This is fake. This is fake. This is fake.

It had pretty much become my internal mantra. Some people used “today is good,” others liked to use “I am valued,” but nope, I was opting for the “this is fake” option. It was like a broken record in the folds of my brain, and I let it keep playing as we drove to the ranch. I told Andrew a little bit about last year’s retreat, but I wanted to be vague because I already knew his impressive imagination was going to paint the exact picture of where we were headed, and honestly, I wanted to surprise him. I wanted us to get there, and I wanted to see the look of “oh wow, are you serious?” on his face.

This is fake. This is fake.

Over the sound system, a Christmas song was playing on low as we talked about my family's history. I basically needed to give Andrew a crash course in my family dynamic since he was wading straight into the shark-infested pool, and I wanted him to be as prepared as possible. I avoided mentioning the fact that I was paying for an active investigation on my stepfather, since I figured that might be a little too messy, even for the circumstances we were in.

“Okay,” Andrew said, looking down at the notepad he was taking notes on. Part of me felt bad that he was having to study for this like some kind of last-minute college exam, but another part was really impressed with how dedicated Andrew was to making this work. “I think I’ve got the gist of it.”

“I’m sure you do,” I said, “I doubt anyone’s going to interrogate you on our family history anyway, but still, I’d rather you just know.”

“You’re right,” Andrew said. “I want to know anyway. This stuff interests me.” He looked up from his notes and toward me. There was a ray of sunlight that fell through the window just right so that I could see three freckles highlighted on Andrew’s cheek, close to his nose. “All right, one thing they probably will ask questions about is our relationship, so we should probably get that sorted.”

“Right, right.” He was good looking, and he was on the ball. This is fake. “Well, we’ve been together for… seven months?”

“Seven months sounds good.” Andrew cocked his head and scrunched his brows together. “Or, hmmm, is that too long?”

“You’re right. It is too long. They would have heard about you by now. Okay, okay, let’s go with four?”

“Four it is.”

“All right, so we’ve been together for four months. We met…”

“At a drug-fueled rave worshipping a Satanic cult?”

I belly laughed at that. “Yes, I can see that going perfectly with my family.”

Andrew was smiling. He brought the pencil he was using up to his lips and started to chew, almost absentmindedly. “I mean, we could just go the typical Tinder route.”

Andrew shook his head. Of course he’d want something more imaginative.

This is fake.

“Let’s say we met at the park,” Andrew said. I could see the spools of a story being spun in his head. “We were both jogging, different directions, when our paths crossed. We kept jogging around the loop, and we saw each other again. We still didn’t say anything to each other. Then, at the parking lot, lo and behold, we parked next to each other. There, I awkwardly nod at you and make eye contact and don’t know what to do, so I quickly get in my car hoping to avoid all human contact. Of course, there were other plans in motion, and when I go to start my car, it gives a pathetic whimper and craps out completely. You’re still there, and you swoop in with your jumper and help fix my car. Then, I’m like, ‘thank you so much. Let me repay you. Let’s go grab some after-jog smoothies nearby.’ One thing leads to another, and we’re dating for four months and are on our way to your family’s Christmas retreat now.”

My jaw was on the floor. I was shocked Andrew could unravel that kind of meeting all on the spot, without any hours of second-guessing things like I would have definitely done. “Umm… wow. Yeah, that sounds perfect.”

“Great,” he said, smiling, totally unaware of the power he wielded. Not only with that explosively powerful mind of his but also in that heart-melting smile he always wore. “All right, so we’ve got our meet-cute down. What’s next?”

“Basic likes and dislikes—we should know that about each other.”

“True,” Andrew said, nodding. “All right, lightning round: Favorite color?”

“Blue.”

Andrew didn’t seem to need to jot that down. “Yellow for me. Favorite food?”

“Cheeseburger and crispy fries. The thin kind, not the big steak fries.”

“Yessss, we like the same kind of fries. That means double the servings.” And then Andrew must have caught himself because he quickly added, “If there are any fries during this retreat.” It was a quick, sharp, and crappy reminder that our connection had a time limit. There wouldn’t be fry sharing after the retreat was over, and I had to remember that.

I mean… maybe in a few years we can connect again? When he’s in a place to actually date again? Or maybe a few months?

How long do divorcees need? Weeks?

And then I instantly had to cover up that line of thought with This is fake.

Thinking Andrew would come back into my life months from now was naive and assumed we’d both be waiting for each other. It also assumed that Andrew was falling for me, even with the boundaries we were putting up to compartmentalize the relationship from reality. It was another selfish thought I had to disregard.

We went on for another hour, going down the list of what we liked and what ticked us off. I learned a lot about Andrew in that time, all of it making him seem more and more like a man right out of my damn dreams. The time had flown, and before we knew it, Arturo was cutting into the conversation to let me know we were ten minutes away from the destination.

His alert instantly shot up my nerves. It was becoming real, and this entire thing was seeming more fucking crazy by the second. It didn’t help that Mariah Carey was belting what she wanted for Christmas on the radio while my ideal gift was sitting right next to me.

“You ready?” Andrew asked, seeming much more relaxed than what I was feeling internally.

