“Yeah.” She licked her lips and stared at the floor, clearly thinking something through. After several moments, she added, “Or...”
“Or what?” He really had no idea what she was going to suggest, but anything was better than his own ideas to deal with this situation.
“We could just let people think we were dating.”
“What? Why?” His heartbeat accelerated. He shouldn’t be so excited by her words, but he was. “Why would we do that?”
“Well, evidently everyone already thinks we are. It’s not going to hurt to let them keep thinking it for a while. That way you’d get a break from all the fixing up and you wouldn’t have to disappoint your mom and grandma.”
“But you’ll have to pretend you’re dating me. What the hell do you get out of it?”
She gave a little shrug. “Why do I need to get something out of it? Why can’t I just do something easy to help you out?”
He was almost breathless with a nameless feeling he couldn’t quite identify. “You think it will be easy?”
“Why wouldn’t it be? We don’t actually have to date. Not much anyway. We can go to a couple of things together and pretend we’re hanging out a lot privately. No one has to know the details. It’s not a big deal.”
“But why—?”
“I feel bad for you,” she burst out, looking like the admission embarrassed her. “I just feel bad. After hearing your talk with your grandma last night, I can see you’re in a sticky situation, and I can help. You’re a nice guy. Why shouldn’t I help you?”
He let out a breath, some of his excitement settling into resignation as he finally understood. “So you feel sorry for me?”
“Not in a bad way. Just...” She shrugged again. “So what do you say?”
“Okay. If you really don’t mind, it would definitely help me. But as soon as it gets awkward or difficult for you, we’re going to call it quits.”
“Got it. I’m all for avoiding awkwardness and difficulty, so I’ll definitely let you know. I can’t believe everyone just believes the gossip. Who would have believed you and I would work together?”
“I don’t know. It’s not like we’re a predictable couple.”
“We’d be a terrible couple,” she said with a little laugh. She looked relaxed. Comfortable. Like she didn’t think this whole situation was weird and unnatural. “But maybe that will work in our favor. They’ll all be taking bets on how soon our relationship will combust, and we can prove them right by only dating for a little while.”
“That would probably be for the best.”
He said the words because they seemed appropriate, but he knew full well he didn’t believe them.
five
TAYLOR WAS TRYING TO focus on a word game on her phone, something that had always been easy for her. Normally, she liked to blur out the world around her and set her mind on something clear and solvable like forming letters into words.
Today, however, it was difficult.
She and Charles had been fake dating for less than a week. It was Friday evening, and instead of being safe and cozy in her own house with Toby and a cup of tea and a book, she was here in Azalea at a coffee shop, pretending to be Charles Kensington’s girlfriend.
He’d come up to Richmond on Wednesday to go to dinner, and she was spending the weekend in Azalea so they wouldn’t have to keep driving back and forth.
It wasn’t really a problem. Charles was renting a big house, so she had her own room and bathroom. She didn’t mind the quiet, little town, and Ariana was around to hang out with. But it wasn’t her own home. Her own space. Her own stuff. She couldn’t get genuinely comfortable.
And she didn’t like to still be out in the world at nine thirty on a Friday evening.
Charles was sitting beside her on the love seat they were sharing, sipping coffee and looking around. He’d scanned his phone for a while, but then he’d put it up.
Taylor was acutely conscious of his body beside her, warm and firm and real and breathing. He wore khakis and a dark blue dress shirt. He’d rolled up the sleeves halfway through dinner, so she could see his forearms when her eyes slanted over. The shifting tendons. The dark arm hair. The expensive watch he always wore.
Sucking in a sharp breath, she returned her gaze to her own phone and struggled to spell out another word.
“We’re supposed to be on a date,” Charles murmured in a low, husky voice that made her shiver.
Predictably, the emotional discomfort made her scowl. “We are on a date.”
“Well, it’s not much of a date with you more interested in that stupid game than you are in me.” His voice was mild, not angry or whiney. But his meaning was clear.
She lowered her phone and gave him another glower. “It’s not a stupid game.”
“Okay.”
“What am I supposed to do, sitting here in a coffee shop like a doofus?”
He chuckled in that way he had—the one where he only smiled with his eyes. “I believe the purpose is for us to talk.”
“Right. Talk. No one else here is really talking.” She nodded to her right. “That guy there is pretending to write the great American novel—or else a blockbuster screenplay. That girl at the next table is doing homework. That older couple clearly just are resting their feet. And the folks over there are on a first date, so they’re putting on the facade of chatting and having a great time when it looks to me that both of them want it to be over.”
“There’s no way you can know that.” He was frowning as he peered at the final table she’d indicated. “They’re both smiling. They seem to be having a good time.”
“They’re not.”
“You’re projecting your antisocial tendencies onto them. It looks like they don’t know each other well, but they’re doing okay.”
She shook her head. “He’s trying, but he knows he’s flailing. She’s bored and ready for the night to be over. I know the feeling.”
Charles’s eyes narrowed. “Thanks a lot.”
“Don’t get all huffy. I didn’t mean you.” Taylor was surprised by his reaction and even more surprised by the flare of concern that shot through her. She shouldn’t care that much that she’d hurt his feelings a little. “I was talking about past experience, back when I still thought I should do what everyone else does and go out on dates when I was asked. I had so many miserable nights, playing a part, trying to be a person I’m just not.”
“Why aren’t you a person who goes on dates?”
“I don’t know. I just never enjoyed them.”
“What was wrong with them?”
She shrugged, suddenly feeling self-conscious and then annoyed that she was feeling that way. “They were boring. Or annoying. Or stilted and awkward. Or just a waste of time.”
“I think the point is to get to know someone.”
“I know that’s the point, but it never happened. I can’t remember a single real date where I ended it knowing the person better than I started. It’s just a lot of jumping through hoops.”