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Darby Page doesn’t have a date for her grandparents’ 60^th anniversary party, and that’s a problem. As the last remaining single grandchild, showing up solo will trigger an avalanche of pitying looks, snide remarks, and matchmaking attempts from her elderly aunts that thanks to latent Catholic guilt, Darby will feel obligated to entertain. So her friends have come up with a solution—a fake boyfriend.

Except it’ll never work. Darby’s a terrible liar, plus her family knows everyone she might ask to play beau-for-a-day. With only four days until the party, there’s no time to A) find a guy no one in her family knows, and B) get familiar enough with him to pass him off as the real thing. It’s just not a viable option…until Finn Tucker comes along.

New to town, no one knows Finn—even Darby. Not until he drives her home (she mistook his car for her ride share), carries her up her front steps (she’s really drunk), and hangs around to make sure she’s okay while her grandparents (who were taking advantage of Darby’s girl’s night out to use her guest room for geriatric sexcapades) jump to the wrong conclusion.

Now her family thinks they’re already dating, her friends think he’s perfect for the job, and Finn, who’s had a thing for Darby since he saw her on fire a year ago (literal fire, it’s a long story), is all in. But Darby’s got high standards, and if she’s going to pretend to have a boyfriend, he’d damn well better be a good boyfriend. The kind that will bring her coffee in the morning, take her out in the evening, and is devoted to her orgasm the way romance readers are devoted to the HEA.

Check, check, and oh, baby—check. Maybe Darby’s finally getting lucky.

COPYRIGHT © 2025 solitary vice publications

I wrote this story a couple of years ago, in response to a submission call by a now defunct small press publisher. That press folded before I'd even finished the manuscript, and since I had other things on my plate at the time, I just set it aside. I've been meaning to publish it the last couple of years, but other projects always got in the way. But I really love this book - I feel like it's the best first chapter I've ever written - and I really wanted to put it out. Plus it's just joyful and silly and happy, and I feel like the world needs more of that right now. So here you go.

Chapter One

“What I need,” Darby Page declared, “is an act of God.”

The cheap tequila in the shot glass in front of her didn’t respond.

“Did you hear me?” she asked the tequila. “An act of God.”

“We heard you,” her best friend Minerva said from the seat next to her.

“The whole bar heard her,” her other friend Sam muttered from across the table.

“She’s not a subtle drunk,” Eliza added from Darby’s other side. “Maybe we should get some food into her.”

“She already ate five hotdogs,” Minerva reminded them.

“Maybe we should get some real food into her,” Eliza amended. “Like a salad, or a healthy whole grain.”

“Eliza,” Minerva said. “I appreciate your desire to ensure mankind’s continued survival—”

“Don’t say mankind,” Eliza interrupted. “It’s sexist. Say humanity.”

“—through healthy eating, but we are at The Side Door Saloon, where on Tuesday nights the hotdogs cost twenty-five cents and the beer is a dollar a pitcher. I would bet my house that you could go back in the kitchen right now and the only vegetable you’ll find is ketchup.”

“I don’t even think they have a kitchen,” Eliza admitted with a grimace. “Just a grill out back for the dogs.”

“Why do we keep coming here?” Sam asked while Darby continued to stare at her tequila as though the answer to her current dilemma lie at the bottom of the chipped shot glass. “This is a college hangout, and we’re not in college anymore.”

“It’s cheap,” Minerva pointed out. “And also nostalgic.”

“It’s disgusting,” Sam countered, her lips—painted purple to match her tower of braids—curled in distaste. “The glasses are dirty, the tables and floors are permanently sticky, it’s too loud, and there are frat boys licking the floor of the men’s room.”

“Seriously?” Darby’s tequila jostled along with the table as Eliza and Minerva stood to see over the crowd.

“The one with the stopwatch is in two of my classes.” Sam shook her head, her normally smooth ebony skin wrinkled in disgust. “He wants to be president someday.”

“We’ve had worse,” Matilda mused. “Besides, isn’t it your job to mold and guide young minds?”

“I’m a professor of political science, not a miracle worker.”

“Ugh.” Eliza sat back down. “Are we done yet? I want to go home and take a shower.”

