She paid me $1,000 to pretend to be her fiance for three months. But when I walked into the wedding and saw my ex with my best friend, she told me I didn’t know about Kian. I just walked away. That was two months ago. This morning, she showed up at my door, her hands shaking, with nothing left to say.

My first month at my new job, this girl from my department promised me $1,000 if I could be her fiance for three months. I thought it was a prank.

Renee was the girl in the office who made managers forget about their wives. I was the new guy who only spoke to people about code.

But then she explained that her hated cousin’s wedding was in ninety days, and she needed someone tall and handsome so her family would stop pressuring her to find someone.

What she conveniently forgot to mention is that the cousin getting married was Sasha. Sasha’s cousin. My ex, who had left me for my best friend.

We drew up an actual contract on my laptop right there. No kissing. Handholding only when necessary. We’d break up a week after the wedding, and we’d split any cash gift sixty-forty since she was paying me.

She made me practice my boyfriend voice in the supply closet.

“You sound like you’re reading a hostage note,” she said, fixing my collar.

I had to practice calling her “babe” without cringing. Rehearse how we met until our story was bulletproof. She taught me that her dad liked football and her mom would judge my shoes.

The first time I met her parents, I said we met at a conference while she said coffee shop. Her mom’s eyebrow raised exactly one millimeter, but her dad laughed and said, “Can’t keep your stories straight. Must be true love.”

They grilled me for hours. I left with them believing I owned a ranch back in Canada. Renee made a show of kissing my cheek on the way out. Very theatrical. Very fake.

But then, two weeks in, things started shifting subtly.

At work, we kept our distance. Separate lunch breaks, minimal interaction. But she’d started bringing me coffee without asking, just leaving it on my desk with a sticky note: “For the performance tonight. Oat milk latte, extra shot”—which I’d never told her.

The family dinners were exhausting at first. All performance, handholding that felt like a business handshake, practiced smiles. But by the third dinner, I wasn’t checking my watch anymore. Her dad and I actually talked football. Her mom taught me recipes while Renee watched with this unreadable expression.

Family game night changed everything.

When we destroyed her siblings at charades, her dad pulled me aside.

“I’ve never seen her this comfortable with someone,” he said.

That night in the car, Renee was quiet.

“Sorry,” she said suddenly.

“For what?” I asked.

“Just all of this. Everything I’m putting you through.”

I thought she meant the fake relationship. Looking back, she was apologizing for what was coming.

Our text conversations evolved, too. First, just logistics: “Dinner at 7:00, blue shirt.” Then she’d text after family events: “You did good tonight.” Then random thoughts at midnight. Then, “You awake?” at two a.m., followed by forty messages about coworkers, movies, anything.

She’d mention my idiot ex who “fumbled the best guy ever,” and I’d tense up.

“Seriously, who cheats on someone that amazing?” she’d push, watching my reaction.

“Some people make mistakes,” I’d mumble, and she’d look away. Guilty about something I didn’t understand yet.

One night at the office, both of us staying late, we finally acknowledged it.

“This is getting complicated,” I said.

“It’s just method acting,” she insisted. But her hands were shaking.

“Renee, you brought me soup when I was sick last week. That wasn’t for your family.”

She stood up, frustrated.

“So what if I care?”

“We need to stick to the contract,” I said weakly.

“Right,” she agreed.

But her nephew’s birthday party was when pretending became impossible.

I did dinosaur voices to make him laugh, and when I looked up, Renee was staring at me like I’d solved world hunger. Other moms kept asking how long we’d been together, and she’d get this soft look.

The cake tasting was what broke us both.

She started sobbing over chocolate versus vanilla, but I couldn’t understand why. I held her in the parking lot while she ugly cried into my shirt.

“I’m so sorry, Alan. I’m so, so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” I said.

“Yes, it is,” she whispered.

And no matter what I said, she refused to feel less guilty.

“Pretending to care about you is killing me,” I finally admitted one night.

She looked like she might cry.

“Alan, there’s something—”

I perked up, but then she couldn’t bring herself to say it.

“After the wedding,” she said. “We’ll talk after the wedding.”

That’s when it happened.

The rehearsal dinner was the first time I would meet her cousin, the bride. I walked in confident, her hand in mine, ready to charm great-aunts and distant cousins. I had been genuinely looking forward to it just to spend more time with Renee.

But then I saw her—Sasha in a pearly white dress.

We locked eyes and suddenly the world stopped. Her champagne glass froze halfway to her lips. Then the worst possible thing happened.

Kian stepped out from behind her. My ex–best friend, wearing a matching pearl white tie.

The three of us stood frozen while Renee’s relatives milled around clutching cocktails.

Renee went rigid, and when I looked at her, I saw it. This was what she had been apologizing for.

Sasha started storming toward us. Kian followed her, saying, “Wait, wait. I can’t do this.”

I turned to Renee.

“Please—” her voice broke.

But I was already walking out, leaving her standing there with her hand still extended toward where mine had been.

She followed me to the parking lot.

“Please just get through dinner,” she begged.

“You knew they’d be here.”

