I paused. Was it okay?
Pippa: I’ve never had an audience before. I don’t know.
Andrew:Think about it. No pressure.
Andrew:Sleep tight.
I rolled my eyes. That was one of my least favorite sayings. Tight? How? How does one sleep tight? Are your eyes tightly shut? Is the blanket tight around you because you’re tucked in? Synonyms fortightincludecompact, cramped, rigidandnarrow. I had no idea what those had to do with having a good sleep. But I went with it.
Pippa:You too.
CHAPTER18
I walked into the comic shop with Andrew right behind me. For some reason I felt abnormally apprehensive about bringing him into my world. I liked things compartmentalized. Work, recreation, family, and the drawing of perfect lines between all those things. But Andrew had been crossing those lines, rapidly, like at the aquarium. His presence was starting to blur all the lines in my life together; nothing felt as simple and separate any more. We walked through the shop to the lines of chairs and tables at the back where all the Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh and Magic games and tournaments were played. As I walked in, everyone looked up and greeted me.
‘Hi, guys.’ I turned to Andrew. ‘This is my fake boyfriend that I was telling you all about – Andrew.’
Heads nodded in acknowledgement.
‘He wanted to watch the tournament.’
Sheila honed in on Andrew immediately. Since telling them all about my arrangement during one of our previous games, she’d had so many questions.
‘Do you rent your services out?’ Sheila blasted forth, with little effort at subtlety. She, like me, struggled with things like that.
Andrew blinked at her, looking off-kilter at the sudden outburst.
‘I might also need a fake boyfriend for a family function. They ask me constantly why I don’t have a boyfriend yet, blah, blah, blah, et cetera. They never bloody stop!’
‘Um . . .’ Andrew looked stumped.
‘Do you think you can pretend you’re also into game design? They know I would never be in a relationship with anyone who wasn’t equally obsessed with it.’
‘I . . . I don’t know anything about game design,’ he muttered, still wide-eyed.
‘Andrew doesn’t rent his services out,’ I said. ‘He’s an airline pilot, not a professional fake boyfriend.’
‘If he was a professional fake boyfriend, he’d be an escort,’ Sheila said, and then giggled.
Everyone at the table laughed at this, including Andrew, who seemed to have relaxed a little now.
‘Well, I’m definitely not an escort,’ he said.
‘You should be,’ Sheila said. ‘You’d probably make a lot of money. You’re very good-looking.’
‘Very good-looking,’ Orion echoed, and a few other heads nodded in agreement.
‘Thank you, I’m very flattered,’ he said.
‘You have good hair,’ Zane said, eyeing Andrew’s full head with intensity, or maybe it was jealousy. ‘Do you use any treatments?’
Andrew ran a hand through his hair. ‘Can’t say I do.’
Zane’s shoulders slumped in disappointment.
‘Mind you, if I brought an airline pilot home who was this good-looking, maybe my parents would leave me alone for five minutes about getting a boyfriend. You sure you don’t rent your services out? I would pay well,’ Sheila asked again.
‘She’s got lots of money,’ Orion added.