“An act of God,” Darby repeated in a shout. The crowd around the floor lickers was getting rowdy, and she wanted to make sure everyone heard her.

“What, like locusts?” Sam asked.

“I’ll take what I can get,” Darby said, then picked up the glass and downed the shot. “Holy shit, that’s awful.”

“I’m getting the check,” Eliza decided and signaled to the waitress.

Darby reached for Minerva’s beer and downed that too, trying to kill the taste of cheap tequila. “That’s better,” she decided and belched. “Excuse me.”

“We need to close out our tab,” Eliza told the server who’d fought her way through the throng of chanting co-eds. “As quickly as possible.”

The server, dressed in the skimpy saloon girl uniform that attracted whatever patrons could not be lured by cheap hotdogs and beer, hurried off, and Eliza turned back to the table. “What do you need an act of God for again?”

“My grandparents wedding anniversary party,” Darby said and hiccupped. “It’s next weekend.”

“I thought you liked your grandparents.”

“Of course, I like them,” Darby said, holding onto the table for balance and blinking through the tequila haze. “I love them. Nana and Gramps are the best.”

“I don’t get it,” Eliza said.

“Annabelle’s in charge,” Minerva informed them in a low voice.

“Oh, hell,” Sam said. “Isn’t she like forty-seven months pregnant by now?”

“She’s multitasking,” Darby said darkly and looked around for more tequila.

“Which one is Annabelle again?” Eliza wanted to know.

Sam made a face. “The Miss Michigan runner-up who married the Heisman Trophy winner last summer. Darby was a bridesmaid.”

“Darby has forty-two first cousins,” Eliza reminded Sam. “She’s always a bridesmaid. I’m going to need you to narrow it down.”

“The purple floral with hoop skirt.”

Eliza frowned. “Was that the time you almost passed out?”

“No, that was Amber’s wedding, with the pink corset.” Darby sighed and tried to cover her face with her hands, but her fingers were stuck to the table. “Annabelle’s was the one where my dress caught on fire.”

“It made the local paper,” Eliza remembered. “Has she forgiven you for that yet?”

“Absolutely not.” Darby managed to peel her hands off the table. “Between her and the M7, this party is going to be a nightmare.”

“The M7?” Eliza frowned. “What’s that?”

“I think that’s who James Bond works for,” Sam supplied.

“That’s MI-6,” Eliza told her.

“The Matchmaking Seven,” Minerva interrupted. “That’s what she’s started calling her aunts. They keep trying to fix her up.”

“They’re relentless,” Darby moaned, then straightened as a sudden thought slipped through her tequila addled brain. “Oh, hey! Maybe I should pray about it!”

“Need I remind you,” Minerva said as Darby closed her eyes and crossed herself, “that the last time you were in a church you were literally set on fire?”

Darby opened one eye. “Only because the altar server hadn’t put the lid back on the incense thingy tight enough, and some embers got on my dress. I didn’t like, burst into flames when I walked in the door.”

“I don’t know,” Sam mused. “If that happened to me, I think I’d take the hint and go Unitarian.”

“Wait a second.” Eliza held up a hand. “Is the aunt who tried to set you up with her neighbor’s son one of the seven?”

“Yep.”

“And her other aunt signed her up for a Catholic dating service,” Sam remembered. “That was pretty funny.”

“Oh God,” Darby moaned and dropped her head to the sticky table. 

“Are you praying now?” Sam wanted to know.

Darby picked up her head to plead with her friends. “I can’t go through that again, y’all. You have to help me.”

“She gets awfully southern when she’s drunk,” Eliza mused. “Which for someone born and raised in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, is kind of weird.”

“I spent all my summers in Georgia with my dad’s family when I was a kid,” Darby said with a sniff. “This accent is completely legit.”

“If you say so.”

“Can we get back on topic, please?”

“Which is what, exactly?” Eliza said, accepting the bill folder from the harried server.

“Act of God!”

“Right.” Eliza dug out her wallet. “You don’t need an act of God, you just need a date.”

Darby blinked. “I do?”

“It wouldn’t hurt.” Minerva told her, then turned to Eliza. “What’s our share?”

Eliza waved her off. “It’s on me.”

“I’ll get the tip.” Darby reached for the purse tucked between her feet and banged her head on the table. “Ow.”

