“So, you like my usual looks?” I press.
“Yes, I—” She holds a hand up. “Wait a second. Now this feels like entrapment. I admit to nothing.”
“We’ll circle back to that later,” I promise her, because she looks all cute and flustered when I tease her. “I want to continue to pay you to be my fiancée.”
“Well, if it’s good, honest work like that, then by all means…”
At the moment, I wish she weren’t so quick-witted. It’s hard to argue your point with someone three steps ahead of you.
“I want my grandfather to get better. I happen to like him. And for some reason—although I’m beginning to question why—he loves you. You put him in good spirits. I’d like to hire you to be my fiancée until his health isstable. It would mean coming to the house with me regularly. Probably a family dinner or two. But hopefully, he’ll be back to himself within a couple of weeks.”
She slips out of her tan jacket and hangs it on the hook by the door.
She doesn’t seem to be jumping at the opportunity.
“Why don’t I just visit your grandfather? We wouldn’t have to pretend anything.”
I debate whether I should tell her what Grandpa said about her when she was gone. The part where he told me that she felt like a missing puzzle piece and that she fit just right with me…Yeah, that would probably scare her away. Especially since I feel the same way.
But I need something to sway her. “You’ve given him peace, as he knows you’re not after me for money.”
“Aha! He must have noticed my shoes. The only nice thing I splurge on.” She thins her lips. “Nash, as much as I like you, I have to tell you that lying is a horrible habit.”
I lean forward the best I can on the beanbag couch. Desperate times call for desperate explanations. “Let me tell you a story.” I pat the space next to me, and she sits down.
Morbid curiosity probably.
If I were her, I would have kicked me out already.
“Is there a dragon in this story?”
“Yes.”
“Then, by all means, continue.”
“I got engaged way too fast to someone who cared more about money than me. The end.” I hold my hands out to the side in a ta-da motion.
Magnolia looks at me blankly for a moment, then licks her lips. “That was, without a doubt, the worst story I’ve ever heard.”
“Was it my brilliant storytelling or the sad content?”
“I would not call your story brilliant. I would call it the Post-it note version. Actually, it’s like one of those highlighter tabs. Not even big enough to have any depth.”
I shrug. “It felt pretty thorough to me. My grandpa wanted me to test my fiancée by telling her I wouldn’t inherit anything. I thought he was being ridiculous. But he finally convinced me to do it—and for once, my mom even agreed with him. She ended things two weeks later, and I didn’t tell Grandpa at first because I was embarrassed. And then I didn’t tell him because his health was failing. So, he still believes I have a fiancée.”
“Wow, that was better,” she says as I finish my explanation. “There really was a dragon in that story.”
“I know he seems like it at first, but?—”
“I was talking about your fiancée. Wait, you want me to pretend to be her? No way!”
“No! We can work around that. You can still be Magnolia. Honestly, I never told him much about my fiancée. I think, deep down, I knew we weren’t right. Anyway, he likes the name Magnolia far better than he ever liked Jane.”
“Good. Because I could never be a Jane.”
“I agree. You’d look terrible as a Jane.”
She smacks my arm. “But seriously, I’m surprised he didn’t make a big deal out of the name change. I didn’t even think of that being an issue when I agreed to be your fake fiancée.”