“I didn’t know about Kian, but you knew about Sasha.” That wasn’t a question.

“Alan, I originally just wanted—”

I cut her off. I told her I needed time, then got in my car and left. She had to walk back in and make up some excuse about food poisoning.

She texted me all evening. Seventy-two messages and twenty-one calls I didn’t respond to.

But then the next morning at four a.m., she showed up at my door.

“The wedding’s in ten hours. Please,” she sobbed.

I stood there, not knowing what to do. She was shaking so hard her teeth were chattering even though it was warm outside. I opened the door wider and she practically fell through it.

Her makeup had run down her face in black streaks, and her dress from the rehearsal dinner was wrinkled like she’d slept in her car. The neighbors across the hall had cracked their door open to watch, so I pulled her inside before they called security.

She collapsed onto my couch and immediately started digging through her purse with trembling hands. Her phone screen lit up with dozens of missed calls from her family. She swiped past them and pulled up old photos from her camera roll.

Two girls in matching red Christmas sweaters smiled at the camera, maybe twelve years old.

“That was Sasha,” Renee said, pointing at the taller one with perfect teeth.

They looked like sisters almost. Same nose, same chin, but Sasha’s smile was bigger and brighter even back then.

Renee scrolled to another photo from high school where Sasha wore a crown at what looked like homecoming while Renee stood in the background. Another photo showed them at some family party where everyone surrounded Sasha while Renee sat alone at a side table.

My chest got tight as the pieces started clicking together in my head.

She’d known exactly who my ex was when she hired me for this fake boyfriend job. She’d known I’d walk into that rehearsal dinner and see the woman who destroyed me.

My hands started shaking, too, but from anger, not sadness.

Renee must have seen my face change because she grabbed my arm and shook her head so hard her earrings rattled. She tried to explain that yes, at first she just wanted to show up with someone impressive to make Sasha jealous for once in her life.

But then everything changed when she actually got to know me. The coffee she brought me every morning, the soup when I was sick, the way she cried at the cake tasting—none of that was fake.

Her voice cracked as she talked about how Sasha always got everything first. Better grades even though Renee studied harder. The lead in every school play while Renee worked backstage. The promotion at their grandmother’s company that Renee had been promised.

When Sasha announced her engagement at Thanksgiving, their mom literally turned to Renee and asked why she couldn’t be more like her cousin.

I walked to the kitchen because I needed to do something with my hands before I punched a wall.

My body went through the motions of making coffee without thinking about it. Two scoops of grounds, water to the four-cup line. Then I reached for the oat milk without even realizing I was making her drink, not mine. Extra shot of espresso, no sugar, exactly how she liked it.

My hands shook as I poured, and I had to admit to myself that I’d memorized every little thing about her without meaning to.

She followed me to the kitchen and pulled up her text messages to show me dozens of unsent drafts from weeks ago. Each one started with her trying to tell me the truth about Sasha. The timestamps showed she’d written them at two in the morning, three in the morning, right after our family dinners.

But she never sent them because every time I mentioned my ex, my whole face would change and she couldn’t stand being the one to hurt me like that again.

The anger came rushing back and I slammed the coffee mug down so hard that liquid splashed onto the counter.

She knew I’d walk into that room and see them together. She knew what that would do to me after everything I’d told her about the betrayal.

Nathan’s toy dinosaur sat on my coffee table where he’d left it last week when they’d stopped by after his swimming lesson. Seeing it made everything worse because her whole family had become part of my life and now it was all built on lies.

Renee completely fell apart then, sliding down the kitchen cabinet until she sat on my floor sobbing. She kept saying she’d tried to prepare me by bringing up my ex in conversations to see if I was ready to face her. She thought she could somehow make it easier, but she was too scared to just tell the truth.

Her whole body shook as she admitted she’d fallen for me and ruined everything because she was a coward.

My phone started buzzing on the counter with text after text.

Marcus asking if I was okay and saying they were worried about me. Elena saying Renee had left the dinner crying and nobody knew where either of us went. Even little Nathan had sent a voice message that his mom helped him record, asking where Uncle Alan was and why Aunt Renee was so sad.

Each message made my chest hurt more because these people had become real family to me over the past two months.

I sat down on the kitchen floor across from her because my legs felt too heavy to keep standing.

The wedding would start in nine hours and I had no idea what to do about any of this.

She looked up at me with red, swollen eyes and said I should choose what happens next, and she’d accept whatever I decided.

The clock on my microwave showed 4:47 a.m., and we sat there on my kitchen floor in silence while the coffee maker gurgled and dripped behind us.

She finally pushed herself up from my kitchen floor and started laying out options while pacing around my tiny apartment.

Option one was that I could come to the wedding and we’d stick to the contract like nothing changed. Pure business. She’d even pay me extra on top of the thousand we agreed on, and after today, she’d never bother me again if that’s what I wanted.

Option two was I could stay home and she’d tell everyone we broke up, make up some story about how I wasn’t ready for commitment or whatever would make her family stop asking questions.

I watched her hands shake as she gripped the counter and asked what option three was, even though I wasn’t sure why I was asking.