“I’ve got the tip,” Minerva said and handed a few bills to Eliza before helping Darby to her feet. “You okay?”

“My forehead hurts.” Darby said, poking at it. “And it’s sticky.”

Eliza pushed her chair back. “They really need new tables in this place.”

“I just stepped in a yellow puddle,” Sam complained.

“It was probably beer,” Minerva offered hopefully, handing Darby her purse.

Sam scowled and started for the door. “Next time Darby has an existential crisis, I vote we go to The Bird. Hell, The Cabin would be better than this.”

“I can’t go to The Cabin,” Eliza said with a grimace and followed Sam with Darby in tow, steering her around the puddle. “That jar of pickled eggs behind the bar creeps me out.”

“It’s not a ‘stential crisis, it’s a family crisis,” Darby pointed out, falling behind while she fumbled in her purse for her phone.

“Whatever kind of crisis it is, I’m not coming back here.”

“Seconded,” Minerva muttered and grabbed Darby’s arm to steer her toward the exit.

“I’ll get a ride share.” With one eye closed for focus, Darby stabbed at her phone screen, accidentally taking a screenshot in the process. “Dammit, I hate when I do that. Oh hey, there’s a Personal Taxi already here.”

“Thank God,” Sam muttered, picking up speed as they neared the door. “Let’s all just go in the same car, I don’t want to wait for another one.”

“But you all live downtown,” Eliza whined. “I don’t want to ride all the way home by myself.”

Sam rolled her eyes and pushed open the door. “Then we’ll drop you off first.”

“Oh. That’s okay, then.”

“The breeze feels nice.” Darby closed her eyes and tilted her face up to the sky, then lost her balance and fell into someone. “Oops, sorry.”

Eliza wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Don’t close your eyes when you’re drunk, honey. It throws your balance off. Do you have any kale at home?”

“I have leftover tacos,” Darby said. “I think they have lettuce on them.”

“We should stop at the organic market and get you some kale for a smoothie in the morning. It’ll help with the hangover.”

“It’s eleven-thirty,” Sam pointed out. “The organic market is closed.”

“Thank God,” Darby muttered. If the choice was between a kale smoothie and the hangover from hell, she’d take the hangover. “Oh, hey, let’s go to Stan’s! We can get French fries!”

“Stan’s is also closed.” Sam stepped to the side to let half a dozen college kids troop past her towards the bar. “What kind of car am I looking for, Darby?”

“A silver one.” Darby tried to look around but the parking lot was blurry. “It started with a G.”

“That narrows it down,” Sam muttered, scanning the parking lot with her hands on her hips.

Darby let her head drop to Eliza’s shoulder. “You really think I need a date, Leeliza?”

“Actually, I think what you need is a fake boyfriend.” Eliza looked around. “Is that car silver?”

“It’s blue,” Minerva said, moving to Darby’s other side to help prop her up. “I really wish you’d wear your glasses.”

“They make me look too nerdy,” Eliza muttered.

“At least you’d be a nerd who can see.”

“A fake boyfriend?” Darby asked, struggling to make her brain work. “Like, a fake man?”

Minerva leaned around Darby to look at Eliza. “What is she talking about?”

“I told her she should get a fake boyfriend for the anniversary party,” Eliza explained. “Not a fake man, Darby. A real man, a fake relationship.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Minerva mused. “It would keep the aunts off her ass.”

“And when she fake breaks up with him after, she can say it was traumatic and she needs time to heal before dating again. That should buy her until Christmas.”

“Darby, I don’t see a silver car,” Sam announced. “Check the app again.”

“A fake man?” Darby said again.

“I think this could work,” Minerva mused. “It would have to be somebody good, though, and the party is on Saturday. That’s not much time.”

“We have to work fast,” Eliza agreed. “Do you know anyone?”

“Are any of you listening to me?” Sam asked, throwing her hands up in the air.

“That car is silver,” Minerva said, pointing. “And it starts with a G.”

“Well, well,” Sam purred, eyeing the car idling at the curb. “Now that’s what I’m talking about.”

“Okay, sweetie, here we go.” Eliza tightened her grip on Darby and followed Sam. “Can we all fit in there?”