“Are you?” I asked, dodging his question.

“Yeah, I think so.” Outside, the scenery was completely different from the city we had left behind hours ago. Ridgefield was a city in Connecticut that sat in the foothills of the Berkshire Mountains with a relatively small population but a very high median income. All the houses were large, and the landscapes were immaculate, with trees, bare of their leaves, lining the streets. As we got closer to the ranch, the homes got bigger and bigger. Many rich New Yorkers bought summer homes here, and a lot of the properties we were driving by definitely had that feel. When the road started to curve, I knew we were getting close.

“All right, so I may have undersold this retreat a little bit,” I said, starting to prep him.

“Undersold? What do you mean?”

“Well, when my mom does things, she goes all out. And since Christmas is her favorite holiday, she really doesn’t hold back.”

“Okay…” he said, uncertainty clear on his face. “Should I be scared? Why am I getting scared? Is this like some immersive role-playing experience where we all have to pretend to be toy-making elves?”

I snorted at that notion. “Absolutely not. My mom’s not a lunatic.” We both laughed as Arturo drove up a steep hill, both of us being pushed back into our seats from the angle.

“If you look out my window, you’ll see the ranch before we start going down the hill.”

Andrew’s curiosity must have been heightened. He unbuckled and leaned over, his hands coming to rest on the empty space on my seat, right next to my thigh. I tried to ignore the way my briefs suddenly felt a size too small.

“Holy… shit.” Andrew said in a breath as the winter wonderland ranch was laid out like a painting below us. The property was massive, stretching out for a mind-blowing eighty-seven acres. We couldn’t see the entirety of it, but what we did see was enough to elicit a “wow” from all three of us in the van.

Down below, sprawled out like something from a fairy tale, was a magical winter wonderland covered in a thin layer of crisp white snow, with oversized ornaments that looked to be as big as elephants scattered around the property. There were what appeared to be two massive snow globes toward the back of the ranch, and to the left of that was what could only be described as a forest of candy canes that surrounded the two massive barns. There were large wide pens toward the front of the property that held a few horses, their brown and white coats shining underneath the sunlight. You could comically tell where the ranch began and ended by where the snow stopped. It was almost bizarre as we drove over the hill and down toward the entrance to the ranch, absolutely zero snow around us until there was a stark line cutting across the street where the property started.

“Your mom shipped in all this fake snow?” Andrew asked, his eyes almost wide enough to pop out and fall in his lap.

“I told you she goes all out,” I replied, looking back out the window as we drew up to the gates. “And wait until actual Christmas Day. She brings in live entertainment and opens it up to the public, so families from all over come and enjoy her winter wonderland.” There was a security guard working in a booth by the big gates, a portly guy with thinning hair, who smiled and let us through when Arturo waved.

“Nice guy,” Arturo said, speaking for the first time since Andrew got in the van.

“This is insane, Declan.” Andrew sounded like he was shell-shocked. We were driving down a sloping, slightly winding road, past the pens holding the horses. I saw Chocolate Chip and Alaska Lightning Bolt off toward the far end of the pen, two of my favorite horses.

“Look, see those two over there, the one with the all-white coat except for that splotch of black on her butt? And the other horse next to her, the all-brown one with the black spots.”

Andrew had to lean over in my direction to look out the window toward where I was pointing. This meant I got a whiff of the cologne he was wearing and almost melted right into my chair. He smelled like a mix of mint and leather, and I couldn’t get enough of it. I was so lost in how good he smelled I almost forgot I was the reason he was leaning over. “Uh-huh?” Andrew asked as we drove farther past them.

“Those are mine, Chocolate Chip and Alaska Lightning Bolt. They’ve been mine for thirteen years now. This ranch is their permanent home; I try and come out every other weekend to at least brush them. I don’t ride as much, but I try to.”

“No way!” Andrew leaned back in his chair, his eyes glowing. “How did we not cover this in the lightning round? I had no idea you liked horses!”

“Dating takes time. Even fake dating.” I held down an internal sigh, hating that word more and more. Fake. I looked back out the window, seeing a big inflatable Frosty the Snowman waving at me. “There’s a lot you still don’t know about me.”

“That’s okay,” Andrew said. “I’m okay with things going slow.” He seemed to have caught himself. “This fake thing. I’m fine with that. Besides, we’ve got a week to learn about each other. That’s plenty of time… right?”

“Right,” I said, knowing damn well it wasn’t. Not for how I wanted to know Andrew. A week wasn’t enough for that. A year wasn’t enough for that. Shit, at this point, a lifetime may not have been enough. In just the short time it took us to get to the ranch, I had become hooked on getting to know Andrew better, learning about the different things that make him tick. He was an infinitely fascinating person, and I just wanted to keep digging deeper into what made him the man he was.

Arturo pulled up to the front of the main house, driving around the massive loop driveway, which surrounded a stunning Christmas tree, the tips of its pine needles covered in white snow while big bulbs of multicolored lights were wrapped throughout. With another holly and jolly Christmas song playing on the speaker, all I could keep thinking to myself was one thing and one thing only:

This is fake.