Chapter 1 - The Boyfriend I Invented in a Squat Rack
The first time Claire Whitmore asked me to come closer, her older sister was standing twenty feet away with the man Claire had almost married.
That was the part I hadn’t noticed yet.
All I knew was that Claire was beneath a loaded barbell, I was standing behind her trying very hard to behave like a normal adult, and she was watching me through the mirror with a crooked little smile.
“You can come closer, Ethan.”
I nearly forgot how legs worked.
At twenty-seven, I was supposedly functional. I paid taxes. I worked full-time as a CT technologist at a hospital outside Nashville. I had helped stabilize patients during power failures and stayed calm around trauma cases that made relatives faint.
But put me three inches behind Claire Whitmore in a squat rack and apparently I became fifteen again.
“I don’t want to crowd you.”
“You’re spotting me,” she said. “Crowding me is literally the assignment.”
So I stepped forward.
Claire had been my gym crush for four months.
Honey-blonde hair usually twisted into a messy bun. Gray-green eyes. Strong shoulders. A smile she rarely wasted on strangers.
She trained hard, wiped down every piece of equipment, never filmed herself, and left without lingering around for attention.
What made her impossible not to notice wasn’t just that she was beautiful.
Claire moved like someone who had spent years being underestimated and had finally stopped asking permission to occupy space.
“Three reps,” she said.
“You’ve got three.”
“You sound confident.”
“I’ve watched you do this weight before.”
Her eyebrow rose.
I immediately regretted the sentence.
“Professionally,” I added.
“You professionally watch me squat?”
“I’m making this worse.”
“Much.”
She laughed.
Then she braced.
First rep, clean.
Second, slower.
On the third, she stalled near the bottom.
I moved my hands closer without touching.
“Drive.”
Her jaw tightened.
“Come on, Claire. Up.”
She pushed.
The bar rose.
I stayed with her until the hooks caught it with a metallic crash.
Then she turned around.
Suddenly we were face-to-face inside the rack.
Her breathing was heavy.
Mine was worse.
“You have a good voice for that,” she said.
“For yelling ‘up’?”
“For making somebody believe they can.”
The teasing disappeared for half a second.
Something softer replaced it.
Then Claire looked past my shoulder.
Every trace of warmth vanished.
“No.”
I turned.
A polished brunette in a cream blazer had just entered Iron Forge Fitness.
Beside her walked a tall dark-haired man in an expensive charcoal jacket.
The woman looked enough like Claire that the relationship was obvious.
The man was harder to place.
Until I saw Claire’s face.
“Who?”
“My sister.”
“And him?”
She didn’t answer.
Her sister raised one hand.
“Claire!”
Claire grabbed my wrist.
Hard.
“Ethan.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m about to ask you something insane.”
“I’m listening.”
Her fingers slid into my palm.
My heart stopped.
“Pretend you’re my boyfriend.”
“What?”
“Please.”
No teasing now.
She was frightened.
I squeezed her hand.
“Okay.”
Her sister reached us first.
“Claire.”
“Melanie.”
Melanie looked at our hands, then at me.
“So this is why you stopped answering Mom.”
Behind her, the man finally spoke.
“Hello, Claire.”
Her whole body stiffened.
“Grant.”
He smiled like a man walking into a negotiation he expected to win.
“I was hoping we could talk.”
“We have nothing to discuss.”
Melanie exhaled dramatically.
“This is why Mom didn’t want to tell you on the phone.”
“Tell me what?”
“Grant is coming to Mom’s birthday dinner tomorrow.”
Claire stared at her.
“No.”
“Enough time has passed.”
“For what?”
“For everyone to stop acting like Grant murdered somebody.”
Claire released my hand and stepped toward her sister.
“He cheated on me three weeks before our wedding.”
“It was one mistake.”
“For six months and twenty-two days.”
Grant’s jaw tightened.
“I apologized.”
“And I accepted your apology,” Claire replied.
Hope flickered in his face.
Then she finished.
“I just didn’t accept you back.”
Melanie crossed her arms.
“Mom doesn’t know what else to do with you anymore. You quit Dad’s company. You ended the engagement. You moved out. You spend every evening here like you’re trying to prove something.”
“Do you hear yourself?”
“I hear someone angry.”
“I am angry.”
“And lonely.”
Claire flinched.
Grant stepped closer.
“I can fix this.”
She backed into me.
I put one hand against her back instinctively.
Grant noticed.
“Who are you?”
Claire looked at me.
“He’s my boyfriend.”
Silence.
I could have exposed her.
Instead I put my arm around her waist.
“Ethan Cole.”
Grant’s eyes dropped to my hand.
“How long?”
“Long enough.”
Melanie wasn’t convinced.
“So bring him tomorrow.”
Claire froze.
“What?”
“To Mom’s birthday.”
“No.”
Melanie smiled.
“If he’s really your boyfriend, what’s the problem?”
There it was.
The trap.
Then Grant looked directly at Claire.
“Unless he isn’t real.”
I felt her fingernails press into my palm.
I should have stayed out of it.
Instead I heard myself say:
“We’ll be there.”
Claire whipped toward me.
Grant’s smile disappeared.
Melanie blinked.
And I realized I had just volunteered to walk into a family war with a woman I’d wanted to ask out for four months.
Claire leaned close.
“You have absolutely no idea what you just agreed to.”
She was right.
Because before we left the gym, Melanie handed Claire the thick sealed folder she had been carrying.
“Mom says bring photo ID tomorrow,” she said. “Dad’s attorney needs one signature.”
Claire stared at her.
“What signature?”
Melanie’s expression changed.
“Just come to dinner.”
Twenty-four hours later, I would learn why Claire’s family was willing to push her back toward a man who had cheated on her.
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It had nothing to do with forgiveness.
And almost nothing to do with marriage.