Her whole body went still, and she turned to look at me with this expression I’d never seen before.

Option three was, “We could go to this wedding together. Not as fake anything, but as whatever we actually are to each other now, facing this whole mess as real people instead of actors playing parts.”

The words hung there between us while the sun started coming up through my kitchen window.

She waited for maybe thirty seconds before grabbing her keys and saying she needed to go get ready, but I should text her whatever I decided.

After she left, I sat at my laptop, staring at our contract file with all the notes I’d been keeping for three months. There were pages of details about her family members and their quirks, inside jokes we’d created during dinners, screenshots from her mom’s Facebook where she’d posted photos of us at family events, looking happier than I remembered feeling at the time.

My phone buzzed with a text from Kian saying he knew things were weird, but both he and Sasha really wanted me at the wedding and asking if we could talk. I deleted it immediately but took a screenshot first because something in my gut said I should document everything from here on out.

The suit Renee had helped me pick three weeks ago was hanging in my closet, and I pulled it on just to see how it looked. She’d spent over an hour at the store making sure the fit was perfect, smoothing down the lapels and stepping back to look at me from different angles while telling me I looked like James Bond, then turning red when she realized how excited she sounded.

My phone rang and Marcus’s name showed up on the screen.

He said he didn’t know what happened last night, but Renee hadn’t been herself lately, and these past weeks with me were the happiest he’d seen her since she was a kid. Just thought I should know before making any decisions about today.

After hanging up, I drove to the wedding venue but parked across the street instead of in the actual lot.

Guests were starting to arrive in fancy cars, and I watched from my driver’s seat as a white limo pulled up and Sasha stepped out in her wedding dress, looking perfect and laughing at something the photographer said.

The weird thing was, it didn’t hurt the way I thought it would. More like watching a movie about strangers than seeing my ex who destroyed me.

My phone lit up with a text from Renee saying she was at the venue and had told everyone I had food poisoning, but might show up if I felt better. No pressure, though. She attached a photo of the place card with my name still sitting next to hers at the family table her mom had saved just in case.

Through my windshield, I spotted Nathan in his tiny tuxedo, standing near the entrance, looking around with his sad expression while Grace bent down to whisper something to him. He shook his head and clutched the stuffed dinosaur I’d given him at his birthday party—the one he’d named Rex and carried everywhere now.

My chest got tight watching this little kid search the crowd for me while wedding guests streamed past him into the building.

Someone knocked on my car window and I jumped hard enough to hit my head on the roof.

Sasha stood there in her wedding dress, the fabric pooling around her feet on the asphalt, gesturing for me to roll down the window.

When I did, she immediately launched into this speech about how she needed to explain about Kian and how it wasn’t supposed to happen the way I thought it did.

The thing that struck me wasn’t what she was saying, but what she wasn’t saying—because there was no actual apology in any of it, just her trying to control how the story sounded.

I finally cut her off by asking how exactly it was supposed to happen.

Then she started fumbling with her words while adjusting her dress against the morning breeze. She managed to get out something about how they just fell in love and it was messy, but real. Then she actually said she needed me to forgive them so everyone could move forward.

The way she said it made my hands tighten on the steering wheel.

I told her I didn’t forgive her and didn’t need to. I said she made her choice, but this wasn’t about her anymore.

Her face went through about six different expressions before she asked why I was even here.

And that’s when it hit me exactly why I’d driven all the way here.

I rolled up the window while she was still standing there and drove toward the venue parking lot.

The ceremony was already starting when I walked through the heavy wooden doors. Every head in the back rows turned, but I kept walking down the side aisle.

Renee’s eyes went huge when she spotted me sliding into the empty seat beside her. I took her hand without thinking about it, not for show, but because I wanted to.

She squeezed back so hard my knuckles cracked.

During the vows, when Kian stood up there promising to be faithful, I felt Renee’s whole body go rigid beside me. She leaned over and whispered that we could leave if I wanted.

I whispered back that we were seeing this through to the end.

Elena was sitting on Renee’s other side and gave me this small approving nod.

The reading started, and Nathan scrambled out of Grace’s lap and climbed into mine instead. He started whispering about dinosaurs while the reader droned on about love and commitment. His little hands were making pterodactyl wings against my chest.

This moment felt more real than anything I’d experienced with Sasha in our entire two years together. Renee was watching us with this look on her face I couldn’t figure out.

The reception moved to the ballroom next door, and we found our table assignment on the seating chart. Table three put us right with Sasha’s parents, who kept shooting looks at me every few seconds. Her mom’s mouth was this tight line while her dad wouldn’t make eye contact at all.

Renee handled their awkward questions like she’d been doing this her whole life, deflecting and redirecting with practiced ease. I focused on cutting Nathan’s chicken into dinosaur shapes while he narrated an entire prehistoric battle.

During cocktail hour, Kian cornered me by the bar while I was getting Renee a drink.

He started with this whole speech about how we needed to clear the air between us. I set down the glasses and stood up slowly to face him.

I told him we weren’t bros and never would be again. I said he slept with my girlfriend while pretending to be my friend and there was nothing to clear.

