For the Love of Donuts

9. No Weird Couple Names

Skye

“Yeah, Mama,” Tatum says into his phone after opening the passenger door, “I’ll be over for dinner and rummy.” He gets into my car and looks at me. “I’m not sure if Skye can come tonight. She has such a busy social life, ya know?”

I slug him as he puts his seatbelt on. “Tell her I’ll be there, you doof.”

“Actually,” he drawls with a slight chuckle, “it seems like she’ll be able to squeeze us in. Set an extra plate, okay? Love you too. See you and Pops later.”

“When do I ever turn down your mom’s cooking?” I scoff once he’s off the phone with her.

“Good morning to you too, Carson.” He slips his phone into the pocket of his jeans. “Does this shirt meet the casual-but-nice dress code?”

Tate and I are comfy clothes people, so neither of our closets are bursting with semi-formal attire—I should also point out that the word “attire” isn’t usually present in our everyday vocabularies either—however, the light blue button-down collared shirt he chose is nice.

Green is his favorite color, but I’ve always thought he looks good in blue.

Just another platonic kind of observation.

“Yep, good choice,” I tell him, backing the car out of his driveway. “So, listen, I just want to make sure we’re on the same page about a couple of things before we get over there.”

“Sounds good.” He hooks up his phone to the car, and then he starts our “safe” playlist, which only has songs we’ve both agreed on. Aka: no horrid rock music. “Lay ’em on me.”

“Well, first off, no weird couple names. Nothing like Snookums, Babycakes, or anything else that’s embarrassing.” I know for a fact that Dria loves to call Trey—wait for it— Hot Pants , and it’s just awkward as heck. Plus, EW. “We want this to be as real and as natural as possible.”

“Agreed,” he says, shifting in his seat. “Will I be safe though if I accidentally slip up and call you honey or something like that? You won’t flip out on me and turn into a crazy, fake bridezilla?”

“You’re so overdramatic. Yes, you’ll be safe.”

He presses a hand to his heart. “Oh, thank God.”

“Anyway,” I huff, making a right turn, “the other thing we need to talk about is the engagement ring.” I glance at Dria’s ring from the corner of my eye. Dang, it even looks good on me while I’m driving. Focus ! I sit up a little straighter. “Zoya noticed I wasn’t wearing one, so Anna and I came up with an excuse just in case you or I are asked about why I didn’t have it on.”

“Which is what, exactly?”

“Easy, we both agreed to keep our engagement on the down-low for a little while, but then decided it was time to start telling people. Which is why I’m wearing the ring now.” I rack my brain for anything else I might’ve forgotten. “I think that’s it. Unless there’s something you wanted to add?”

“I think we’re good.” He hums along to the current song that’s playing. “We already decided on the proposal story, and I really don’t know what else would be expected besides that.”

“Great.” I resist the urge to fidget with my curled hair. Everything is going to be fine. Everyone is going to believe us. “We’re all set then.”

“Ya know, I don’t think I’ve seen you this nervous since that first freshman dance in high school when you were worried about kissing Burke Aarons.”

I wince at the memory of me pacing across my bedroom floor while I shared ALL of my Burke Aarons concerns with Tatum as he sat on my bed and listened. “Who says I’m nervous?”

“You’re choking the life out of your steering wheel,” he points out oh-so-casually.

I try to be discreet as I loosen my death grip.

“Pink Stuff, relax. It’ll only be a couple of hours, and we have a solid plan with all our bases covered.”

“You’re right, you’re right,” I say, even though Dria’s engagement ring feels like it weighs a million pounds. “Did you have to bring up Burke Aarons though?”

Tatum remembers how upset I was over my awkward, horrible first kiss mishap with Burke. Apparently, my lip gloss had some kind of ingredient that he was allergic to—because the poor guy broke out into hives and his lips swelled up like the Kylie lip challenge gone wrong.

I swore off kissing for a good five months after that.

It was so humiliating.

“It’s your fault that we went down memory lane yesterday about my failed promposal with Janna Fronz.”

“Touché.”

Clearly, the both of us have been mastering the romance scene for a while now.

Total professionals.

That ring just got even heavier.

Soon, we arrive at the Dovell Donuts office building. Is it possible to feel like throwing up if you haven’t eaten yet? Just wondering. Hypothetically speaking.

“Hey,” Tatum says after I stop the car, “we got this.” He holds his pinky out to me. “I promise.”

We are way too old for pinky promises, but I know he’s trying to ease my nerves, which I appreciate.

I wrap my pinky around his. “We got this.”

IT WAS A LIE! The “we got this” pinky promise was comforting, but very misleading because I’m already convinced that our plan is in jeopardy.

“He knows!” I hiss to Tatum, well aware that I sound a tad bit hysterical. “He so knows!”

“Skye, the man is just trying to do his job,” Tatum deadpans. “The only reason he glared at us is because you stepped through the pile he was sweeping up. He doesn’t know.”

“He does too!” I insist, glancing over my shoulder to see the weekend janitor walking toward the break room. “He knows we’re faking!”

“Well, he will know if you don’t keep your mouth shut,” Tatum whispers back, pinching my arm. “Relax.”

