When a girl overhears a guy getting verbally destroyed by his friends for being catfished, she jumps in to save the day—and pretends to be his online crush. A young adult romance from the critically acclaimed author of Places We’ve Never Been.
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Kasie West’s Borrow My Heart, which is out June 13th!
Wren is used to being called a control freak. She doesn’t care; sticking to the list of rules she created for herself helps her navigate life. But when a cute guy named Asher walks through the door of her neighborhood coffee shop, the rulebook goes out the window.
Asher is cute, charming . . . and being catfished by his online crush. So Wren makes an uncharacteristically impulsive decision—she pretends to be the girl he’s waiting for to save him from embarrassment. Suddenly she’s fake-dating a boy she knows nothing about. And it’s . . . amazing.
It’s not long before Asher has her breaking even more of her own rules. But will he forgive her when he finds out she’s not who she says she is? Wren’s not so sure. . . . After all, rules exist for a reason.
The bell on the door dinged and two guys, who I could just make out through the broad-leafed plant on the counter, walked in. I slunk into a chair. One of the guys was holding his phone as if he was taking a selfie. But then he started talking.
“Today is the moment of truth, Asher. Here, in this cheesy beach-themed coffee shop . . .” He pointed his phone at a big seashell plastered to the wall. “I will be proven right and you will be sad you ever made an official bet with me.”
The guy without the phone—Asher, apparently—gave a good-natured smile as the phone was pointed at him, and approached the counter.
I had not been planning on staying, so I was wearing leggings and a sweatshirt over my swimsuit. I slouched deeper into the chair and pretended to look through my bag as the two guys ordered coffee.
“You didn’t have to come,” Asher said. He was a lanky white guy wearing glasses and a beanie. He produced a twenty-dollar bill out of his pocket and handed it to Kamala.
“But then how would I record your humiliation for future generations?” Phone Guy was taller and wore a Star Wars T-shirt and Docs. And he was still recording. “Besides, you think this little girl is going to save you from internet predators?” He nodded toward Kamala.
“Little woman,” she corrected in her sassy yet disarming way. “And I won’t.” She handed him the receipt with a pile of change sitting on top. “We don’t even have a panic button here.”
Phone Guy finally lowered his phone. “You shouldn’t volunteer that information to strangers.”
“I’m trusting,” Kamala said. She really was. But she was also a good judge of character. I was her best friend, after all.
“Oh, kind of like you, Asher,” Phone Guy said. “You share everything with everyone.”
Asher pushed his glasses up his nose and smiled like it was a compliment. He slid the change off the receipt and into the tip jar.
“Do you have a question for my friend?” Phone Guy said to Kamala. “He will tell you anything. Want to know his shoe size?”
He pointed to Asher, who said, “Twelve.”
“Height?”
“Six one,” Asher said.
Phone Guy lowered his brow like he didn’t quite believe him, but continued with, “Favorite childhood trauma?”
Asher opened his mouth like he was actually going to answer when his friend saved him with, “Never mind. Everyone knows you had a perfect childhood anyway.”
Kamala held up a Sharpie and a coffee cup. “Um . . . how about just a name.”
“Dale,” Phone Guy said.
“Oh, I see how it is,” Asher said. “I pay, you take the credit.”
Dale, not humoring his joke with a response, pointed at the small wooden box on the counter. “What’s that?”
“It’s a suggestion box,” Kamala said. She hated that suggestion box; most of the time full of pickup lines or rude comments.
“Old-school feedback,” Asher said with a nod. “Nice.” He ripped a piece of paper off the pad beside the box, wrote something down, then dropped the paper in the slot on top. Then he looked around the café. I ducked my head. His eyes didn’t even pause on me. Saved by the overgrown counter plant. He pointed toward the only booth, next to the window where someone had painted a summery scene—the ocean, a colorful umbrella, flip-flops, a striped towel.
How long had that been there? It was barely the first week of summer. Had Kamala painted it?
The guys walked to the booth and sat. The hissing of the cappuccino machine muffled the conversation across the room. I dug my car keys out of my bag, thinking maybe I’d leave after all.
“So?” Kamala asked, shifting to the side counter and leaning over it so she could talk quietly. “Sunset on the beach with your bestie? I mean, I meet all your very specific criteria for love, right?” She placed a hand under her chin like she was putting her face on display. Kamala was gorgeous. She was Indian, with thick, straight black hair, dark intense eyes, a regal nose, and full lips. “Now that I think about it, I probably don’t. I haven’t read your rules lately.”
And she wouldn’t read them. Ever again. She’d already made fun of them enough and that was before I added my post-Phillip criteria: must know a guy for six months before I consider dating him, must know for a fact that he gets along with at least one family member, and he must have one or more friends he’s known and kept since elementary school. I didn’t think those were unfair additions. They were common sense, really—the reasons Phillip definitely wasn’t boyfriend material. “Of course you meet the criteria. You’re my one and only.”
Kamala curled her lip. “That’s really . . .”
“Sweet?” I asked with a smirk.
“Pathetic.” The machine stopped hissing and Kamala tightened a lid on the cup. “Dale!” she called out like there were more than just two other people in the café.
Dale stood and walked over. He gave Kamala a lazy smile as he picked up the two drinks.
“Thanks,” he said, and carried them back to the table.
Now that it was quiet again, I could hear them.
