Page 10 of Dream On, Ramona Riley

“Blair and I are more mature now,” Dylan said. “Perfectly capable of being civil to each other. Professional.”

“And if not, you fake it,” Laurel said, a favorite tagline of hers.Fake it, fake it, fake it. That’s all Hollywood is anyway.

“I’m shocked Rayna hasn’t concocted some fake dating romance between Blair and me,” Dylan said, laughing, but Laurel’s expression sort of…froze. Dylan’s eyes went wide. “What. Tell me you’re kidding.”

Laurel winced. “Rayna suggested it. Blair’s people shut it down.”

Dylan blinked, this news settling in slowly. Rayna was her publicist, brought in by Laurel, and was a heady mix of sweet tea and arsenic, a viper disguised as a debutante. Fake dating between two starlets was probably her wet dream.

“So, Blair didn’t want to fake date me,” Dylan said.

“She did not.”

It shouldn’t bother her—she didn’t want to fake date Blair either, Jesus. But at the same time, why didn’t Blair want to fake date her?

She shook her head, stood up. “Okay, whatever. This is fine.”

“You said that already.”

“Well, it is,” she said, impressed by how calm she felt, how smooth her tone was. She was going to focus on what she could control, just like her therapist, Eli, reminded her to do every week.

Simple.

Easy.

“Did you make sure the diner is still ready to train me?” she asked, picking up the thick script forAs If You Didn’t Knowfrom the ottoman and tucking it under her arm.

“All set. Three weeks and you’ll be a bona fide waitress in Clover Lake, New Hampshire.”

The town’s name wrapped around her like a hug, a soft smile settling on her mouth as sweet memories warmed and loosened her tight chest. “You ever been there?”

“Clover Lake?” Laurel asked, standing up too. “No.”

“It’s lovely.”

“You’ve been?”

Dylan nodded. “Hallie took me for a week during the summer I was thirteen. My parents were…well.” She cleared her throat. “It was a good few days.” Her memory drifted to a dark-eyed girl, a long fishtail braid, and a cherry-print T-shirt. The girl’s face was blurry now, but the feeling was still there—comfort and hope and excitement, first kisses and laughter.

Just two girls being kids. Something Dylan never really got to be, not like other children. Not like that girl on Clover Lake’s shore.

“Anyway,” Dylan said, shaking off the dreamy memories. She returned to them too often, whenever she was stressed or overwhelmed, that singularly happy moment in her life. But she had work to do now. She had to focus, not dwell in a fairy tale that she sometimes had a hard time believing was even real. “It’ll be a great location. Good to get out of LA, that’s for sure.”

Laurel dug Dylan’s phone out of her pocket and held it out. “Can I trust you with this?”

Dylan flicked her eyes to the device, then picked up her cake box and turned away. “Probably not.”

She headed out onto her back patio and into the perpetual LA sunshine to try her damnedest to become the best small-town queer gal the world had ever seen.

Chapter

Three

“Olive!” Ramona calledfrom the kitchen as she sipped her coffee and worked a mini-crossword on her phone. “Isn’t Marley picking you up at eight?”

“I’m coming! Jesus!” a voice screeched from upstairs.

Ramona winced. Olive had graduated this past weekend—Ramona had made sure to wear waterproof mascara and took at least a hundred pictures—and this week marked a Clover Lake tradition where the graduates fluttered through town in different costumes as a symbol of their newly minted independence. During Grad Week, they went to movies and restaurants and the beach and got ice cream, all dressed up in the theme of the day. Despite all this frivolity, Olive seemed a bit on edge. Neither their dad nor Ramona could really put a finger on why—school was over, Olive had a full ride to Vanderbilt with her best friend, Marley, and she was only a few months from getting out ofthis backassward shoebox of a town, as Olive put it.