmine’s. Since then, I’ve been following every release she’s had and all of the books that are coming up. I even convinced Scar and Ken into reading her books and they have also become obsessed. I didn’t think she’d come here for her book tour for her latest release, ‘The Stars and You.’

“What do you think she’s going to reveal this week?” Scarlett asks, looking down the queue. It turns out we weren’t the only ones with the idea of coming here early because there are people in front of us, even some people in tents, probably been here for hours. The store opens in less than an hour and we’ve been here for almost three.

“Why would she reveal something?” Miles asks, clearly oblivious to the kind of author Jasmine is.

“You know how Taylor Swift releases easter eggs before releasing a song or an album?” I say and he nods. I’ve been teaching him well. “Jasmine does a similar thing. She has a segment at the end of the book signings where she answers questions and usually, she’ll say something that will link to her next release. Sometimes it’s just a few words and others it’s a whole sentence full of easter eggs.”

“And you guys find that entertaining…how?” he asks.

“You just don’t get it,” Kennedy says, waving him off. “This is our Joker.”

“Right…” Miles says, looking between us. He pulls me into him, wrapping his arm around my shoulder. “Why are you so warm? It’s freezing.”

“It must be all those extra curriculars you put me through before we came,” I say, teasing him as he pulls down my beanie further. He smiles at me. One of those real, Miles-type smiles with dimples and crinkled eyes.

“Oh, so that’s why you took so long,” Scarlett says, nodding. “Makes more sense.”

I don’t even bother to make a snide comment at that because all I really want is to be sharing my warmth with Miles in this weather. As scary as it was to commit to this relationship, I’ve started to realise that he has become one of my best friends. He listens to me and does the most insane things just to see me smile. And I would do a thousand insane things to get him to smile too. He’s become my favourite person to talk to and the first and last thing I think of each day. As scary as it feels to throw myself into this, I’m glad that we’ve established a friendship before so it feels less daunting.

I know exactly how Miles felt meeting his idols at the Sports Achievement Evening because that is exactly how I feel walking into the bookstore, knowing that my favourite author is in there. Excited, nervous and a little bit sick. If I had known we were coming here, I would have prepared some questions beforehand. What do you say to someone who basically saved your life without knowing?

The bookshop is small with a deep rustic vibe to it, blue bunting hanging from the ceiling and a huge lifesize cut out of the cover of Jasmine’s new book and a stack of signed editions. It’s a weird feeling meeting an author. Often, you forget that they’re a real person, putting every single emotion you’ve ever had into words. And you also forget that they have a real face with real feelings and a very real personality.

We’re all anxiously waiting for our turn, Kennedy and Scarlett switch places in the line to have a better look at Jasmine at the front of the queue. Even Miles looks nervous, his arm hung around my shoulder as if it belongs there, tugging me tighter into him as if we aren’t close enough already.

“Do you know what you’re going to ask her?” Miles asks me.

“I have no clue,” I admit. I turn to look up at him, brushing his dark curly hair out of his face. “What do you think I should ask?”

“Well, it’s not like she’s a genie or something. Or is she?” he asks, raising an eyebrow. I shake my head, laughing. “Then just something you feel like you could use advice on. Since she’s older and wiser and all.”

“That’s true,” I say, biting my bottom lip as I nod. We start to move down the queue and I start to feel the nerves in my stomach. She’s just a regular person like you. Don’t need to freak out, Wren, I tell myself. “You guys go first.”

Kennedy and Scarlett turn to me, clutching their copies of ‘The Stars and You’ to their chest. “Are you sure? You’re the one that introduced us to her.”

“Yeah, I’m sure. I need to mentally prepare myself,” I say, taking a deep breath and switching places with them so me and Miles are behind them. “I’m fine. I’m not going to freak out.”

Miles laughs, rubbing my shoulder. “You keep telling yourself that, baby.”

When Scarlett and Kennedy move to the side after their turn, they give me a huge thumbs up, trying to prepare me for one of the best moments of my life. I thought that nothing could top the week that I had with Miles in Palm Springs but this moment is coming in close second. Miles tells me that he’s going to stand over at the side with the girls, giving me a moment alone with Jasmine.

