“That is a hunk of metal. You can’t honestly believe it can help you make decisions.”
“It hasn’t failed me yet.” She returned her focus to the pendulum, the teardrop piece now hanging straight down and still. “Will pretending to date help Noah get the job on Wolf’s documentary?” Again, the pendulum swung front to back, faster this time. She arched an eyebrow at Noah, as if that had somehow proved her point.
“This is insane. I’m not going to lie to my entire family—and your mother. She already isn’t my biggest fan. And what about Liv? She’ll know we’re lying before we even get a chance to try. We’d have to tell her the truth.”
“Liv can’t keep a secret to save her life,” she said, frowning. “If Liv knows it’s fake, everyone will know. We’ll just have to be very convincing.”
“You’re serious about this?”
His mouth went dry. He could not do this. He could not lie to everyone. More than that, he could not spend the next week pretending to date Callie and expect to walk away unscathed. He’d spent the last six years staying as far away from her as he could manage, doing everything he could think of to purge her from his thoughts. A week of acting like her boyfriend was asking for disaster. Surely she knew that?
“The pendulum never lies.” She caught the piece of gold in the palm of her hand, murmured a thank you to the inanimate object, and tucked it back in her purse. “But if it would make you feel better, I could also read our cards.”
“That definitely would not make me feel better.”
He pulled his hand away from hers, needing some distance. He wouldn’t have any distance from her all week. Would it actually change anything if he pretended she was his girlfriend?It wasn’t like they’d really be together.
“If we do this—”
She squealed, and he shot her a severe look.
“Ifwe do this, we have to sell Liv on it first and make sure she’s okay with it. I’m not going to be responsible for causing any drama at her wedding.”
“Agreed,” Callie said, pulling her face into an almost comically serious expression.
“I cannot believe I’m considering this.” He shoved his hands into his hair, adrenaline racing through his blood.
It wouldn’t be that hard to put his arm around Callie and call her ‘baby’ every now and then.But that’s not all it would be. We’d have to kiss at some point. Probably more than once.He wasn’t opposed to the idea. In fact, he wasn’t sure he liked hownotopposed he was.
“It’s perfect, Noah. At the end of the week, my mom will be convinced, and Wolf will have no choice but to admit that you are the perfect composer for his film. And once you’ve got the job and my mom has bought her one-way ticket to Ohio, we’ll quietly break up. Tell everyone it was mutual and we decided we’re better off as friends. No one ever has to know it wasn’t real.”
Setting aside the sudden knot in his stomach at the idea of breaking up with her, he couldn’t deny there was a certain logic to Callie’s plan. It would ease the way with Wolf if he thought Noah was in a committed relationship.Holy shit, I’m seriously considering this.
“We’ll have to tell Liam and Min the truth. Liam will never believe we’ve been dating and I didn’t tell him before,” Noah hedged.
“Then we tell them. But no one else. The more people that know, the more likely it is we’ll get found out. We can do this, Noah.”
He scrubbed his hand over his face, shaking his head. He had to be out of his mind to think this could work.
Callie flopped back in the booth, fiddling with the straw of her milkshake and avoiding his eyes, that mischievous grin still firmly in place. “Unless of course you don’t think you’re up to the challenge.”
“I know what you’re doing.”
“Is it working?” She looked up at him through her eyelashes.
Yes.Fuck.
“No cutesy nicknames,” he said, using his best professor voice. “I am not calling you pookey or lambkins—”
“Lambkins?” she asked, barely holding back her laughter.
“Or whatever the fuck awful pet names you’re thinking about.”
“I understand, sugar bear,” she said with an exaggerated pout.
“And we keep it simple. No over the top stories about how we got together or crazy dates we’ve been on. That’s just even more lies we’d have to keep track of.”
“Got it. Nothing fun.”