“What time did she say she’d be here?” Dale asked. “Because I am so ready to win this bet and watch you make a fool of yourself at my birthday party.”
“You will not win this bet. She’s coming.” Asher looked at his phone. “Any minute now.”
“You said four, right? It’s after four. I still haven’t decided what would embarrass you more. Streaking butt naked around the yard three times with the whole school watching or performing that dance you learned in the third grade.”
Asher took off his beanie, revealing a beautiful wavy mess of auburn hair, and put it on the table. If I had that hair, I would never cover it with a hat. My hair was stick straight and plain brown. “Neither of those would embarrass me,” he said.
Even I could tell he was bluffing. His cheeks had gone a little red and his shoulders slumped.
Dale just laughed and pointed his phone at him again like he was recording his embarrassment. Was he?
Asher held up his hand, blocking the camera. “You don’t need to think of anything, she’s coming.”
“And how are we going to know it’s her when she walks in? You’ve never met this girl and have zero pics of her.”
“I’ll know,” Asher said.
Dale scoffed. “By the magic of your underdeveloped intuition?”
“Thanks for the support,” Asher said.
“But, seriously,” Dale responded. “Tell me you’ve spoken to her. Like actually heard her voice.”
Asher gave an eye roll with his whole head. “Stop recording me.”
“Kamala,” I whispered. She looked over from where she was straightening napkins but obviously eavesdropping as well. It wasn’t like they were talking quietly. “What rhymes with rat-dished?”
“Don’t be mean, Wren.”
I didn’t think it was mean. The guy’s friend seemed like the mean one, thinking up ways to humiliate him for fun.
Dale continued, “I will stop recording when you do any sort of video call with this girl.”
“I’ll do better,” Asher said. “I’ll talk to her in person when she walks through that door.” He stared at the door as though him saying it would make her magically appear.
Dale burst out laughing. I shivered, the laugh triggering me. My mom used to do that: laugh when I was uncomfortable, laugh when I was hurt, laugh when I asked a question she didn’t want to answer.
“Asher, dude, it’s over. You can admit it,” Dale said through his laughter. “I’ve played along this far, but you don’t really think she’s coming, do you? I know Elinor did a number on you, but are you really this stupid?”
I shot to my feet, almost involuntarily. My chest was burning. “Can I use the break room?” I asked Kamala under my breath.
“Why?” she asked warily.
“Can I?”
“Yes.”
I picked up my tote, rounded the counter, and went down the hall as casually as possible. Meg exited the kitchen just as I reached the break room. Her eyes went from my messy bun to my flip-flops. She had a sour look on her face that I knew was more stress than actual meanness. I thought about suggesting one of the books on her shelf—yoga or self-hypnosis—but decided not to press my luck.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
“I spilled something on my shirt, I wanted to change.”
She gave a single nod. “Don’t linger.”
“No, yes, I mean, thank you, I won’t.” I pointed to the door and rushed around her.
I stepped into the break room and dug the change of clothes I had brought for after the beach out of my bag—a pair of jean shorts and a striped crop top. Kamala appeared just as I stripped off my sweatshirt.
“What are you doing?” She was obviously shocked. I was a little too. I wasn’t typically impulsive. I tried very hard not to be, in fact.
“I’m helping.” I peeled off my leggings and pulled on my shorts.
“What? Helping who?”
“That guy out there has been talking to a girl he’s never met. I’m a girl he’s never met.”
Kamala’s eyebrows pulled together as she took in my meaning. “He doesn’t need you to save him from his own friend.”
“It’s not about him. I’m saving us from having to sit through more of this secondhand embarrassment.” Seriously, the humiliation his friend was threatening to put him through had sent tension through my whole body.
“What if this girl, whoever she is, isn’t a catfish?”
I turned the crop top so that the tag was in the back and put my arms in the sleeves. “She is. And if I don’t do this, she’ll come up with some excuse for today and keep dragging him along for weeks and weeks.”
“What if she’s just late and shows up while you’re out there pretending to be her?”
“That will be awkward.” I pulled the shirt over my head, tugging it down over my swimsuit top. “Did he say her name? What’s my name supposed to be?”
“I heard no name.”
I used the mirror on the wall to apply a coat of mascara. I took the ponytail holder out of my hair, flipped my head upside down, ran my fingers through my long brown locks, then flipped back up.
The bell on the door let out a ding. “Let’s hope that’s her,” Kamala said. “Or they got impatient and left.”
I shrugged. Those would also be perfectly fine endings to this scenario. I really didn’t care about him. I didn’t know him. I cared about this stupid feeling that had taken over my body, reminding me that even though my mother was four hundred miles away, she still seemed to have a hold on my emotions. I was in charge of my feelings. Not the memory of things she had done and definitely not her.
“This is a really terrible idea,” Kamala said.
“Can you think of a better one?” I asked.
“Yes! Just sit there and let it play out on its own.”
“That wasn’t working at all,” I said. “I’ve already decided.” And once I made a decision, I always followed through with it.
Kamala knew this as well and gave a long-suffering sigh, resigned. “You’re such a control freak.”
“That’s why you love me.” I reached into her pocket, where I knew she kept a tube of sparkly pink lip gloss. I applied a coat to my lips, then blew her a kiss as I headed for the back door. “You better get out there for the show.”
