Page 18 of As They Are (Strawberry Springs #2)

He was right, of course. But I hoped that he would remember that I’d once had feelings for him.

That was obviously asking for too much, though.

“Not sure,” I said, shrugging. “Mostly kept my eyes out for the guys.” I’d only met Jade, who was my age. She was gorgeous with her colorful hair and free-spirited personality, but I highly doubted she would give him the time of day. She had to have high standards.

He hummed. “Sometimes there’s a diamond in the rough in places like this.”

“Sure. Have fun hunting.”

“Get ready,” Madison called to me. “Henry’s about to head this way.”

“How do you know?”

“We’re getting him mic’d up so we can hear everything. We want your hellos to be on camera.”

When I did this with Jude, they told us what to say and how to say it. Jude and I got a few minutes to warm up before we were shoved into faking it.

But I supposed it was different this time. The cameras all turned in the direction Henry would walk from, and then he appeared.

He didn’t look that different from usual, and I forced myself to forget that we were being watched. I wanted this to be as natural as possible.

All thoughts flew out of my head when Henry leaned down. His hand went to the side of my neck, and the air in my lungs rushed out of me as his lips moved over mine.

By the time he pulled away, my brain was a mess of exclamation points.

“Hi, buttercup,” he said.

“H-hey,” I replied.

“I brought you these.” He pulled out a bundle of yellow flowers with five tiny petals. “These are buttercups.”

My brow furrowed. “I thought those were the yellow flowers that bloom in early spring.”

“Common misconception. A lot of people call those buttercups, but they’re daffodils.” He tucked the flowers behind my ear. “Now you’re camera ready.”

“I should hire you for my hair and makeup team.”

“I’m free any day of the week for you.”

“Cut!” Madison called. “Nice work. Henry, are you available for a tour of the library before work gets underway?”

“I’ve already seen it, but I can come by after I get done at the clinic.”

“Sounds good. Head on over to get your mic taken off.”

He turned to do so, but then looked at me. “How did I do?”

“Incredible,” I said. So much so that even I got confused. “Thank you for being on camera. You’re a natural.”

“I’m only doing what you told me to.”

And he had my attention every step of the way. I couldn’t look away from him.

But then his watch went off. “I need to get to the clinic now.” He held it up. “I set this to remind myself when I needed to get there.”

I was disappointed, but I tried not to let it show. “I won’t keep you. Thank you for filming with us this morning.”

Henry looked at Madison, whose eyes were fixated on us, before he pressed a kiss to my cheek. My eyes widened as he did it, and the spot where his lips touched my skin felt hot.

He was gone after that, but his touch lingered.

“He could have brought me flowers,” Jude muttered when I walked up to him. “You know, people in this town aren’t all that nice. I tried to ask for someone to park my car, and they looked at me like I’d lost it.”

“The town doesn’t have valet service.”

“I was gonna pay them!”

I shook my head. The town had been oddly cold to Jude since he arrived, and I wondered if it was because of what they thought he had done to me.

“Let’s just get to filming,” I said, looking at the library. I would have to coordinate the work and the show schedule, so I would be busy.

Time moved both too slow and too fast. Whenever I was taking something apart, it went by quickly, but when the cameras were on me, and I had to repeat work to get the perfect shot, my irritation grew.

Still, we got a lot of work done. The guys and I moved some of the shelves in order to rip up the old carpet from upstairs, then we went for the built-ins that weren’t usable. My body was exhausted by four, but my work wasn’t done.

“We need to do interviews,” Madison said. “With you and Jude.”

“I thought we weren’t doing anything together.”

“You’re coworkers and friends. Obviously, you won’t be touching him, but you have to give the audience an update.”

That sounded like a nightmare. “What are we saying?”

“Something about how you’re focused on the library. Whatever works. Now, come on. Henry will be here soon.”

I didn’t want to step away from tearing things down, even as my body told me I needed to be done. But we went outside where the library was in the background. Jude stood next to me and Madison told us to start.

“After we finished up last season,” he began, “things changed. Obviously.”

Changed? He was caught kissing someone else.

“But now we’re completely focused on our projects,” I said quickly. “It’s better this way.”

“We’re still friends, though,” Jude added.

I tried not to glower. We weren’t friends. He wanted nothing to do with me.

“Yeah, friends,” I ground out. Madison’s lips pressed into a thin line, but she didn’t cut the cameras.

It didn’t take long to finish it up, and I was glad that Jude was many steps away from me. This was far better than the alternative, which would have been trying to stomp out this feeling and force myself to look like I liked him.

He was too perfect and too shallow.

And now I had Henry, who was far too easy to fake date.