"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Maisie shuts the door and quickly twists to look at me across the roof of my car, her face scrunched up. "Maybe we should just tell them."

"I think it's a perfect time to practice, just like Andrea said," I say, rounding the car to join her. She stands there nervously, holding a bottle of wine in one hand and smoothing out her silky white button-up with the other, making sure it's properly tucked into the waist belt of her jeans.

"But this is your family," she says, lifting a leg to adjust the hem of her jeans so they fall correctly over her heeled boot. She teeters slightly, and I step forward to steady her by offering my forearm. "Lying to my fans is one thing, but lying to your parents? That feels like a step too far."

"They'll be fine. They'll be..." I tilt my head up to the fluffy white clouds floating by. My family adores Maisie. They always have. My sisters have even joked more than once about trading me for her. "Well, they'll be ecstatic about it."

"That's just it though. I don't—" She finds her footing again letting go of my arm. "I just don't want them to think of me differently, is all."

"What do you mean?"

"When we—" She glances past me at my parents' house. "At the end of all this, when we're no longer fake dating, I don't want things to change. With your family, I mean. They'll think we really broke up, and what if they... well what if they don't like me anymore after that?"

At the end of all of this. I haven't even thought that far ahead. I've been so fixated on the idea of dating her, of being with her the way I've dreamt about for so long—even if it is fake—that I've forgotten this has an expiration date: five weeks and four days, to be exact.

"Besides," she quickly adds, "I think they're going to know the moment we walk in anyway."

I shake my head and start heading toward the house. "They'll always love you no matter what and they're not going to know."

"Gus, the moment we walk through those doors, your mom," she says, pointing to the house as she falls in step beside me, "is going to take one look at us and know."

"No, she's not."

"Yes, she is. August, she's a—," Maisie lowers her voice to a whisper. "She's a sex therapist. Of course, she's going to know."

I stop in front of the door, turning to her. "She's a marriage and family therapist."

"Who specializes in intimacy therapy," she whisper-yells at me as if I'm not quite grasping the gravity of the situation. "In other words sex therapist. And she's going to know that we're not..."

I watch her pressing two fingers to the bridge of her nose, contemplating her next words. She wets her bottom lip with a flick of her tongue and shakes her head.

"That we're not what, Maisie?"

She jerks her head towards me. "You know."

"No, please, elaborate," I urge.

"That we're— that we're not having..." She attempts to gesture vaguely with her hands, still clutching onto the bottle of wine with one hand. I pierce my lips together stifling a laugh. She catches my expression and shoves me in the shoulder. "God, you're so annoying."

"They're not going to know," I say with a laugh, reaching down for her hand. I slowly intertwine my fingers with her dainty ones, adjusting until our palms are pressed together. There's that same electric current like there always is with her, like a jolt along a live wire. She freezes, eyes dropping to where our hands are joined. Her hand fits so perfectly in mine, and I probably like it too much. "It's practice, Maisie. They'll see us everywhere once this goes public. Better to tell them now than have them hear it on social media."

When she doesn't respond after a second, her eyes still fixed on our hands, I gently prompt, "Maisie."

"Hmm?"

"Everything is going to be okay."

Her eyes dart up to meet mine, and she bites the side of her lip before asking, her voice wobbly at the edges, "Do you promise?"

"Of course, I promise." I give her hand a gentle squeeze and nod toward the door. "Let's go in."

She lets out a resigned sigh. "Okay."

We let ourselves in, pushing open the front door. I practically have to pull Maisie along since her feet seem glued to the porch. Pausing in the entryway, the rich aroma of tomato and basil from the marinara sauce and the sound of Etta James drift in from the kitchen. I hear my mom scolding my dad to stop picking at the food, and Lucy cackling over something my sister Clara is telling her; it sounds like everyone has already gotten into the wine.

The front door shuts behind us with a click, and not two seconds later, I hear Lucy yell from the kitchen, "You're late!" And then watch as Clara comes bounding down the hall, a blur of curly brown hair and black-and-white tattoos.

"Maisieee!" she sings, reaching out and gently cupping Maisie's face with her wide, brown, puppy-dog eyes shining. "Is it truly you?" Maisie lets go of my hand to grasp Clara's wrist as she turns her head from side to side, inspecting her. Maisie giggles. "My eye must be playing tricks on me!"

"Of course it's me. Haven't you been reading TMZ? I got plastic surgery, it's why you don't recognize me anymore," Maisie says, placing the back of her hands under her chin and posing as if blowing a kiss.

Clara rolls her lips together, struggling to hold back a laugh. "I was wondering why you suddenly looked like Zac Efron."

Maisie barks out a laugh and Clara grins at her as she takes a step back. "It's good to see you, Mace."

"It's good to see you too, Clara."

"Come on. Dinner's ready," she says to her, grabbing the bottle of wine from Maisie's hand, nodding at the label before turning to look at me. "You're late. We've been waiting to eat dinner," she adds before walking back into the kitchen.

Maisie starts to follow Clara, but I quickly grasp her hand again before she can vanish down the hallway. She twists back to me, and I whisper, "Practice."

She gives me a single nod and whispers back, "Practice."

We make our way down the hallway, and as we enter the kitchen, I spot my dad picking a cucumber out of the salad my mom is mixing on the kitchen island. Lucy is sitting on a barstool, reading one of the books I gave her the other day, with a half-full glass of rosé beside her. And Clara is now in the corner, back to us, busy opening a bottle of wine.

