When she uncovers his plan to lead an entirely uneventful life, Mia Evian is determined to teach Preston Maddox how to stop living like a ghost, but Mia and Preston have history, tension, and a lot of complicated feelings.
...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
For better or for worse, I don't reveal the true intentions of our double date to Preston until it would be morally questionable for him to back out. When I spill the beans the morning of, he's unnervingly unfazed. I soon discover why.
'Huh. I should give you more credit,' he murmurs from the other side of the phone–a text felt cruel; face to face felt too intense. 'I wasn't anticipating a confession.'
I frown into my phone. 'What?'
'I know it's a date; you're extremely unsubtle.'
I jump from my bed. 'Wait, are you–You knew this whole time?'
I can hear the smirk in his voice–literally hear it–as he replies with, 'yes, Mia.'
'How?' I yell.
'Well, to your credit, I initially interpreted it as us genuinely hanging out with Dana. Then I thought about it for approximately five minutes.'
'Come on, it wasn't that obvious.'
'It was. The addition of Nick a few days later was essentially just verification.'
What he's saying is that I've been toiling over this for days when not only did he see right through me, but he's seemingly unbothered by the whole thing.
'Are you still going to come?' I ask hopefully.
'Yes.' He sighs. 'But I'll clarify the situation to Dana.'
I harshly shake my head, not that he can see me.
'You don't have to! If you hate every second, that's fine, and you can be totally honest with her and say you just want to be friends.' I lower my voice, make it as warm and smooth as possible. 'Just try, Preston. Please? For me?'
He sighs through the phone again, his silence implying at least some degree of contemplation. After another minute or so–a long, painful minute–I hear him take a breath.
'Fine.'
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Preston and I are meeting Nick and Dana at the uni pub I broke the double date news to Nick at, our logic being that it's always quieter on Wednesday evenings because it's the uni's big club night so everyone is out elsewhere. Having successfully wrangled Preston into agreeing to treating the night as a date, I use the journey there to lay out my terms.
