“Spread your legs.”

It’s so clinical. It’s so rote. There’s no romance to it at all.

I’m standing on a little platform in the back of a crowded, bustling suit shop with low ceilings and dark wooden paneling about twenty miles up the shore. The guy sizing me throws the measuring tape over his shoulders and brushes something off my back.

I put my hands on my hips and spread my legs apart slightly, keeping them straight. Cynthia is standing in the corner, chewing on the end of a straw in her iced coffee and scribbling in her notebook with an intensity somewhere between maniacal and purely manic.

“Relax, son,” the guy with the tape measure says, drawing a length of it between his fingers. He puts one end at my hip and drops the other down to my ankle, jotting something down on an ancient notebook perched on the edge of a table covered with scraps of fabric.

“You actually look really good,” Cynthia says as a seamstress in a long black dress squeezes past her.

I regard myself in the mirror, tipping a chin up and straightening my t-shirt at the hem.

I look tired. I look worn down - and I brought this on myself. Six months on the road without adequate sleep can wear down on a person, and it catches up with you fast. One day, you’re signing up to do something you’re super pumped for, and what seems like the very next day, you’re lamenting what’s become of your early twenties.

I know it’s a cliche to say I’m too old for this shit - but I’m too old for this shit.

I catch Cynthia’s eye in the mirror. She smiles and buries her pen in her notebook again, her eyes scanning quickly across the page.

What the hell is she writing?

I mean, I know she’s doing research, and that means tagging along with me for a few errands I have to run today. She’s been following the pageant, and now that the lede story seems to be me and Cassie, that means she has to put together profiles on both of us.

“Thanks,” I say to Cynthia, raising an eyebrow slightly and trying my hardest to hide my annoyance.

I really can’t blame her for busting in on me and Cassie - this woman is just doing her job, even though she’s cockblocked me at least once in the past few days.

But it’s more than just that.

It’s more than just what I’m here to do. It’s more than my job. It’s more than being a professional, it’s more than just helping Cassie.

Falling into this crazy thing with Cassie feels like nothing at all and everything in the world - natural and easy, but overdue and like pure damn destiny. She kept me going when I was away, and even though it was nothing to her - we only exchanged texts like old friends, checking in on the mundane happenings of our days - I always felt drawn back to her.

This fake engagement just feels like the most genuine thing that’s happened to me in a long damn time.

“So we have the details about the engagement down. The whole thing about how you put the ring in the mailbox,” Cynthia says, not looking up at me. “That’s very cute. Very small-town, very Dawson’s Creek almost.”

Cynthia glances up at me as the tailor pulls the length of the soft measuring tape across my shoulders.

“Thanks,” I say cautiously.

“But I want to know more about you,” she says, sauntering over to me.

“I’m an open book,” I offer.

I scold myself. I’m about to generalize about reporters, and that’s not fair.

But on the other hand, this woman did put out a completely unnecessary hit piece on my girl.

I call it unnecessary because it was stupid. But from Cynthia’s point of view, it was certainly necessary. Fucking required, even. Because she’s got to get a story, and she’ll do it any damn way she sees fit. That doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it, though. I don’t have to throw this woman a parade for doing her job when it’s her job to be generally shitty to people.

“Okay, Jason,” she says, “tell me about your time on the road. I pulled some clips about you. Word is that you once single-handedly bounced some big stalker guy from a concert when he tried to get into the talent’s dressing room.”

I laugh to myself. This woman is thorough, I’ll say that much. I didn’t even know anyone was really at that concert. When I’d looked out into the pit from the corner of the stage, the only people standing in the crowd were people the lead singer chick and the rest of the band and I had gone to high school with.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” I say, pausing for a moment, “yeah. That happened. Seems that you’ve done your research. I didn’t know anyone had covered that show.”

“Wait,” Cynthia says, smiling over her notebook, “you really don’t know who I am?”

I don’t feel my heart drop when she looks at me. It’s something else.

“No,” I say, “I don’t know who you are.”

I did think she seemed familiar. But I haven’t had to make assumptions about this woman to discern who the hell she is. I already know her because she’s made herself known to me and Cassie - but the fact that she thinks we know each other is both a cosmic annoyance to me and a brute fact that hits me square in the chest.

The last thing I need is this woman hanging on me. The last thing I need is anything to distract from me and Cassie, and from helping Cassie win this contest.

Which means I’m in a really fucking hard spot. Piss this woman off, and she’s likely to write some bullshit to jeopardize Cass. Be too nice to her, and she’s likely to get some damn illusions in her mind about me and her.

She looks up at me over her notebook, biting her straw.

Fuck.

“Should I know you?” I ask, feeling my muscles tense up. The tailor taking my measurements grunts a little as he throws the measuring tape around his neck and hobbles away, motioning me to get down from the platform.

“Jason, I can’t believe you don’t know who I am. I was practically attached to your band’s hip two years ago when you were doing that New York tour.”

“I’m sorry, I really don’t remember you.” I push my hair away from my face and search her for a clue. Anything to jog my memory, but it’s just not happening. But I have to stay on her good side. I smile. “And that’s okay because you’ve got my attention now.”

She taps her pen on her notebook and glances up at me. I don’t know what her angle is. Maybe she’s just trying to get a good story, and again, I make no illusions about what her function is and how she fits into this whole puzzle.

“I’ve got my eye on you,” she says as she peers at me with a smirk that I can’t quite read. Part of me thinks she wants to jump my bones, even though she knows I’m attached. Part of me think she wants to tear me and Cassie apart, all in the name of a good story. Still another part, my rational brain, brushes her off as a mere annoyance as we squeeze through the tables filled with big rolls of fabric, women flitting around between taking measurements and shouting out commands to people I assume are interns, young men and women dressed all in black and taking orders without seeming at all perturbed by being barked at.

Cynthia stands next to me, tapping away at her phone while I pay for my suit. The price nearly knocks the wind out of me, but the cost is being reimbursed by the pageant so I’m cool with it.

We make our way out of the store and the fresh, salty air envelopes me. I look over at Cynthia and wish it were Cassie here with me, breathing in the fresh air away from the chaos surrounding us back at the hotel.

“Listen, Cynthia,” I start. But I don’t know what the hell to say to her. I want to tell her that she needs to stay away from me and Cassie, but I can’t.

And I’m lucky, because Cynthia’s phone buzzes and she brings it to her ear, putting a finger up in the air between us. She nods a few times at whatever the person on the other end is saying, then says goodbye and hangs up.

“Sorry babe,” she says, going into her purse and taking out her keys, “wish I could stay and chat, but I’m working right now.”

This woman is bizarre. She walks away from me toward the small parking lot in front of the store, and I make my way over to where my driver for the week is parked, waiting for me.

I’ve got a full couple of days ahead of me. I have to ask Cassie to be my date - my fucking real date to the gala tomorrow night, and not in some passing moment.

This is what really matters.