Stay With Me 1 Read online

  STAY WITH ME

  A Friends to Lovers High Stakes Romance

  Jessica Aniston

  Copyright © 2019 by Jessica Aniston

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  DESCRIPTION

  Karin and Declan are best friends who are spending their lives just as any other twenty-something would – dreaming big, slowly paying off their debts, and trying to scrape by. However, when they are presented with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take part in a high stakes reality show called ‘Love Roulette’ where winning would mean that their whole future is transformed, the two friends jump at the chance to turn their luck around. However, will the spark that has been burning low between them burst into flame when they have to spend every single waking moment at each other’s side?

  Table of Content

  DESCRIPTION

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER ONE

  C ontrary to popular belief, the key to making people believe a lie is not holding eye contact excessively or making sure your voice doesn’t waver so you sound very convincing. The key is to do it with a straight back and to nod or shake your head along to whatever it is you are trying to sell. It just has to be the appropriate movement for the lie you are telling. For instance, you shake your head when you say: “No, it’s not like that between my best friend Declan and I, we’re not a couple, have never been, that would be strange.” And you nod your head when you say: “I am completely happy for my best friend Declan and his new girlfriend, they’re perfect together!”

  Karin Hanson is a good liar. At least Declan has never figured out that she has been on and off in love with him since she was seven and he was nine. Well, if anything, she is quite certain that he never did. If he did, he never let it on or maybe he never wanted to know for sure. Because the truth is, their friendship is the greatest thing to happen to them. It’s the best thing, the number one relationship in her life, which is saying a lot because her mother and sister are saints and she is very close to them too. But her and Declan, that’s been the pillar of her life so far, the one person she can always count on, which is why whenever she has one of the senseless phases where she wants to kiss him all the time, it’s not good for her.

  They just aren’t meant to be together, because they’re too close, too familiar, and Declan doesn’t find her attractive. Or so she thinks. For some reason after his eleventh birthday, he hadn’t shown any romantic inclinations towards her at all anymore. Before his eleventh birthday however, they had been “dating”, which was to say that her sister and his cousin had put them together and declared that they were boyfriend and girlfriend now. But to their surprise Karin and Declan just nodded along and went with it, they were the hot topic at ballet camp that year, and ended up “dating” for eight months, which is practically a lifetime for a kid of eight years, such as Karin was. But in those eight months they probably said just about as many words to each other.

  She had been such a shy kid and even more so with him, which was understandable, considering that she had a crush on him that surpassed the scope of what her child’s brain or heart could handle. Them dating consisted of him occasionally partnering her for ballet dance lessons as she was trying it out and his original partner was in the hospital having her tonsils removed and then getting ice cream afterwards with their mothers in tow. They didn’t talk, they didn’t hold hands outside of the dance studio. They barely even looked at each other. But for eight months when she was eight, Karin Hanson had a boyfriend and she saw him enough to make his dance partner really jealous. In fact, jealous enough eventually to demand he “break up” with her because otherwise she would quit dancing with him. Back then, Declan had dreamed very fervently of going to Dancesport one day and so, at almost eleven, had prioritized his dancing over having a girlfriend. So Karin had to go.

  In a strange turn of events, though, afterwards, they actually did start talking to each other. Half a year later, they were thick as thieves and even when, at ten, Karin got accepted into the National Ballet School and spent her school terms away, they kept in close touch and saw each other nearly every weekend at the dance studio in Bronstown, Declan’s hometown about a ten minute drive away from her house in Tennessee. Eventually - and not because of Karin, mind you - his dancing partnership deteriorated when he was about fifteen and he never bothered to find a new one, instead he started to teach the beginners and after graduation became a full-time coach. Meanwhile, Karin did exceptionally well at ballet school and was hailed as the next big ballerina, all set for a meteoric rise to fame. She was poised to play Chanelle at the National Ballet straight out of school, when within the six weeks of rehearsals, her shins gave up on her without much notice. She had tried to ignore that as hard as she could and only when she couldn’t dance from the pain for more than twenty seconds, did she agree to go to the doctors and see what was what.

  Unfortunately, nobody knew what to do with her and the burning pain in her shins and it took a month (and her opting out of Chanelle with the heaviest heart) until a third opinion turned up - compartment syndrome, an overuse-injury of the muscle tissue. She had two options: quit ballet or get a surgery ... and if she got surgery, that could either work or not with absolutely no guarantee that it would. But it still wasn’t a question for her. A week before her nineteenth birthday, she had that surgery, went in to let people poke holes into her legs and hoped for the best. She recovered at home for two months with mostly Declan for company and then went back to Scanlon to find that the pain was still there whenever she tried to get on pointe. So at the ripe old age of nineteen years and two months, Karin was a retired ballet dancer who couldn’t dance anymore and had no idea what to do with the rest of her life that suddenly seemed to stretch very empty for an unforeseeable amount of time.

