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Tara shook her head, her hair swishing around her ears with the movement. She shivered. Was it cold in here? “I don’t have anything appropriate for a Jewish wedding in the woods in December, and I need the, I don’t know, the distraction and ceremony of a shopping quest for the exact right thing. It will be good. A new dress will be good armor.” Her breath started to come back into her lungs.

“To the most lesbian road trip of all time: heading to your ex’s wedding,” Holly declared, holding her glass up for a toast.

Tara chinked her glass and argued, “It would be even gayer if they were both my exes.”

Holly threw her head back and cackled, and the sound reverberated through the house. How did she do that? How did she just… laugh, out loud? It wasn’t that Tara never laughed, but not like that, without caring how she looked or who heard her. She watched the line of Holly’s neck, freckles leading down it like a trail, and felt her body heat.

How could she handle four days trapped in a car with this woman?

But no, she was perfectly capable of keeping her lust under control, no matter how good Holly’s hair smelled. She was Tara Sloane Chadwick, the phoenix of Charleston. She had remade herself in an image of her choosing using only her willpower (and her family’s vast resources and connections, she reminded herself). She could get through one road trip and one uncomfortable wedding without cracking her composure. She wouldn’t even have to deal with moldy wallpaper!

This self-pep talk completed, she packed Holly off with a distant cheek kiss and a takeaway plate. She should make a list of everything that needed doing before they left, should go shopping, should create a document for Holly of everything she needed to know to be a convincing fake girlfriend.

She didn’t do any of those things.

Instead, she put on her rattiest, most comfortable pajamas that no one ever saw, not even Cole, climbed under every blanket she owned, and put on a carefully curated playlist of X-Files episodes. Somehow this was going to be okay, but only if she could figure out how to keep cool.

In the two weeks between agreeing to pretend to be dating in front of literally all her real friends in the world and the day they actually left, Tara spent eighteen-hour days at the office trying to get ahead on work before her vacation, and rethought the plan thousands of times. If Holly were not already posting about them on her social media, Tara would absolutely have called it off at least once a day. But they were already lying, and if the truth came out, she would be even more humiliated. There was no reason now not to go through with all of it.

And, after all, she still couldn’t imagine showing up to this damn wedding single.

The morning they were set to leave for the wedding, Tara pulled up to Holly’s apartment complex and texted to say she was there.

HOLLY: I’m not quite ready, come up. 367, back corner apartment on the left.

Tara bristled. They had agreed, December 19, seven a.m., because they wanted to get an early start. She was prepared for a long day of driving. She wasn’t prepared to see Holly’s home, didn’t want to see that vulnerable side of Holly.

It would only make Tara like her more, and Tara didn’t have any room for that. She gritted her teeth. This was the sort of thing she liked to know beforehand, so she could have a script and an exit plan. Although, she was Holly’s ride out of town, so she couldn’t have an exit plan. Which was the other problem—she had a very specific schedule, and this delay was going to throw it off.

She practiced breathing techniques all the way to Holly’s door, where she spent several moments trying to decide if she should knock, and, if so, should she do a standard knock or a jaunty sort of rhythm, or should she ring the doorbell. Her hairline started to sweat, which was going to ruin her blowout, so she decided on the bell.

A muffled voice yelled for her to come in. Shit.

She ordered her sweat glands to get their shit together. Just because it wasn’t Done to walk into someone’s home for the first time without having been met at the door didn’t mean she was physically incapable of doing it. She had done, in her life, many things that Simply Weren’t Done, up to and including sleeping with women, and she was still here to tell the tale. She would survive this.

God, she hated surprises. Why did this trip that she was already so freaked out about have to start with a surprise?

She stared down at her shoes, rather than around at Holly’s apartment. She was intensely curious about Holly’s space, but she refused to snoop. She didn’t want to have any fodder for her imagination when it came to Holly’s couch, or bed, or other soft horizontal surfaces.

“I’m almost ready, I swear!” Holly’s voice broke through her concentration.

She glanced up to assure Holly that it was fine, although it wasn’t really, and stopped mid-thought.

Holly was standing in the hallway in front of Tara, wearing a neon-pink towel with giant green flowers on it. It was not a lot of towel for a tall woman. A large expanse of Holly’s muscular legs, and a significant portion of her perfect breasts, were exposed. Her hair was dripping rivulets of water down the valley of her cleavage, and when she reached up to wring it out, Tara was convinced the towel was going to hit the floor. A small, evil part of her prayed that it would.

Tara slow blinked, trying to clear her lust fog.

“Oh my God, you look so panicked!” Holly giggled. “Are you okay? Did you suddenly realize you left your Jag alone in my shitty apartment parking lot? You’re welcome to wait in the car.”

“I don’t own a Jag,” Tara said, then processed the rest of Holly’s words. “And I’m not worried about my car. I expected you to be…”

“Ready?” Holly guessed.

“Dressed,” Tara corrected.

Holly waved this off with one hand, and for a moment, Tara really did think the towel would slip. “I’m completely packed and ready. I literally just need to pull on some clothes. Give me five minutes!”

When they settled into the car (only ten minutes later), Holly cocked her head, her wet hair now braided down her back. How did she leave the house with wet hair? Tara’s scalp itched.