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“And Grace needs a real job. Everyone wins!” Olivia is still beaming.
“Plus, you already know and like each other.”
“Know” and “like” are both a bit of a stretch. Especially considering Charlie looks like he’d rather chew his own (perfectly toned) arm off rather than go on a fake date with me.
Charlie sighs reluctantly. “I didn’t mean to rope you into this, Grace. Honestly. My cousin is a meddler.”
“Your cousin,” Olivia corrects with a smile, “has well-honed professional instincts and would like to be trusted based on her glowing resumé. Besides, it’s too late to find someone else for you, Charlie, all my other freelancers are booked.”
“All of them?” Charlie repeats, looking dubious.
“It’s wedding season.”
Olivia rises. “Sit, have lunch, discuss. I’m sure you’ll see I’m right about this. I’m always right,” she adds, before swanning away.
Charlie lets out another long sigh.
“I’m sorry about the mix-up,” he says, filling Olivia’s chair. He’s in a simple blue shirt with no tie, with the top button of his collar left open. I steel myself, refusing to be ruffled. “Liv blindsided me here. Ineverwould have asked you to do this.”
“Never,” I repeat, the meaning of it sinking in. “Guess I’m extremely not your type.”
“That’s not what I said.” Charlie frowns at me. “I just can’t imagine why you’d want a gig like this.”
“As your cousin so eloquently pitched it to me, what else do I have to do right now? Besides, I thought you’d be different.”
“How different?” Charlie looks put out.
I smile, glad to bring him down a notch. “Older. Charming.Debonair.”
“I can be charming.” Charlie flashes a smile that would reduce lesser women to melted goo.
I laugh in his face. “You’re forgetting, I saw you pass out dissecting a frog. Those tricks won’t work on me.”
“Right.” Charlie gives a laugh.
“I’m sure you don’t want to spend half your summer with Hayworth’s resident dumb jock.”
I laugh too, because he has to be kidding, right? A dumb jock? Try impossibly handsome and charming.
I study him, noticing how the years has chiseled his face and broadened his shoulders. It’s the strangest thing, to not see someone for years, and then he’s across from you, a grown man. Guys like Charlie are supposed to be at a corner bar in their hometown, reliving their glory days. Not taking on Manhattan, even hotter than before.
“So,” I say, lifting my coffee cup for a dainty sip. See? I can be a refined lady instead of the human cyclone he saw last time. “You really are having Olivia book you faux wedding dates?”
“Yeah, about that…” Charlie says, sheepishly scrubbing the back of his hair. “It just makes sense for the situation.”
“Which is… ?”
“In the next month, I have twelve weddings to attend. I don’t want to go solo, but I also don’t want to lead anyone on in the process.”
I raise my eyebrows. “You’re just adamant about not dating right now?”
“No, I’m dating. I love dating,” he says it casually, as if this activity has always come easy to him. Because of course it does. “But I’m not a commitment guy. So, taking a girl to a wedding tends to send the wrong message.”
“You mean, that you might like and respect her?” I shoot back, annoyed. “Gee, can’t think why you wouldn’t want to do that.”
Charlie frowns. “I just told you, I don’t want to lead anyone on. I want to keep things simple.”
I tense.Simple. That was what my ex always used to say when I asked about our future—but turns out, he was perfectly happy to keep things complicated, with somebody else.