Everything unfolds in this order: My parents and Lucy's eyes shift to Maisie as they spot us in the doorway, grinning. Then they turn to me, and finally, their gazes drop and stall on our linked hands. Everyone freezes as a blanket of silence envelops the room, broken only by the soft strains of "A Sunday Kind of Love" playing in the background.

Maisie shifts uncomfortably beside me as I manage a small wave with my free hand. "Hi, everyone."

My mom is the first to move, setting down the salad tongs and gently dabbing her hands on a kitchen towel. "Maisie," she greets warmly, "how lovely to see you."

"Hi, Mrs. Williams," Maisie rasps out, then clears her throat. I give her hand a reassuring squeeze. "I'm sorry we're late. It's because of me. I had to finish up rehearsals."

"That's no problem at all, right, Alan?" she says, elbowing my dad's side. Dad nods, sliding the bridge of his thick black-framed glasses up his nose, his lips pressed together. "And please, you know not to call me Mrs. Williams."

"Sorry, yes, of course—Lelia."

"It's good to have you back, Maisie," my dad says just as Clara spins around. She's finally gotten the cork off the bottle of wine and is pouring it into her glass. As it fills, she glances up at us, beaming, before her eyes double-take to our hands. Her face goes completely blank, her grin vanishing.

"Why are you two holding hands?" she asks, gesturing with her glass towards us.

"Well, Maisie and I have some news," I say. My voice sounds like sandpaper. Maisie wheezes out a nervous huff next to me. "Maisie and I—we're together."

"You're what?" Clara exclaims, her eyebrows shoot so far up they practically reach her hairline. She takes a step closer.

"Together."

"Like as in..."

"Dating."

Clara turns to my mom for confirmation, finding her studying both Maisie and me intently. Mom responds to Clara with a subtle half-shrug and a small smile. Clara then glances at my dad, who scratches his eyebrow and mutters something too quiet to hear into his glass of wine before taking a sip. Finally, she shifts her focus to Lucy.

Lucy has her nose scrunched together and her bottom lip gripped tightly between her teeth. Clara's head tilts as she sets the bottle of wine down. "Why is your face like that?"

Lucy vehemently shakes her head back and forth, blinking several times. "My face isn't like anything."

"Yes, it is. You look like that Michael Scott grimace meme."

She scoffs nervously. "No, I don't."

Maisie leans in close, her heels making her just tall enough that when she tilts her chin up to whisper, her breath grazes my ear. "She kind of does."

I chance a glance at her. She's so close that I can see the faint freckles across the bridge of her nose, and I get distracted for a solid seven seconds before quickly turning my attention back to my family.

Clara walks over to Lucy, hand on hip, and levels with her as she sits on the barstool. "Did you know about this?"

"I... No. No, I didn't," Lucy stammers, her eyes dipping down and tucking a strand of brown hair behind her ear. "Well, maybe I might have—"

"And you didn't think to tell me?"

"No, I—" She shakes her head, closing her eyes briefly. "I was with August and Andrea—no, wait, not Andrea— I didn't overhear anything—"

"Overhear what?" Clara presses.

"That it's fake!" Lucy blurts out, then quickly slaps her hand over her mouth, eyes wide.

Clara stares at Lucy for a moment before turning to look at Maisie and me, drawing everyone's attention in the room to the two of us.

"You told Lucy?" Maisie whispers through the nervous smile plastered on her face.

I shake my head slightly, whispering back, "Not exactly—"

"No, he didn't," Lucy interrupts, stepping forward out of her stool. "I promise. I was with him when Andrea asked."

"Fake?" Clara questions.

"They're fake dating," Lucy blurts out, quickly covering her mouth again. She turns to Maisie. "Oh my god. I'm sorry. Don't hate me, Maisie. I love you too much."

She takes three quick steps and wraps her arms around Maisie, her arms trapped under Lucy's.

"Fake dating?" Clara asks, her brows furrowed. "Is this because of the Tonight Show?"

Maisie groans into Lucy's hair, gently patting it away from her mouth. "You saw that?"

"I'm pretty sure every Rhodie from here to Australia has seen it by now. Of course I saw it," Clara says, pulling out a chair from the dining table and muttering, "Secret boyfriend, my ass."

"You did say 'secret boyfriends,' didn't you?" Lucy asks, pulling away slightly to look at Maisie, her nose wrinkled together.

"Secret boyfriend?" my dad mutters to himself, shaking his head as if he can't believe he's even part of this conversation. He pours himself another glass of wine.

"I didn't say 'secret boyfriend,'" Maisie insists, her face blushing. "Why does everyone think I said that?"

"Well, because you pretty much did," Lucy says, pivoting to face me. "She did, didn't she, Gus?"

"Well I, um. I—"

"He didn't watch it," Maisie interjects.

"You didn't watch it?" Lucy and Clara exclaim simultaneously, their eyebrows shooting up and eyes widening in perfect sync. Even my mom shakes her head slightly in disbelief.

I make a mental note to go back and watch the full interview on YouTube later.

"Well, this should be an interesting dinner," Clara remarks, taking a sip of her wine.

"Very interesting indeed," my mom says, bringing the salad bowl to the table. She looks like she wants to say a thousand different therapist things, the first being that this isn't a good idea. However, she holds her tongue and takes her seat.

"You can let go of her hand now, Gus," Clara calls out from her seat. I hadn't realized I was still clutching onto her hand until now. Or maybe I just subconsciously didn't want the moment to end. Maisie jerks her hand out of mine and places it behind her back. "It's not like she's your real girlfriend."

Mom clasps her hands in front of her, elbows resting on the table, her therapist face in full effect. "Should we have dinner now?"