“Ow,” I say, even though it didn’t really hurt.

“You calmer now?”

Darn him.

“Yeah,” I mutter as we near the conference room (we always use it for our brunches since the tables are bigger in there). “I’m calmer.”

Although, I’m starting to think I wore the wrong pair of underwear with these jeans. I’m not feeling the complete coverage on my backside that I had earlier when I left the apartment.

Hungry. Butt.

Aka: the dreaded wedgie.

Like I don’t already have enough to worry about.

There’s no way I’ll make it through the brunch without handling this.

“I need to use the bathroom really quick,” I tell Tatum, trying not to squirm. “I’ll be right back.”

“Wait!” His eyes widen as he grasps my arm. “You’re going to leave me here? To fend for myself?”

“This is kind of non-optional , Tatum,” I hiss, keeping my hands where I can see them. “Just—don’t go in yet! And if anyone asks why you’re lingering out here, you can tell them that you’re waiting for me, okay? I’ll only be a second.”

“Skye, if I end up getting interrogated…”

“Only a second!” I exclaim over my shoulder as I fast-walk to the bathroom.

I’m going to BURN this pair of traitorous underwear when I get home.

Once I’m in the bathroom—and I make sure there’s no one in here with me—I proceed to deal with the menace at hand. I also check to make sure my jeans don’t have any obvious underwear lines showing.

And maybe I admire the ring on my hand, just a little bit. And maybe I take a couple of pictures because I suddenly feel like I could be a hand model. And I definitely lose the grip I had on my phone when it buzzes several times.

“NO!” I wail as the phone slips through my fingers and clatters to the floor.

I close my eyes and hope this isn’t the time when my phone finally croaks from my clumsiness. Especially since I haven’t invested in one of those heavy-duty, Fort Knox phone cases yet. I’m just too attached to my donut-printed one, for obvious reasons: IT’S SUPER CUTE .

I go ahead and pick the phone up before carefully examining it. No black screen. No additional (that I can tell) scratches. No cracks. Crisis averted!

Thank. God.

But I glare at the screen when I see three texts from Anna.

Anna: How’s it going?

Anna: Is everyone believing it?

Anna: What does Zoya think of Tatum?

And then another message pops up.

Anna: Have you seen my extra name badge? I can’t find it.

I roll my eyes at that. Of course, she can’t find it. Only Anna would lose her actual name tag AND her backup one.

Me: We haven’t gone in yet.

Me: I had to deal with a bad case of hungry butt.

Me: Check the junk drawer in the kitchen, otherwise I have no clue.

Hopefully, that’ll keep her off my back.

I do another quick look-over in the mirror, and then I leave the bathroom with a satisfied sigh. Except, I almost choke at the sight of Zoya talking to Tatum.

Noooooooo!

She got to him first! And since most of her back is facing me, I can’t even tell if she’s happy or mad or ANYTHING! And Tatum, well—he just looks relieved to see me. The floor might as well be quicksand, though, because it takes me forever to walk over there.

“There she is!” Tatum flashes me a large grin, but I know I’m probably going to get pinched again later. “We were just talking about you, baby.”

Baby? Baby ? I try my best not to seem caught off-guard by the term of endearment as Tatum drapes an arm over my shoulders.

“Morning, Skye,” Zoya greets me with a bright smile. “I just heard about the most amazing way that Tatum proposed to you!”

“And Zoya wants you to share our proposal story when you do your about me post for the blog,” Tatum drawls, giving me a light squeeze, “Isn’t that great?”

Since when am I doing an “about me” post? Did Zoya and I talk about that, but I totally missed it somehow?

“I thought it’d be good for you to introduce yourself to our readers as your first blog post,” Zoya states in a matter-of-fact way. “And a donut proposal ? It’s PERFECT for the blog! And I’m sure the engagement pictures are just precious. I mean, just look at the two of you. Such a cute couple!”

Engagement pictures? We don’t have engagement pictures! And lying to Zoya and my coworkers is one thing—one wrong thing—but lying to thousands of people?

That pukey feeling is making a strong comeback…

“Oh yeah, our engagement pictures,” Tatum says, sounding cool and confident. “I’m still making some edits to them, but they should be ready for Skye’s blog post.”

I can’t help but notice how smoothly Tate is handling this. And I thought he would be following my lead. Pssh. Clearly, the roles have changed. That’s fine with me though.

I don’t know if I could manage being the main quick thinker right now.

“Yep,” I agree with him, feeling a little more collected as his thumb brushes against my arm, “Tatum is actually a photographer—so he insisted on taking care of the photo edits.”

Zoya’s eyes widen as she looks at Tatum. “You’re a photographer?”

Tatum’s body stiffens beside me as he nods. “I am.”

I know he’s worried about people not taking his photography seriously, so I slip my arm around his midsection to give him an encouraging squeeze. “Yep, he’s one of Port Reina’s best.”

“That’s perfect!” she gushes, clapping her hands together. “Skye, why didn’t you tell me sooner that he was a photographer?”

I don’t get a chance to answer though. I don’t even get the chance to ask why it’s “perfect” that Tate is a photographer. Because in a single, hot second—Zoya takes our already complicated lie and makes it even MORE complicated.