His face went red and he stepped closer, like he might actually try something at his own wedding.

Renee appeared between us before anything could happen. She told Kian maybe he should focus on his bride instead of harassing her boyfriend on his wedding day.

The way she said “boyfriend” hung in the air because she didn’t add the word “fake” in front of it.

Kian backed off and stalked away while Renee’s hand found mine again.

Marcus caught up with me during the cigar break on the terrace after dinner. He lit his Cuban and started talking about how he and Elena actually had an arranged marriage at first. He said it took them three years to fall in love for real, but now he couldn’t imagine life without her.

He looked at me through the smoke and said, “Sometimes the best things start as business arrangements.”

We stood there watching the sunset while wedding music drifted through the French doors.

Back inside for dinner, Sasha’s maid of honor got up to give her speech about true love conquering all obstacles. She kept making these pointed looks at me every time she said the word “obstacles.”

Under the table, Renee’s hand found mine and held on tight.

The maid of honor finally sat down after her speech, and servers started clearing plates while the DJ grabbed his mic to announce the bouquet toss.

All the single women crowded onto the dance floor except Renee, who stayed in her seat, shaking her head until her sister Grace physically dragged her out there.

Sasha stood at the front in her white dress, holding her bouquet and scanning the crowd of women behind her with this weird smile. She turned around and locked eyes directly with Renee, then spun back and threw the bouquet hard, like she was trying to knock someone out with it.

The flowers sailed straight at Renee’s face, and she caught them purely out of reflex to protect herself from getting hit.

Sasha turned around with this nasty smirk and said, loud enough for everyone to hear, that maybe Renee would be next if she could find someone real.

The whole room went quiet for a second, and I saw Renee’s face go from shocked to furious in about half a second.

Catching a bouquet out of self-defense while your ex–best friend throws shade at your wedding—now that’s a plot twist worthy of its own reality show. Someone call the producers because this reception just got spicy.

She stood up suddenly and somehow had a microphone in her hand before I could even process what was happening.

I reached for her arm to pull her back down, but she was already talking into the mic, saying she wanted to make a toast to her cousin Sasha.

The room went dead silent, and even the servers stopped moving as Renee raised her champagne glass and said Sasha always got what she wanted.

She kept going, saying whether it was the promotion at their grandma’s company or the bigger wedding budget or even other people’s boyfriends.

Gasps went through the crowd and I saw Marcus sit up straighter while Elena’s mouth fell open in shock.

Renee wasn’t done, though. She thanked Sasha because her choices had led Renee to me—to Alan.

Sasha’s face went completely white and she tried to tell Renee to stop, but Renee kept talking into the mic.

She said she’d spent three months pretending to love me for money, only to discover what we had was more real than anything Sasha and Kian built on lies.

The room exploded into chaos with people talking over each other and Elena trying to stand up to restore order while Marcus actually started laughing at the worst possible moment.

Sasha’s parents were demanding to know what was going on and pointing at Renee while other relatives were pulling out their phones to record everything.

I stood up and took the microphone from Renee’s hand before she could say anything else that would make this worse.

I told everyone she was right about it starting fake, but that watching Renee with her family and seeing her kindness and strength had made me fall for real.

Then I turned to look directly at Sasha and Kian, who were both frozen in place, looking like they wanted to disappear.

I thanked Sasha for cheating on me and thanked Kian for being exactly who he was, because they both led me to find someone who actually fought for me.

I turned back to Renee and said she fought for me even when she was scared of losing me and even when I didn’t deserve it.

Sasha grabbed her bouquet from where Renee had dropped it and threw it hard at Renee’s head, screaming that she had ruined the wedding. Renee caught it and threw it right back, yelling that Sasha had ruined my life first, so they were even.

The two cousins started moving toward each other, and their parents had to physically hold them back while security guards in black suits rushed in from the lobby.

Two guards grabbed me and Renee by the arms and started walking us toward the exit while the wedding guests were all standing and shouting.

Elena followed us out, surprising me by how calm she seemed compared to the chaos behind us.

She told us what we did was inappropriate, but then smiled just a little bit and said it wasn’t undeserved, since Sasha had always been a bully. She said she was glad someone finally said what everyone had been thinking for years before going back inside to deal with the mess.

The security guards walked us all the way to the parking lot and stood there watching to make sure we actually left.

Renee and I climbed onto the hood of my car, still wearing our formal clothes, and watched through the big windows as people inside tried to calm down.

We could see Sasha crying while Kian tried to comfort her and the DJ awkwardly tried to get people to dance again.

Renee looked at me and asked if we were still breaking up a week after the wedding like our contract said.

I didn’t answer right away because honestly, I had no idea what to say or what I even wanted anymore.

We sat there for another hour watching the disaster we had caused until security came out and told us to leave the property completely.

The next morning, my phone was going crazy with notifications and I had forty-seven messages from numbers I didn’t recognize.

Someone had posted the whole thing on TikTok and it already had two million views with a caption about the bride’s cousin exposing a fake relationship and affair at the wedding.