“Oh, we’ll fit,” Sam vowed. “And I call shotgun.”

“Um, we should probably put Darby up front,” Minerva piped up. “In case the five hotdogs make an appearance.”

“Shit. Fine.” Sam sighed in a way that said I’m questioning my friend choices and leaned down to peer in the open passenger window of the car. “Personal Taxi for Darby?”

“Darby,” a deep voice repeated. “Darby Page?”

“That’s the one.” Sam opened the door and shoved the passenger seat forward. “Eliza, you’re first drop off so you get in last.”

“I’ll go in first.” Minerva ducked her head to climb in. “This is a nice car.”

Sam climbed in after her. “Nice is a much too anemic word to describe this car. It’s a goddamn work of art. Come on, Eliza.”

“I’m holding up Darby,” Eliza pointed out.

“She can hold onto the door,” Sam said. “It probably weighs more than she does.”

“Darby, hold onto the door,” Eliza instructed and waited until Darby had taken a firm grip before sliding in next to Sam.

“Oh! leather,” Eliza exclaimed and stroked the seat with a sigh.

“Pull the front seat back,” Sam said, and Eliza yanked on the headrest so the seat bounced into place. “Okay, Darb. Climb in.”

Darby slid into the front seat as gracefully as the tequila and beer would allow, then almost fell back out again trying to close the door. “Oof, why is this door so heavy?”

“That’s Detroit steel, baby,” Sam informed her. “Goddamn art.”

“Does Detroit steel, goddamn art have seatbelts?” Eliza wanted to know. “Oh, there it is. Sam, you’re sitting on mine.”

Darby stopped trying to pull her seatbelt around her and sent the driver a sunny smile. “Hello.”

“Uh…hi.”

“Thank you for driving us home.”

She couldn’t see his face clearly in the dark interior of the car, but she was pretty sure the flash of white was teeth, so she assumed he was smiling. “You’re welcome. Do you need a hand with the seatbelt?”

“No, I can get it,” she said, yanking at the strap.

Sam leaned forward to peer between the seats. “Please help her. I have to work tomorrow, and I’d like to get home before it’s time to get up. No offense.”

“None taken,” Darby said cheerfully.

“I was talking to the driver.”

“None taken,” he said and pulled the belt easily over Darby’s lap and clicked it into place. “All right, ladies. Where to?”

“I thought the app was supposed to tell him the address,” Minerva said in a whisper so loud it could probably be heard in Ohio.

“We’re going to four different places,” Eliza reminded her, then turned to the driver and rattled off her address. “It’s out by the Riverwood Resort.”

He tapped the address into the phone in his hand, then slid it into the holder attached to his dashboard and put the car in gear.

* * * *

This was not the way Finn Turner had planned to end his night. He’d only pulled over at the Side Door Saloon to use his phone to order some takeout, hoping it would be waiting for him by the time he got back to his temporary apartment on the other side of campus. But then the someone had poked their head in his open passenger window, said “Darby Page”, and now he was speeding down Bloomfield Road with four strange women in his car.

Well. Three strange women and Darby Page.

He could’ve told them they had the wrong car. It had been on the tip of his tongue. But then Darby had slid her gorgeous ass into the passenger seat of his ’72 GTO and smiled at him, and instead of saying “I’m not a Personal Taxi driver, you have the wrong car”, he’d fastened her seatbelt.

The situation had a French farce quality to it that appealed to his sense of humor, and making sure they got home safely was surely the gentlemanly thing to do. After all, he reasoned, if they climbed into the wrong car once, they could do it again, and the next guy might not have altruistic motives. And while the women filled the car with laughter and conversation, he told himself that such good intentions balanced out his less altruistic, more personal stake in the situation.

He glanced in the rear-view mirror. The road didn’t require a lot of his attention—Bloomfield was an empty stretch of blacktop at this time of night—so he’d been listening to his passengers, and he was pretty sure he’d figured out who was who. The little blonde in the corner behind the driver’s seat was Minerva, her short pixie cut and wide green eyes giving her a fairy-like look. In the middle was Sam, a Black woman with a curvy body, dark eyes, and purple lips that matched the purple braids worn twisted into a column that almost brushed the roof. Judging by her enthusiastic comments about the GTO, she had excellent taste in cars. And rounding out the back seat trio was Eliza, an olive skinned, curly haired brunette who kept stroking the leather seats and sighing wistfully.

