Page 19 of Sterling Fight

Then something else aches. An unfamiliar pain in my belly. A sharp jab to my sternum. It’s nothing, I tell myself.

“And maybe . . . it’s exactly where it should be.”

“Judd,” I whimper. He can’t be serious.

“Look, I’m not proclaiming we’re actually engaged, but you did proposition me for a date.”

I stare at him, blinking although I’m not innocent. “Well, not you, directly. Just you finding me a date, in general.”

“Consider me your date in general.” He straightens and pats his chest. “For whatever you need for the next ten days.”

“Judd, I can’t ask you to do that.”

“You didn’t ask. I’m offering.”

I sense there’s something he isn’t saying. Like he’s offering because he owes me. Like he remembers standing me up when I was sixteen and thinks he can make it up to me at thirty-nine.

“Judd, you don’t want to pretend anything with me. Not dating. Not an engagement. You would not want to marry me.” I scoff.

“Why not?”

“Because I’d be shit at marriage. Look at the role model I had. My mother is on her fourth husband.”

“You aren’t your mother. And I had a shit father as well, but I still want—” Judd cuts himself off and pulls back his shoulders. He turns his head, his eyes avoiding me.

“You still want what, Judd?” Marriage? Love?

Judd exhales heavily. “I’m not opposed to dating you. Or even pretending to date you.”

“You just came out of a relationship.”

“Which was more of a falsehood than faking something with you will be.” His voice rises just a touch but there’s depth to his tone. Sincerity and honesty and something that frightens me.

Does Judd want to spend time with me?

“So, what you’re saying is that you are open to a pretendship?”

“A pretend engagement,” Judd clarifies. “We already told your mother I’m your fiancé.”

Actually, he said he was mine, but semantics.

“For ten days,” I counter, like we’re negotiating terms.

“Ten days,” he quickly agrees.

I don’t want to think about how we’ll break up or what excuse we’ll use. The simple answer is he lives here, and I live in Knoxville, four hours away. But those details, how we’ll end, feel like a discussion for another day.

“To new beginnings.” I hold out my hand to shake his. “A pretendship.”

“An engagement,” Judd clarifies, lifting his hand and taking mine with it. “And old friendships.”

For half a second, Judd’s eyes flash, like lightning in a summer storm. No more sorrowful puppy dog gaze, but heat and hope flares in those blue eyes that perfectly match a clear afternoon sky.

When our hands connect, that snap-crackle-pop turns into bing-bang-boom.

And I don’t know if it’s that metaphorical drum my dad said I marched to or the thumping of my heart.

I’m afraid to admit how much I like the sound of option two.