Renee texted me that we were apparently famous now and also she was definitely getting fired when she went to work on Monday. Her boss had already seen the video and wanted to talk to her about representing the company poorly or something like that.

I watched the video myself and saw how crazy we both looked standing there with microphones, calling out the bride at her own wedding. The comments were split between people saying we were heroes for exposing cheaters and others saying we were awful for ruining someone’s special day.

Renee’s mom called me three times, but I didn’t answer because I had no idea what to say to her after everything.

Marcus left me a voicemail just laughing and saying that was the most entertaining wedding he had ever been to in sixty years.

My own parents started texting, asking if the video going around was really me and what the hell I was thinking causing a scene like that.

The video kept spreading and by noon it had five million views and someone had already made a remix with dramatic music added.

Renee came over to my apartment that afternoon looking exhausted and carrying a box of her stuff from the office because they had already let her go.

She sat on my couch and we just stared at each other, not knowing what to say about the complete disaster we had created together.

The next morning, we decided to meet at the coffee shop on Third Street where we used to practice our fake couple stories before family dinners.

I got there first and ordered my usual while watching the morning crowd rush past the windows.

Renee walked in ten minutes later, looking tired but determined, and when the barista saw us together, he practically jumped over the counter.

He kept saying we were legends and showed us his phone where the wedding video had another million views overnight, then refused to let us pay for our drinks.

We found a corner table away from everyone and sat there stirring our coffees without talking for a while.

I finally asked when it stopped being fake for her.

She stared at her latte and told me it was the night I made dinosaur voices for Nathan at his birthday party, when I didn’t know she was watching and there was no one to perform for.

Her phone started buzzing on the table and she almost ignored it, but then saw it was her boss calling. She put it on speaker and instead of yelling like we expected, he was laughing and talking about how the wedding video was the best thing to ever happen to their company’s social media presence.

Marketing wanted to meet with her about doing a whole campaign around it, and he offered her a promotion on the spot.

We were both processing this when the coffee shop door chimed and Sasha walked in, still wearing her honeymoon sundress with sand on her sandals.

She marched straight to our table and started going off about how we destroyed her life and the video was everywhere and Kian’s parents wanted an annulment now.

She wasn’t wrong about the mess, but she also wasn’t taking any responsibility for what she did to me first.

Renee stayed quiet for a moment, then told her calmly that she destroyed my life first, but the difference was I rebuilt it into something better.

Sasha turned to me and asked if I really loved Renee or if this whole thing was just revenge.

The answer came out simple and clear.

I told her I loved Renee, not because of revenge or the contract, but because she brought me soup when I was sick and memorized how I took my coffee and fought for me even when I walked away.

Sasha stood there for a second looking deflated, then turned and left without another word.

Renee was staring at me with this expression I couldn’t read and said I had just told her I loved her.

I nodded, and she asked if that was part of the performance.

I reminded her the contract ended when we left the wedding yesterday.

She took a deep breath and said she needed to tell me something.

There was no $1,000 because she spent all her savings on the suit she bought me and all those family dinners we went to. She was completely broke and couldn’t have paid me even if she wanted to.

I started laughing, maybe a little too hard, and asked if she really hired me as a fake boyfriend with money she didn’t have.

She nodded, looking miserable, and said she was desperate and stupid and figured she would find the money somehow before the three months were up.

We sat there in silence for a minute while I processed this information.

Then I pulled out my phone and deleted the contract document we had made that first day in the office.

I told her it was a good thing I wasn’t in it for the money.

Then she looked up at me hopefully and asked if I really wasn’t doing it for the money.

I told her about practicing my boyfriend voice alone in my apartment for hours until my throat hurt. About the notebook I kept hidden in my desk drawer with all her favorite things written down: the oat milk lattes she liked, the way she hated cilantro but loved basil, how she always touched her ear when she was nervous.

I pulled out my phone and showed her the Amazon order history full of dinosaur toys I’d been buying for Nathan with my own money. Her eyes got wide when she saw the total.

Before she could respond, the coffee shop door banged open and Marcus and Elena walked in looking serious.

Elena said they figured we’d be here and that the family was having an emergency meeting. Marcus looked right at me and said I was still family no matter what happened.

We followed them to their house where the living room was packed with people I recognized from all those family dinners.

Sasha’s parents were standing near the window demanding apologies while everyone else sat wherever they could find space. In the center sat an older woman I’d never met before, watching everything with sharp eyes.

This had to be Grandma Johnson that everyone always talked about.

The room went quiet when we walked in.

Grandma finally spoke, her voice cutting through the tension like a knife. She said Sasha stole her cousin’s boyfriend’s friend and Renee disrupted a wedding, bringing shame to the family.

Then she turned to look at me and her face softened just a bit.

She said I could have caused a scene at the rehearsal dinner but removed myself instead. Could have abandoned Renee that day but stood by her. She said this was the kind of man they wanted in their family.

Sasha’s parents started protesting, but Grandma raised one hand and they went silent immediately.

Grace stood up from the couch and said Nathan hadn’t stopped talking about me for weeks. Said kids know when someone really cares and that wasn’t fake.