“If you need a moment alone with that seat, we can close our eyes and hum,” Sam offered.

“It’s just so smooth,” Eliza sighed, still stroking. “So soft. And the smell.” She pressed her face to the back of the front seat and inhaled deeply. “Vegan leather doesn’t smell anything like that.”

“That’s because it’s plastic,” Minerva pointed out. “Which in addition to being a fashion fiasco, is an environmental catastrophe.”

“I know.” Eliza took another deep sniff. “I don’t wear it, but I don’t miss it like I miss leather.”

As Eliza continued to make love to his seats, he turned his attention to his front seat passenger.

Darby Page was a short and curvy bombshell. She had wide brown eyes, a soft and supple mouth, and shoulder length hair in a rich mahogany that shone with glints of gold and red. The open passenger window had whipped the straight fall of it into a tangle that in his opinion, suited her far more than the sleek blowout that was now ruined, or the crown of elaborate curls she’d been wearing when he’d first seen her a year ago.

An empty intersection loomed ahead, with stops signs on the cross street and a single flashing light hanging above, and he eased off the gas. For safety—because it always paid to make sure the cars that were supposed to stop actually did—but also because the blinking yellow light would shine on her face, and he wanted to see it. He’d been so distracted when she’d gotten into the car that he hadn’t seen her clearly, and he was eager to see if, after a year, the reality of her lived up to his memory.

The glimpse he got when they sped under the light was brief, but it was enough. She had round cheeks, tinged pink by the wind, and a sprinkle of freckles across her nose a shade or two paler than her hair. She had a dreamy half smile on her face that brought out the dimples on either side of her mouth. The light flashed over her earrings, gold dangles that she was probably going to have to dig out of the wild tangle of her hair, and a tiny, sparkly stud that hadn’t been there a year ago shone in her left nostril.

Then she turned, twisting in her seat to talk to her friends, and said, “It will never work.”

“It will if you give it a chance,” Eliza countered.

“What are you talking about?” Sam wanted to know, and he kept one ear tuned to the conversation as he looked over the rest of her.

Like her friends, she was dressed simply in jeans and a t-shirt. The jeans were snug, clinging to her hips and thighs, which would have taken all his focus if her t-shirt hadn’t been equally snug. Bright white so he had no trouble making it out in the near darkness of the car, it had some kind of sports logo across the front and hugged a truly magnificent rack.

The last time he’d seen those breasts they’d been snugly ensconced in a bridesmaid’s dress with a neckline low enough to distract him from the wedding ceremony taking place. And that was before the fire broke out.

“Eliza thinks Darby needs a fake boyfriend to take to the party,” Minerva supplied, and Finn tore his gaze from Darby’s boobs to look in the rearview mirror.

Sam was frowning. “Won’t that just make her family start nagging her to get married?”

“Eventually, but that’s a problem for another time.” Eliza paused her love affair with the leather to join the conversation. “At least this way, she can get through the party without having her eighty-seven aunts try to set her up with their pharmacist’s brother’s contractor.”

“Hey,” Darby said, clearly indignant. “It was my grandmother’s pharmacist’s brother’s contractor, thank you very much.”

Eliza rolled her eyes. “I stand corrected.”

“But the party is Saturday,” Sam went on. “That’s not a lot of time to find a fake boyfriend.”

Minerva shrugged. “She knows everybody in this town, there must be fifty guys she could tap for this.”

“So does her family,” Eliza pointed out. “She can’t take someone they’ll recognize.”

“Hell.” A frown wrinkled Minerva’s brow. “I didn’t think of that.”

“Excuse me,” Darby said loudly right in Finn’s ear, making him flinch, and all three women in the back seat stopped talking to look at her.

“This is a terrible idea,” Darby said with the slow, careful enunciation of the very drunk, “because I am a terrible liar. I’d never be able to—hic!—pull it off.”

“It’s not a lie if you start dating someone between now and Saturday,” Eliza pointed out.

“Easier said than done,” Minerva countered. “It’s Tuesday, that means she’s got three days to find someone. Two, really, because they’d need a prep day.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Darby complained and hiccupped again. It made her boobs bounce, and Finn was having trouble concentrating on driving.