I get to her desk and oh my God, she is gorgeous. Of course I’ve seen pictures of her online but she’s not one of those very public authors. As much as she likes to share snippets of her personal life with her husband, it’s more pictures of him than it is of her. She has fantastic long ginger hair and unlike her Instagram pictures, she’s sporting owl framed glasses, similar to the ones I use when I read. My hands are practically shaking as I place the book down on the table as she smiles up at me.

“Hi. How are you?” she asks, resting her forearms on the book and her whole attention is on me.

“I-I’m great. My boyfriend and my friends surprised me with this so I’m doing great. How are you? How are you finding Utah?” I ask. Great. Word vomit. Exactly what I need right now. I clear my throat.

She laughs quietly, opening up the book to the first page. “It’s a lot colder than I thought it would be. Honestly, I don’t know what compelled me to pack for a summer trip,” she says, shaking her head.

“It can be very deceiving,” I say back.

“Who am I signing this for?” she asks, picking up her black marker.

“For Wren,” I say, hating how childish I sound. She nods.

“I told myself that I wouldn’t ask everyone this but do you have any burning questions? It can be about the book or about life in general. Are you a writer?” she asks, excitedly and I’m taken aback about how chilled out this all feels. All that freaking out I did is borderline embarrassing.

“Sort of,” I say with a shrug. She nods understandingly. “I do want to ask something, though. You can totally ignore this if it’s stupid but I just want to know if you know how to do something even if it’s scary. To put yourself into something that could possibly turn out to be a shitshow.” I gasp at myself. “Sorry. I probably shouldn’t swear in front of the baby.”

She laughs at that, rubbing her stomach. “Trust me, you should hear the amount of curse words Ida’s dad uses. It’s not going to be any different with this one,” she says, pointing at her small bump. “Anyway. What are you worried about turning into a shitshow?”

I sigh. “Everything,” I explain. “Mostly a new relationship.”

Jasmine smiles faintly, she gestures for me to come closer to the table and I do as if she’s about to tell me a secret. “Sweetheart, I met you…what? Two minutes ago? And I can already tell that that boy over there is head-over-heels, Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds kind of in love with you.”

I don’t mention the fact that we have never said those words to each other. That this is all still new. We’re practically still in the honeymoon stage. Instead, I ask, “How do you know that?”

“Because his eyes have not left you since you’ve been in here,” she says flippantly. I turn to him then, catching him standing next to the girls who are gushing to him over their signed copies. Like Jasmine said, his eyes are on me. He’s probably listening to their conversation half-heartedly but his eyes don’t leave mine. Even when I raise my eyebrows at him, silently asking what he’s doing, all he does is grin, knowing that he’s got me wrapped right around his little finger. “When I was setting up, I saw you two outside and I just knew. I knew because I’ve been you. I was scared to dive into a relationship with someone I have clearly been in love with my whole life. And it turned out to be the best thing to ever happen to me. I mean, he’s put two babies in me for God’s sake.” She laughs again and I join in. “You are never going to know how it could work out if you don’t try.”

I stand there, pretty much motionless as I watch her write in my signed copy. I barely register that our conversation has ended by the time I get to the girls and Miles, all of them excited to see what she wrote in there but I don’t open it. I tell them that I’ll look in it later, not wanting to ruin the sparkle of this morning just yet.

Still, after we’ve all had lunch together and we’ve gone back to the apartment, I don’t open it. Even after FaceTiming my dad and telling him about the surprise, I can’t bring myself to open it. Only because I know that whatever she’s written in there is going to be the only thing going through my mind for the next two years. Finally, after I’ve showered and I’m ready, I pick up the book.

To, Wren.

Firstly, you don’t need a man to determine your worth. Gross. You can do that on your own. But when you do have one that looks at you like that and does things for you like he did today, you hold him close and you keep him. Because even on your worst days, he’s going to be there for you if you let him in.

Take care, Jasmine.

I try to take in what she said. How much do you think it would cost if I asked this woman to be my therapist? I read it over and over and each time I get chills.

Hold him close and keep him.

I can do that.