Nathan ran over and wrapped his arms around my leg, asking if I’d still teach him about pterodactyls. I picked him up and he buried his face in my shoulder.

That’s when the front door slammed open so hard it hit the wall.

Kian stormed in, looking like he hadn’t slept, his tie loose and his hair a mess. He started yelling about how insane this family was, how the wedding was ruined and the honeymoon canceled. Said his parents thought he was a homewrecker now.

Sasha turned on him fast, screaming that he was a homewrecker and so was she.

They started fighting right there in front of everyone, their voices getting louder and uglier.

Sasha admitted she went after Kian partly to hurt me for not proposing fast enough after three years together. Kian shot back that he was jealous of my promotion and my relationship and wanted what I had.

Their marriage was falling apart in real time while forty relatives watched with their mouths open.

Grandma stood up and told them both to get out until they could act like adults.

They left separately, Sasha crying and Kian slamming the door again.

Two hours later, after everyone had gone home and Marcus and Elena were cleaning up, Renee and I sat in her childhood bedroom.

Her teenage posters were still on the walls, mixed with photos from the past three months that her mom must have printed and framed.

Pictures of us at family dinners, at Nathan’s birthday, at the cake tasting where she cried.

She asked what we were supposed to do now.

I told her we should date for real this time. No contracts or payments or performances, just us figuring out if what we had was real without all the fake stuff around it.

She looked scared and asked, “What if we were only good at pretending?”

I reached over and pulled her close, kissing her right there with no one watching, no family to perform for, just us.

She froze for a second, then kissed me back, her hands grabbing my shirt. When we pulled apart, she was breathing hard and looking at me like she’d never seen me before.

We agreed to try for real this time. No contracts or fake stories or rehearsed conversations.

The next week at work was weird because everyone had seen the wedding video that went viral. Apparently, someone’s cousin posted it and it got millions of views.

My manager called me into his office looking worried about the company’s image, but then the CEO walked in laughing and said it was the best PR we’d gotten in years. Made us look human instead of just another tech company.

He even gave me a bonus for “brand enhancement.”

Renee and I had to figure out new rules now that we were actually dating. We kept our separate apartments, planned real dates where we didn’t practice what to say beforehand, and it was harder than pretending because now everything mattered.

Three weeks later, my phone buzzed with a text from Sasha asking if we could meet. Renee saw it over my shoulder and tensed up, but I decided I needed closure.

We met at a coffee shop downtown where Sasha showed up looking tired, papers in her hand that turned out to be annulment documents she’d already filed.

She stirred her coffee for five minutes before finally talking. She said even when we were supposed to be fake, Renee and I had more chemistry than she and Kian ever had.

She admitted she’d been wrong about how she ended things with me, but wasn’t sorry they ended because we weren’t right for each other. She said I was better with Renee, and that was probably the closest thing to closure I’d ever get from her.

That same week, Kian sent me this long email trying to explain his side, asking for forgiveness, saying he’d been drunk and stupid and it just happened.

I read it three times but didn’t respond or delete it because some bridges aren’t meant to be rebuilt—just left as ruins you drive past sometimes.

A month later was Nathan’s actual birthday party—not a performance this time. When he introduced me to his friends as his uncle who knew everything about dinosaurs, Renee got tears in her eyes, watching me do all the voices for his dinosaur toys.

Elena pulled me aside while the kids were eating cake.

She looked at me for a long moment, then said she’d known it was fake from the start because mothers always know, but she also saw the exact moment it became real.

She thanked me for not giving up on Renee after she lied about Sasha.

Marcus came over and handed me something wrapped in cloth: his father’s watch that had been in their family for three generations.

He said it stays in the family and pushed it into my hands when I tried to refuse.

He said I’d earned it by standing by Renee when she was at her worst, when most guys would have walked away.

Two months after that, Renee and I had our first real fight—about money, of all things.

She kept insisting she needed to pay me back the $1,000 she’d promised, even though she never actually had it. I told her the whole thing was ridiculous since we were together now, but she wouldn’t let it go. Said it was about keeping her word.

We argued in my apartment for two hours, her pacing back and forth while I sat on the couch trying to make her see reason.

She grabbed a pillow from the couch and threw it at me hard enough to knock my coffee over, then started pacing again while I cleaned up the mess with paper towels from the kitchen.

The more we argued, the louder we got until the neighbors started banging on the wall and we both froze mid-shout.

She looked at me with my shirt soaked in coffee and started giggling, then full-on laughing until she couldn’t breathe.

I started laughing, too, because here we were fighting about fake money from our fake relationship while living together in a real one.

She collapsed next to me on the wet couch, still wheezing about the whole stupid thing.

After we calmed down, she got this serious look and went to my kitchen cabinet, pulled out an empty pickle jar, and wrote “Truth Jar” on it with a Sharpie.

“Every lie from now on costs five dollars,” she said. “Even tiny ones, like saying you’re fine when you’re not. And the money goes to our first real vacation.”

I immediately had to put in twenty bucks for various work excuses, and she put in fifteen for telling her mom we were too busy to visit last weekend.

