Writing the Rules: A Fake Dating Standalone Mariah Dietz (best novels to read .txt) 📖

gifts of chocolate by enjoying a piece of cake. Only, there’s a twist, partners must feed each other,” I read the challenge aloud. “Poor Olivia,” I say.

Poppy laughs outright. “Where do we get cake?”

As I turn, an employee is heading toward us, carrying a slice of chocolate cake. “If you eat off of your own fork, you have to stay here for ten extra minutes,” he warns, handing me the plate and two forks.

“Okay, should we aim for speed or creativity?” I ask.

Poppy grins a full-watt smile. “Time. Definitely time.” She has always had a competitive edge, one that sits dormant much of the time that makes her easy-going attitude often shine, but years of Monopoly sagas in our living room remind me of her love for winning.

“Let’s do this.” I set the cake on the table and spear a large bite.

“How big do you think my mouth is?” she asks, eyeing my fork.

An erotic image starts to form in my head, faded as though it’s several layers under my consciousness. “The fewer bites, the faster we go,” I manage to say.

She laughs again, and rather than shy away from the bite, she leans closer so I can place the cake into her mouth. I can’t recall a time I’ve ever fed someone, so I never knew how borderline sexy it actually feels—Poppy with her mouth open and waiting for me to put something inside is borderline erogenous. When the chocolate cake reaches her lips, and she lets out a tiny moan of approval, my brain short-circuits long enough not to realize she’s already stabbed a piece of cake and is holding it out for me.

I swallow and focus on eating the forkful of cake. My second bite for her is smaller but has more frosting that catches on her lip.

“It’s okay. We just have to eat,” she says around the mouthful of cake. “Here!” She grabs another bite for me and shovels it into my mouth.

“This is really good cake,” she says. “I want more frosting. Not on my face,” she adds.

I grin, cutting off a bite with another thick layer of frosting, and am distracted again as she runs her tongue across her lips, trying to capture the frosting left behind from the previous bite.

“We need to take a picture!” she cries, reaching for her phone. She flips the view around, so we see ourselves on the screen, then she leans forward and accepts another bite from me as she takes the picture. “We’re almost done,” she says.

We continue until the slice is gone, and both of us have frosting smeared across our faces that we commemorate by taking our selfie with the cardboard picture of Rae’s face.

“I think this next one is the gum wall. But I don’t have any memories of the gum wall.”

“Our grandpa used to take us there,” I say. “When she was little, she used to peel off old pieces and chew them.”

“So gross,” Poppy says, scrunching her nose as she laughs. “No wonder I’ve never heard about it.” She scans the list. “Oh! This one is here. The flower shop. The one down by the fish catching. Rae used to have a crush on a guy who worked there, and he’d give her free flowers when we walked by.”

“Bet Lincoln doesn’t know the backstory for that one,” I say.

She grins. “It was innocent. Come on. Let’s go.”

The market is winding down as the afternoon starts to get later, making it easy to weave through the crowds. When we hit the flower stand, Poppy quickly finds the picture of Rae hidden among buckets of flowers.

“Do I still have frosting on my face?” she asks.

I nod and gently lift my thumb to brush it off. Her skin is so soft, and her lips gently part as I stroke the corner of her mouth. Blood surges in my veins, and images flood my thoughts but then she flashes another benign smile.

“Let’s take the picture first, and then we’ll read the clue so we don’t forget.” Poppy pulls out her phone and waves for me to stand across from her in front of the cutout.

I squat to be level with her and smile as she announces for me to, “Say cheese!”

The vendor appears with two red roses that the challenge instructs us to place between our teeth and take another picture while trying to kiss. Poppy places the stem between her teeth, her cheeks pulled back with a smile that is nearly as distracting as it was to feed her. With the flowers in our mouths, the kiss is nothing more than our noses and mouths mashing against one another, which has Poppy giggling again as she removes the flower from her mouth. “That picture is going to be deleted after tonight.”

In my chest is a commotion that I try to dutifully ignore as Poppy begins reading off more of the hints.

“This one is definitely the aquarium, and I think this one is the movie theater. This one is in Pioneer Square, and this one, too.”

“Lead the way.”

She flashes another smile, and we continue, collecting one more stop at Pike’s place before rushing back to the car.

Our stops take us to a small bookstore where we pose with a stack of books and are told to create an image with books, something that has me scratching my head and Poppy rifling through shelves until she finds a copy of a romance novel that has a man without a shirt or a head on the cover and positions it so it looks like it’s my body. We continue to a café where there’s an outside band, and our challenge is to dance together. After that, we head to the aquarium, where we are given sheets of paper to draw a birthday card to Rae and post it at the front entrance. At the gum wall, there’s a lockbox with Rae’s birthday as the code, and inside is a pack of gum with the instructions to each take