Chapter 1: The Invitation
Dasha Waldorf was deep into a particularly cheesy Regency romance when her phone buzzed against the coffee table, scattering the precarious tower of manuscript pages beside her. The apartment held that perfect Sunday-evening quiet, broken only by the soft hiss of vinyl from her record player—some ambient thing Jim had left behind that she’d never had the heart to change. Her favorite candle, a spiced bergamot thing that smelled like a literate forest, flickered on the mantel beside a framed, slightly crooked poster for The Apartment.
She saw the name on the screen and a smile started at the corners of her mouth before her brain even registered it. She marked her place in the book with a takeout menu, wiped a speck of red wine from her lip, and answered.“Matty.To what do I owe the privilege? You realize you’ve interrupted a very serious date with a duke who has a mysterious scar.”
There was a pause on the other end.Not a comfortable one. She could hear traffic, a distant siren—the soundtrack of the city he was walking through. Then, his voice, tight and a little too high.“Hey. Hey, Dash.”
Dasha uncurled her legs from beneath her on the worn velvet couch, the familiar warmth of the moment cooling.Something was off. “What’s wrong?Is it your mom?”
“No, no, everyone’s fine. Everyone’s… fine.” Another pause, filled with the sound of him exhaling sharply. “I need a favor.A… specific kind of favor.”
“Name it.You need a kidney? I’ve got two, and I’m only using one of them most days.”
He didn’t laugh. Another bad sign.Matt always laughed at her dumb jokes, even the ones that weren’t funny. “It’s about the wedding.”
“Ah.” Dasha leaned back, the wine suddenly tasting sharper.Anna’s wedding. Matt’s younger sister, who was a force of nature wrapped in tulle and spreadsheets.“What’s the favor? You need me to hide you in a cargo container and smuggle you to Canada?I know a guy. Well, I know a character in a book.”
“I need a date.”
The words hung there, simple and brutal.Dasha blinked.The golden light from her floor lamp seemed to dim for a second. “A date,” she repeated, her voice careful, neutral. The heart of her found family, the one who always knew what to say, went completely blank.
“Not a real date,” he rushed to add, the words tumbling out now.“A… a fake date. A plus-one.A… person to be there with me. So my aunts stop asking when I’m going to settle down. So my dad stops making those sad, pointed toasts about ‘waiting for the right one.’ So I can just… get through it without a hundred well-meaning interrogations.”
Dasha stood up, the book sliding to the rug. She paced over to the window, the smooth wooden floorboards cool under her bare feet. Through the sheer curtains, Brooklyn was a mosaic of lit windows and shifting shadows.“You have a million friends. You could ask anyone.”
“I don’t want to ask anyone. I want to ask you.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re…” He faltered.“You’re you.You know my family. You love my family, and they love you.You wouldn’t be awkward. You’d actually enjoy the open bar and the questionable disco cover band.We could just… be us. But, you know, holding hands.”
Holding hands. The image flashed, unbidden: his familiar, large hand swallowing hers.The casual brush of his thumb over her knuckles during a movie. How easy it would be.How terrifying.A year. For over a year, she had carried this quiet, terrifying weight in her chest. A secret she’d built a fortress around, brick by brick, with inside jokes and late-night pizza and a steadfast, unwavering friendship. The fear of losing him—of ruining the most solid, beautiful thing in her life—had always been louder than the hope.
And now he was asking her to walk right up to the edge of the fortress and pretend to be on the other side.“Matt,” she said softly, her forehead resting against the cool glass. “This is a terrible idea.”
“Is it?” The nervous edge was gone from his voice, replaced by a quiet earnestness that was worse.“Why? We’d just be… extending the bit.We already act like an old married couple.I borrow your sweaters.You steal my fries. We finish each other’s…”
“Sandwiches,” they said in unison, a reflex born from a thousand viewings of the same animated movie.
Silence stretched again, thick and heavy between them. She could feel him waiting, could picture him standing on some street corner, running a hand through his hair, a habit he had when he was anxious.
“It’s one weekend,” he said, his voice closer now, as if he’d cupped the phone to his mouth. “Three days in Texas. You get a free mini-vacation, all the cake you can eat, and the profound satisfaction of watching me suffer through the electric slide.Come on, Dash. Be my guardian angel.Be my… human shield.”
She closed her eyes. The scent of her candle, usually a comfort, felt suddenly cloying. This was the man who’d held her hair back when she was sick from bad oysters, who’d patiently assembled her IKEA bookshelves while she read the instructions wrong, who remembered she hated the texture of pears. The man whose laugh was her favorite sound.Letting him go was unthinkable.But this? This felt like playing with a lit match next to a lifetime’s worth of kindling.
“What are the rules?” she heard herself ask, the editor in her seeking the terms and conditions of this perilous contract.“Rules?”
“Of the fake date.What’s the… protocol? Are we suddenly in love?Are we ‘seeing how it goes’? What’s our meet-cute?Do we have pet names? These are important world-building details, Matthew.”
He let out a breath, half-laugh, half-sigh of relief.She’d thrown him the rope. “I was thinking… we’ve been seeing each other for a few months.Low-key. Didn’t want to make a big deal until we were sure.But we’re sure now. We’re… a thing.”
A thing.Her heart did a clumsy, painful somersault.
“Pet names?” she pressed, needing the ground to be solid, needing it all to feel like a joke.“Absolutely not.”
“Good. I was afraid you’d want to call me ‘pumpkin’ or something.”
“I was thinking ‘honey,’ but only when my Great-Aunt Beatrice is within earshot. She’s hard of hearing and deeply traditional.”
Dasha turned from the window, her gaze landing on the empty armchair where Jim’s ghost still sometimes sat. She’d survived that loss, a pain so vast it had reshaped her.This was different. This was a risk, a deliberate step onto a frozen lake, listening for cracks.“Okay,” she said.The word left her mouth before she could catch it.
“Okay?”
“Yeah.Okay. I’ll be your fake girlfriend for the wedding.”
The silence from his end was complete. Then, a soft, almost disbelieving, “Really?”
“Don’t make me regret it. I expect first-class travel and my own hotel room.”
“Obviously.Thank you.Thank you, Dasha. You’re… you’re saving my life.”
“I know,” she said, forcing her trademark lightness back into her voice. “It’s what I do.Now go away, you’re interrupting my duke. He’s about to reveal the secret of his scar, and I have a theory it involves a duel and a mistaken identity.”
She hung up before he could say anything else.The phone felt heavy in her hand. She looked around her warm, cluttered sanctuary—the books, the rug about to be indented by a different pair of shoes, the golden light that now felt suddenly like a spotlight.
Two days, she thought.Just two days.
But she already knew that some doors, once opened, couldn’t be quietly closed again. She had just agreed to walk through one, hand in hand with her best friend, with no idea what was waiting on the other side.