The jar filled up fast that first week.

Three months later, everything changed when Marcus called us over for Sunday dinner but wouldn’t say why.

We found the whole family gathered around Elena’s laptop, watching some viral video about wedding disasters that turned into love stories.

There we were at Sasha’s wedding—the fight, the kiss, everything—with over two million views and comments about how we were “relationship goals.”

Someone had done research and posted that Sasha and Kian’s marriage lasted exactly three weeks before she caught him with her yoga instructor.

Meanwhile, photos of Renee and me at the farmers market the previous weekend were being shared everywhere as proof that fake relationships can become real love.

The video licensing company contacted us that week, offering $5,000 for exclusive rights.

Two weeks after that, Renee’s grandmother—who everyone just called Grandma Miller—invited us to her house for tea, just us. No one else.

She lived in this massive Victorian in Pacific Heights that probably cost more than I’d make in ten lifetimes.

We sat in her parlor while she poured Earl Grey into actual china cups that looked older than the house.

She put down her teacup and announced she was rewriting her will because Sasha showed poor judgment, Renee showed courage, but I showed character, and that mattered most.

She’d already called her lawyer and wanted us there when she signed the changes.

The news spread through the family within hours. Sasha called Renee screaming that we’d manipulated a senile old woman, that we planned the whole fake relationship to steal her inheritance.

Marcus and Elena took our side, but Sasha convinced her brother and two cousins that we were con artists.

The family split into camps with accusations flying on the group text that got so ugly Elena finally deleted it.

Sasha hired some expensive lawyer from her father’s firm to contest the will change, claiming undue influence and fraud.

The lawyer sent us a letter full of legal threats about elder abuse and conspiracy that made my hands shake when I read it.

We used the money from the viral video to hire our own lawyer, this woman named Patricia, who’d handled Elena’s friend’s divorce.

She reviewed everything—our text messages, the contract I’d stupidly saved on my laptop, the timeline of our relationship—then leaned back in her chair.

“The timeline actually helps us,” she said, because our relationship clearly predated any will changes. She found it ironic that our fake documentation would serve as real evidence.

The depositions were brutal. Six hours of questions about every detail of our relationship under oath.

When did the fake parts end and the real parts begin? What was performance and what was genuine?

Every text message dissected for meaning.

Renee cried twice during hers, and I threw up in the courthouse bathroom during a break in mine.

But it felt weirdly good, too—finally telling the complete truth about everything, even the embarrassing parts, like practicing boyfriend voice in the supply closet.

Sasha’s lawyer presented our original contract in court like he’d found the smoking gun, reading it out loud with dramatic pauses.

But then Patricia presented the marketing company’s whole campaign as counter-evidence, showing we’d been publicly together for months since the wedding with no contract needed.

She had receipts from dinners, tagged photos from friends, even security footage from my apartment building showing Renee basically living there.

Sasha’s lawyer reading our fake dating contract out loud in court like he’s performing Shakespeare, while Patricia just casually pulls out security footage, is peak legal drama comedy. Nothing says “true love” like documented evidence and timestamped receipts.

The judge asked pointed questions about the contract terms versus our actual relationship timeline.

The night before the ruling, Renee couldn’t sleep, kept tossing and turning until I finally turned on the light at three a.m.

She sat up, panicking about losing everything—her family, the money, maybe even me if this went badly.

I reminded her we started with nothing real and built something anyway. That we were good at making fake things true.

She kissed me then—really kissed me. Not like the wedding performance, but like she needed to make sure I was real.

Two weeks later, we sat in the courtroom holding hands so tight my fingers went numb while the judge read her decision.

She ruled completely in our favor, stating the will changes were made by a competent adult with no evidence of coercion.

But then she added something that made Sasha storm out of the courtroom.

She noted that what began as deception evolved into genuine affection, which she said was more than could be said for many relationships that start honestly, clearly referring to Sasha’s three-week marriage.

Sasha just stood there for a second, then her face crumpled and she started crying right there in the courtroom. Not the angry tears I expected, but tired ones, like she’d been holding them back for months.

She slumped into her chair and covered her face with both hands while her lawyer awkwardly patted her shoulder.

Grandma Miller walked over and put a hand on Sasha’s arm, offering her a tissue from her purse. She said something quiet that made Sasha look up, and after a minute, Sasha nodded and signed some papers her lawyer pulled out.

Later, I found out Grandma offered her a smaller part of the inheritance if she agreed to get therapy, which Sasha accepted without fighting.

Two days later, my phone buzzed with a text from Kian suggesting we all grab a beer and move forward.

I stared at it for maybe ten seconds before deleting it and blocking his number.

Renee watched me do it and squeezed my hand, but didn’t say anything.

Some things you forgive, and some you just leave behind.

Three weeks passed before Renee suggested we go back to the coffee shop where we’d written our fake boyfriend contract.

The same barista was working and recognized us, making a joke about framing our original contract since we’d become regulars.

Instead of laughing, Renee pulled out a notebook and started writing something new.