  She enrolled in college and studied social science but her heart wasn’t in it. She tried other sports, golf and tennis but her heart wasn’t in that either. To earn some money, she worked at a cafe but it never seemed to be enough to fully make ends meet. Needless to say, her heart wasn’t in serving coffee and pastries either. She had been doing it for nearly four years anyway. She has dreams, that’s not the problem. She wants to create things, so she tried her hand at clothing and shoe design with the little talent for drawing that she possesses but the applications for the design schools all came back no, sorry, apply again next year. So that’s that. She tried creating cakes for the cafe but it turns out she is a complete disaster in the kitchen, her wonderful poached eggs are about as far as she gets in the culinary arts.

  Declan always says she would make a good choreographer but what use is her brain coming up with movement if she can’t do it, can’t teach it. Yes, she knows that you don’t necessarily need that in ballet because you can just shout out French words and the dancers will do exactly what you requested but maybe it still hurts too much, even if she could choreograph like that? Has he thought about that?

  See, that’s the one annoying thing about Declan. His damn optimism. For him the glass is always half full and even if it was empty, he’d still be happy to have the glass in the first place. He doesn’t accept her realism (which he stubbornly confuses with cynicism). He keeps saying to chin up and be happy but she doesn’t know what makes her happy so she can’t as well just decide to be it. What on earth would make her happy anyway? Except maybe getting to kiss him a lot but if that hasn’t happened in fifteen years, it’s probably not going to happ
en anymore. Besides, it doesn’t matter now anyway.

  She’s not in love with him at the moment and the last time she was at twenty-two, so she thinks maybe that’s finally over. Maybe she can get on with her life and fall in love with someone else for a change. Not that she goes out looking for hopefuls. She’s really more of a homebody. Mostly because crowds exhaust her and after a day of college and then working at the cafe, she just wants to curl up with her laptop or a book and recharge on her own. Partying is not an option for her and if she does happen to meet a guy, she could theoretically like, she gets clumsy and shy and that’s that.

  All in all you could say that her life has been a bit of a mess. For years. Not that she can expect sympathy for it. Not from Declan anyway, who says stuff like ‘when life gives you lemons, ask for salt and tequila’ and not from Wendy, her rough-around-the-edges boss, founder and matron of The Big Bean cafe. She just cares that the tables are set just so and that Karin cleans the coffee machine at the end of the late shift.

  The end of that today is also still far too far off, by the way. When Karin goes to wipe the corner table down for the third time in a two hours, her back feels sore enough to ask to have it exchanged for a new one and because they only have two tables occupied at the moment, Karin allows herself a brief coffee break, crossing the little floor to the counter and going for the Flat White that is her current favorite.

  She catches her reflection in the chrome of the coffee machine. Her freckles peak back at her through the powder she’d applied on her pale skin before heading out to her classes in the morning and her dyed raven-black hair is falling messily from her top-knot, unable for her to rein in even if she wanted to with how frizzy it is from the humidity, which is ridiculous for late April quite frankly. She blinks her seaweed-green eyes at herself and breathes as the machine gurgles, filling the air with the scent of ground coffee beans and waits.

  These days it seems waiting is all she does. But unlike the purpose of her life, the coffee actually does present itself after half a minute and she drinks it as fast as its temperature allows. It’s like life is being breathed into her again, even if it’s artificial life. She’s not overly picky. She glances over at the guests, a young family at one table and two giggling high school girls at the other, bent over their phones.

  The afternoon sun catches in their glossy hair and Karin wonders why she is still self-conscious looking at girls like that, like the cool and the pretty ones that would slow-mo down the halls at ballet school in Scanlon, like the ones that Declan would take to his semi-formals in Tennessee. The ones that she couldn’t fit in with anywhere no matter how hard she tried, because she had been scrawny and flat-chested, with an unevenly pitched girlish voice, a crooked nose, mousey hair and a shyness that had made her awkward and twitchy all her life. She was better now though. She’d bought herself push-up bras and got muscles where before she’d been skinny, she fixed the nose and the hair and about the time when Declan’s voice dropped when he was about twenty, hers got lower too, and she’s not so shy anymore, instead she has embraced that she is slightly awkward but sweet in nature and that she can put people at ease. She has learned to use that to her advantage, made real friends and got much better at liking herself. She’s really quite fine with herself as it is, she tries to tell herself.

  She is in a good place personality-wise. Now if only the rest of her life would get the memo to get to that good place too, she’d like that very much. There’s just not really any indication that it will and she has no idea where to start. Obviously, if she knew she’d be getting a sign from somewhere, she’d be on the lookout for it but for now all she sees is… Declan.

