Faking Skating is a swoony, boy-next-door fake dating romance from the New York Times bestseller, LYNN PAINTER. Read on for an extract.
P R O LOGUE
Alec
There was no way it was actually happening.
Dani Collins was moving to Southview.
‘Impossible,’ I muttered to myself as I stomped on the gas pedal. An hour ago life had been normal. I’d walked through the front door after practice, inhaled a few bowls of goulash while my dad talked about his buddy’s new duck boat, and I’d been just about to leave the table when my mum gave me the news.
She’d excitedly filled me in on the details of how Dani’s parents were getting divorced and now Dani and her mom were going to move in with her grandpa. She squealed about how incredible it was going to be to finally have them close by.
Just imagine how often we can see them now!
I smiled and nodded like a good boy while trying not to lose my ever-loving shit at the thought of having to see her every day.
Dani Collins.
Was moving.
To fucking. Southview.
I made up an excuse to get out of the house as soon as possible, because I needed air – and music – while I tried to wrap my head around this unexpected turn of events. I had a cousin who neurotically made playlists for every waking moment of her life, and that slightly obsessive habit had rubbed off on me to the point that I couldn’t deal with the harshness of reality anymore unless I rolled it around in music first.
So I got in Burrito (my piece-of-shit ’03 Olds Alero) and just drove, cranking ‘Escorpião,’ the Brazilian song that I didn’t understand but fucking loved. I knew the translation was something along the lines of ‘”I love you” is bullshit,’ so that seemed good enough for me.
But almost as if Burrito had a mind of his own, I found myself turning down the barely there dirt road that wound through the woods next to the pond. I drove over the snow-packed path until I saw the old, abandoned shed that had once been ‘our spot.’
What the fuck am I doing?
The night was quiet, the deep snow insulating the world so all I could hear was the crunch of snow under my shoes as I got out of the car and walked toward the structure. It’d always looked like it was five minutes from collapsing, and that hadn’t changed since the last time I’d been there.
The summer after seventh grade.
I pushed in the door of the abandoned shed and stepped inside, half expecting a pack of raccoons to fly at my face. It was darker than dark, but when I turned on my phone’s flashlight, it felt like I’d taken a puck to the chest because how could it still look the same?
The actual chairs we’d stolen from my dad’s shop to furnish our ridiculous little shed were still there, and so was the massive hole in the roof that we called our skylight.
Holy shit.
I swallowed and looked up at the moon. Everything about “our spot” remained the same. And, who was I kidding, so was the memory of her.
Of Dani.
And the last time I saw her.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lynn Painter is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Better Than the Movies, The Do-Over, Betting on You, Mr. Wrong Number, The Love Wager, Nothing Like the Movies, and Fake Skating. She lives in Nebraska with her husband and pack of wild children, and when she isn’t reading or writing, odds are good she’s guzzling energy drinks and watching rom-coms.
0 Comments