He’d just taken a right into a subdivision, and the street lamps were giving him frequent, well-lit glimpses of his front seat passenger. He could see the logo on her t-shirt now, too, the words Gus Macker Basketball stretched out across her breasts, and he was grateful for the lack of traffic. If she kept hiccupping, he was going to run up onto the curb.

“You need to tell whoever you take to the party all the things a boyfriend would know,” Minerva explained. “You know, your quirks and habits, like how you keep your ibuprofen in the refrigerator but you only drink room temperature water.”

“Smart,” Sam said and offered Minerva a fist bump.

“She could hire someone,” Elia offered.

“Then she’d have to lie.”

“Oh, right.” Eliza frowned, then brightened. “Maybe we know someone who could do it.”

“They’re not listening to me,” Darby said to Finn as the discussion in the back seat continued, and he took his eyes off the road to look at her. Her doe eyes were hazy from the booze, and she swayed with the motion of the car in her painted-on jeans and basketball boobs. She licked her lips just as they drove under another streetlamp, and he nearly took out a mailbox.

He tightened his grip on the wheel and took the left turn the disembodied voice of his GPS told him to. “Why do they think you need a fake boyfriend?”

“Because my grandparents anniversary party is coming up and I am the only unmarried grandchild.”

“So?” he asked, just to keep her talking.

“So, the M7 will be activated,” she said. “And once they’re activated, I’m doomed.”

He took the next turn. “You’ve lost me.”

She waved a hand, nearly smacking herself in the nose. “It’s my aunts. They want to set me up with a nice boy so I can get married and have babies.”

She sounded so forlorn he wanted to smile. “Which part do you object to, the husband, the babies, or both?”

“I wouldn’t mind a husband,” she mused, letting her head loll against the seat. “If we were in love and he liked to go down on me and he promised to mow the yard and clean the gutters twice a year.”

“You could probably put that in the vows,” he offered and tried to force some of the blood that had flowed south when she’d said go down on me back into his brain.

“And babies are cool. I could have a baby. You know, in a few years when I’m ready.”

He sneaked another glance as he slowed down for a turn. “Then what’s your objection?”

“They have terrible taste,” she wailed. “They think any guy with a heartbeat and a sperm count will do, and frankly, I have other criteria.”

“Like what?” he asked and waited with bated breath for her answer.

“This is me,” Eliza piped up just as his GPS said Your destination is on the left, and he pulled the car to a stop with a sigh.

“Darby.” Eliza nudged the passenger seat. “You have to move so I can get out, hon.”

“Oh. Right.” She fumbled her seatbelt off, then opened the door and pressed herself against the dash. “How’s that?”

“Fine,” Eliza wheezed, squeezing herself out of the small space. She stumbled out onto the grass, turned to shut the door, then leaned in the open window. “Keep thinking of possibilities, and let’s meet for lunch tomorrow. We can compare notes and come up with a plan.”

“I don’t want to come up with a plan,” Darby complained, struggling to refasten her seatbelt.

“We’ll go to Stan’s,” Eliza said.

“Fine,” Darby grumbled. “But I’m only going for the fries.”

Eliza walked away, her hand lifted in a wave, and Darby leaned back against the seat with a weary sigh as Sam and Minerva began tossing out names again.

“I’m going to end up with a fake boyfriend,” she said forlornly.

“Cheer up,” he said and concentrated on avoiding boob contact while helping her with the seatbelt. “Maybe you’ll get lucky and your fake boyfriend will be Mr. Right.”

“Fake Mr. Right,” she mused as he clicked her belt into place. “Like imitation crab meat, only with sperm.”

He had no idea how to respond to that, so he called out, “Address number two?”, and with his GPS spitting out instructions, pulled a u-turn and headed back to town.

 

Getting Lucky is pretty much angst-free. The family relationships are healthy and the sex is all consensual. There's some religious talk and Catholic guilt, but other than that I can't think of much that would need a content warning. If you read the book and you see something you think needs one, please let me know!

Getting Lucky is a low angst, high heat, bantery romp of a romance with excellent female friendships, a classic car, a ridiculous dog and an HEA.