Not a contract this time, but a list of promises—real ones without payment terms or breakup clauses.

She wrote that she promised to tell me when she was scared. I wrote that I promised to stay, even when things got complicated.

We both signed it, but this time it wasn’t legally binding, just emotionally.

The paper went into her purse, where she kept it for the next six months.

Six months after the wedding disaster, Renee came home from work looking nervous and excited at the same time.

Her company had offered her a promotion to run their Seattle office, nearly double her salary, but it meant leaving San Francisco.

She explained all the details while pacing around my apartment, saying she understood if I couldn’t leave my job and friends here.

I let her finish her whole speech before pulling out my laptop and showing her the email I’d gotten the week before.

A Seattle tech company had offered me a senior developer position with better pay and remote options for when we’d visit her family.

Her mouth dropped open and she just stared at the screen.

I’d been secretly interviewing for three months, researching Seattle companies and taking video calls during lunch breaks.

She kept looking between me and the laptop like she couldn’t process what she was seeing.

I told her I’d practiced calling her “babe” in a supply closet and learned her dad’s entire football roster and made up a whole Canadian ranch. Moving to Seattle was actually the easiest thing I’d done for her.

She tackled me onto the couch and we stayed there for an hour just holding each other.

That Sunday, we told her family at dinner.

Nathan started crying until we promised he could visit and see the Space Needle and maybe catch a Seahawks game.

Marcus immediately pulled out his phone to research Seattle sports teams and started planning which games he’d fly up for. Elena just nodded like she’d known this was coming all along, then started making lists of what furniture we’d need for the new place. Grace offered to help us pack and asked if we’d found an apartment yet.

Two months later, we were knee-deep in boxes and packing tape.

Renee found the folder where we’d kept all our fake relationship props—the rehearsal notes we’d written, printed texts planning our cover story, staged photos from those early family dinners.

She held up the original contract with all its rules and clauses, asking if we should keep this stuff or throw it away.

I took the folder and wrote “Origin Story” on the outside with a Sharpie.

We packed it carefully between photo albums and other important documents, because even if it started as a lie, it became the foundation for something real. Fake scaffolding that somehow held up an actual relationship.

The drive to Seattle took twelve hours straight through. We packed everything that mattered into my car and her SUV, playing the same road trip games we used to rehearse for her family gatherings. Except now the laughter came naturally without any planning.

We stopped for gas in Redding and she bought every snack I reached for without asking, just like she’d been doing for months.

The highway stretched ahead of us and we took turns leading, switching positions every couple hours, texting each other stupid observations about billboards and weird cars, even though we were literally right there.

Halfway through Oregon, she pulled over at a rest stop and I thought something was wrong with her car, but she just stood there looking at me.

“I love you,” she said, and my brain short-circuited because there was no one around to perform for.

I kissed her right there next to the vending machines while truckers walked past, and it was the first kiss that was just ours.

We reached Seattle as the sun was setting over Puget Sound, painting everything gold, and found our new apartment building tucked between a coffee shop and a bookstore.

The place was smaller than what either of us could afford alone, but we wanted to build something together from scratch.

Nathan’s dinosaur collection was the first thing we unpacked because she’d promised him his own shelf in our new place.

That first night, we were still setting up the bed when her phone rang with a video call from her whole family. They’d gathered at her parents’ house for an impromptu goodbye dinner and wanted to show us what we were missing.

“Distance doesn’t change family,” Elena said, and Marcus held up a beer to toast us through the screen.

Then, Grandma Miller took the phone and looked straight at me through the camera.

“You showed up as an employee and left as family,” she said, and I felt my throat close up.

We promised to visit for Thanksgiving and ended the call with everyone waving and talking over each other.

Three days later, a package arrived with no return address, but I recognized Sasha’s handwriting immediately.

Inside was a note that made my hands shake.

She wrote about starting therapy, learning to want her own happiness instead of taking everyone else’s, thanking us for the wake-up call at the wedding.

Under the note was a beautiful wooden frame with two spaces, one for a photo and one for a document.

We put our favorite real picture from Nathan’s birthday next to our original fake contract, the one with all its rules and payment terms, and the contrast told our whole story better than words could.

Three weeks into Seattle life, we had real routines that nobody had to plan or rehearse.

Saturday mornings at the coffee shop downstairs. Sunday hikes at Discovery Park. Wednesday night video calls with Nathan where we read him stories and he showed us his new drawings.

Everything felt easy in a way that our fake relationship never had, even when we got good at pretending.

Six months after that disaster of a wedding, we were walking through Pike Place Market on a random Tuesday when Renee stopped so suddenly I almost crashed into her.

She turned around right there between the fish-throwers and the flower stands, tourists flowing around us like water.

“Let’s get married,” she said.

And before I could process what was happening, I was already pulling out the ring I’d been carrying for three weeks.

“I was thinking the same thing,” I said, and she started crying and laughing at the same time.

She said yes while the fish guys cheered and strangers took pictures, and everything about it was messy and public and completely, absolutely real.

Well, that’s been quite the journey to share with you. Plenty to wonder about after everything we’ve seen together. Like the video.