  Her best friend is walking up to the front door, peeking through the glass in the frame and knocks and waves at her, his expression a question. Can you come out here for a second? It looks urgent. Karin puts her mug down and glances over her shoulder into the hall, her boss is in the office, tapping away on her computer loud enough for the clicking sounds to echo into the room. But the guests are content, so Karin deems it fine to step out for a moment and see what Declan needs from her. He has thrown his bike onto the curb which tells her he rode his bike from the apartment building they share a mere seven minutes ride away. She wonders what is so pressing that he had to come by in person instead of just text.

  When she steps outside to meet him, she’s hit with cool, damp air and she instantly misses the jacket she left inside. Declan’s embrace provides a quick reprieve but doesn’t last too long and unfortunately, doesn't age well. Meanwhile he just looks like he’s a live wire, too much on edge to feel any discomfort by the nasty, foggy weather.

  “Hey, Sunshine,” he smiles and grins down at her, his dark, short hair disheveled and spiky, a little shuffled together like his features are - the big hazel eyes and that straight pointy nose over a sharp angled jaw - and very handsome. Unfairly so, what with how she is quite certain she looks like a wet dog by now.

  “What is it?” She asks him, wanting to speed this along so she can get back inside. “Everybody fine at home?”

  “Sure,” he says. “Everyone’s fine. It’s nothing bad. You know, I’d have called but this is kind of important so I wanted to tell you in person.”

  Karin feels her features slip as for the first few irrational seconds, she fears that he’s come to tell her he’s getting married; he looks that joyously expectant. But of course he’s not getting married. Who would he marry? He just broke up with Tina again and he wouldn’t. It was not that he hadn’t gone back to her time after time, but he surely wouldn’t decide to marry her five weeks after she cheated on him with her ex. He just wouldn’t.

  “Jonny called,” Declan starts and doesn’t seem to notice her instant unease. “His friend Marietta is producing this TV show and we’d be the perfect contenders.”

  It takes a second for that sentence to make sense to Karin, mostly because she has to breathe through the sigh of relief that ‘Tina and I are getting married’ wasn’t what just left his lips.

  “What?” She asks when she finds she is failing to comprehend exactly what he is trying to tell her regardless of her relief.

  “Jonny’s friend Marietta works as a producer for this show,” Declan repeats, talking slow as if she was an idiot. “It’s like a competition show, and Jonny told her about us when they spoke about it and she says we should audition for it.”

  “We?” She peaks up at him.

  “It’s for a couple,” he shrugs and she tilts her head at him.

  “A couple of friends?” She finishes his sentence, attempting to have him clarify with her toes tingling. “Declan, what are you talking about? What would we be doing in a TV show?”

  “Alright, it’s a bit complicated to explain,” he says. “It’s called Heart Roulette or something and it’s like a couple’s competition show. There are six couples and they go to a villa on an island for a month, and every week one couple gets voted off. But there’s a catch. One of the couples is fake ... and that would be us!” He adds that last thing as if this should have garnered a bigger reaction from her.

  He looks like an excited puppy dog and Karin has no idea what he’s saying. “Fake what?”

  “Rinny, don’t be so thick,” he rolls his eyes. “That’s the point of the show. The real couples have to find out the fake couple. Here, look at this. Jonny sent me their casting call.”

  He looks for his phone from his jacket pocket and finally holds it out to her after some thumbing around on it. There’s a slickly designed ad mat for CTV on it, a wall of text over a picture of a luxurious villa and some roses photo shopped on the side and a logo that says “Play the Heart Roulette”. The top paragraph has about the same things in it that Declan has just told her: Six couples on an island, one among them only pretending to be one which either gets found out - or wins the competition.

  “To help the process of elimination,” it reads below, “the couples have one challenge each week to prove that their love is real and the
n a vote is held in which one couple at a time is voted out by the other couples in the house. When only two couples remain, the grand final live show is held in Scanlon where through a round of games, the audience finally decides in a tele vote which couple is the realest in love. The winning couple earns themselves a prize of a cool half a million dollars. It is of course highly possible that in the end there are two real couples left standing.”

  Declan wobbles with his hand, attempting to pull his phone away and Karin yelps, catching his wrist. “I’m not done.”

  “Then read faster,” he complains. “My arm is getting tired.”

  “Don’t be such a baby,” she huffs, rolling her eyes.

  “If, however the fake couple is among the two last finishing teams, they stand to gain,” she reads on. “If they are chosen by the viewers as the “real” and winning couple, they win an additional five hundred thousand dollars. If a real couple wins, they win an additional luxury round trip around the world and all the other real couples get an additional 100.000 dollars, making it a big incentive for all real couples to figure out the fake one. The competing couples are forbidden to speak about their actual couple status until after the final vote when the truth will be revealed.”

  Karin looks at the phone and then up at Declan, back at the phone, doing the math, and then back up to Declan. “So, the winning couple gets five hundred thousand dollars?” He nods. “And if the fake couple wins, they get another five hundred thousand dollars?” He nods again, grinning widely. “That’s a million dollars!”