Fake Dating My EX's Favourite BasketBaller: His Idol Has A Crush On Me

AVA My alarm didn't go off. That's how it started, the worst and somehow, eventually, the best Tuesday of my entire life. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I jolted awake at 7:47AM, my heart immediately racing because I knew, I just knew, I was screwed. I was supposed to open Sterling & Page Books at eight. I was already twelve minutes late, and Patricia, my manager, had pulled me aside last week with that tight smile that meant corporate had been breathing down her neck. "Ava, I adore you, but one more tardiness and we'll have to reevaluate your position." Corporate speak for: you're fired. I launched myself out of bed, my foot tangling in the sheets, and crashed into the nightstand. Pain exploded through my hip. "s**t, s**t, s**t," I hissed, hobbling toward the bathroom. No time for a shower. I pulled my dark hair into a messy bun that probably looked more "disaster victim" than "effortlessly chic," brushed my teeth in forty-five seconds flat, and threw on yesterday's jeans and a wrinkled black t-shirt that may or may not have been clean. My studio apartment looked like a tornado had mated with a bankruptcy notice. Overdue bills covered my kitchen counter, electric, internet, credit cards with interest rates that should be illegal. The eviction warning I'd found slipped under my door last night sat on top of the pile, bold red letters screaming FINAL NOTICE. I was two months behind on rent. The bookstore paid me $15.80 an hour. My bartending gig at McClaren's brought in decent tips on good nights, but not decent enough. Not when I was still paying off credit card debt from my relationship with Ethan, fancy restaurants I couldn't afford, trips he'd insisted we take, always promising to "get me back" but never quite managing to. Ethan. Even thinking his name made my jaw clench. Three months since I'd walked in on him with Madison from the sports network, and the betrayal still felt fresh. Not because I missed him, I didn't, not anymore, but because I'd been so stupidly blind. All those late nights he claimed he was "networking," all those texts he'd hidden, all those times he'd made me feel crazy for asking questions. I should have known better. I did know better. But loneliness makes you stupid, and I'd been so lonely after moving to LA, trying to make it as a writer while working dead-end jobs and watching my savings evaporate like morning fog. The microwave clock glared 7:52 AM. I had eight minutes to make a twenty-minute commute. I grabbed my bag, my phone, and the iced latte I'd made last night and left in the fridge. Cold coffee was better than no coffee. I'd learned that the hard way during the six months I'd been juggling two jobs and exactly zero hours of adequate sleep. My car; a 2009 Honda Civic with a suspicious rattling noise and a check engine light that had been on so long I'd started thinking of it as decorative, coughed to life on the third try. I pulled out of my apartment complex doing fifteen over the speed limit, praying to a god I wasn't sure I believed in that there wouldn't be traffic on the 405. There was, of course, traffic on the 405. Because the universe has a sick sense of humor. I gripped the steering wheel, watching the minutes tick by. 8:01. 8:03. 8:07. I was so fired. I was so incredibly, spectacularly fired. Which meant I couldn't pay rent. Which meant eviction. Which meant moving back to Ohio with my mother, admitting defeat, hearing "I told you LA was a mistake" for the rest of my natural life. My phone buzzed. A text from Maya, my best friend and former roommate before I'd moved into the solo studio I could no longer afford. Maya: Morning! Coffee date this week? I couldn't afford coffee dates. Couldn't afford much of anything. I typed back with one hand, the other gripping the wheel: Me: Broke and probably about to be unemployed. Rain check? Maya: Again?? Girl, we need to talk about your life choices. I almost laughed. My life choices. As if I'd chosen any of this, the poverty, the exhaustion, the soul-crushing reality of being twenty-six and feeling like I'd already failed at being an adult. I'd had a plan once. Graduate college, move to LA, write the next great American novel, maybe find love, definitely find success. Instead, I'd found student loans, rejection letters from literary agents, and Ethan Cross, who'd seemed charming and successful until I realized he was just narcissistic and well-connected. Traffic finally cleared at 8:19 AM. I pressed the accelerator, weaving through lanes with the kind of reckless desperation that comes from knowing you're already screwed but refusing to make it worse. I pulled into the bookstore parking lot at 8:24, grabbed my bag and my iced latte, and sprinted toward the entrance. I was moving so fast I didn't see the man until I'd already collided with him. The impact was total. My latte exploded, drenching both of us in cold, sticky coffee. My bag flew from my shoulder, contents scattering across the sidewalk, tampons, a half-eaten granola bar, my battered copy of "The Bell Jar," loose change, everything. The man stumbled backward, and I grabbed his arm instinctively to steady him, which only resulted in us both nearly toppling over in an awkward tangle of limbs and mortification. "Oh my god," I gasped, finally registering the damage. The man's suit, an obviously expensive suit, charcoal gray and probably designer, was completely soaked. Coffee dripped from his chest, his sleeves, even his perfectly styled dark hair. "Oh my god, I'm so sorry, I wasn't looking, I'm late for work, I…" I looked up. And my stomach dropped straight through the sidewalk. I knew that face. Everyone in America knew that face. Everyone who'd ever dated a sports fanatic definitely knew that face. Jaxon Reid. Point guard for the Los Angeles Titans. Reigning MVP. The man whose poster had hung in Ethan's apartment like a religious icon. Whose games Ethan had prioritized over every single date we'd ever planned. Whose autograph Ethan had literally cried over obtaining at some charity event I hadn't been invited to. Jaxon Reid was staring at me with something between shock and amusement, covered head to toe in my cheap grocery store coffee. My mouth opened. No words came out. My brain had completely short-circuited. Around us, people had stopped. I heard the unmistakable sound of phones being pulled out, cameras clicking, that weird digital shutter sound that means you're about to become someone's content. This was it. This was how I died. Not from poverty or exhaustion or heartbreak, but from mortification so complete it would simply stop my heart. Jaxon Reid looked down at his ruined suit, probably worth more than my monthly rent, then back at me. And then, impossibly, he laughed. Not a polite chuckle. A real laugh, warm and genuine, the kind that crinkled the corners of his eyes. "Well," he said, his voice deeper than it sounded on TV, warmer somehow, "that's one way to meet someone." I wanted to die. Wanted the sidewalk to open up and swallow me whole. Wanted to rewind time to this morning and actually wake up when my alarm was supposed to go off. Instead, I did the only thing I could do. I ran. I left my scattered belongings on the sidewalk, I'd replace the tampons, the book was already falling apart anyway, and I ran into the bookstore like my life depended on it, ignoring Patricia's shocked expression, ignoring the customers who'd clearly witnessed the entire disaster through the front windows, ignoring everything except the primal need to disappear into the self-help section and possibly never emerge. Behind me, I heard Jaxon Reid say something, his voice carrying a note of confusion: "Wait…" But I was already gone, my face burning, my heart pounding, my entire body vibrating with the knowledge that I'd just humiliated myself in front of one of the most famous athletes in the country. And somewhere, in the back of my mind, a tiny voice whispered: Ethan is going to see this. Ethan is absolutely going to see this. That thought, more than anything else, made me want to throw up.