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Oh, God. I already know this isn’t going to be good, but when he stares at me like this, like I’m the air he needs to breathe and the only thing capable of making his heart beat, he could ask me to pole dance naked around a streetlight in the middle of Boston Common and I’d consider it.
“If you feed me, I will come.”
He groans, shaking his head. “Such a fucking temptress,” he mutters under his breath. “Come with me.” He pulls back, gives me a naughty wink, and then leads me away from the hospital toward his car. He orders the sushi on our way and within half an hour, I’m sitting on a stool in his kitchen watching him remove everything from the brown paper bag with the same focus he exudes during a trauma.
“Can you just tell me because the suspense is raising my blood pressure and heart rate to scary levels.”
His hands freeze on the container of sushi and then he spits out in a rush of jumbled words, “I need you to move in with me and be my fake fiancée so I can win guardianship of Katy.”
I blink. And I stare. And I try to make sense of what I think he just said, but I know that’s impossible because—
I laugh. Kind of hard and it’s weird and out of place and not actually based in humor. I’m laughing because I think Callan Barrows just asked me to move in with him and be his fake fiancée and that’s a similar proposal Oliver made to my sister once upon a time.
So this just feels… I don’t know. Comical? Ironic?
It’s not though, and I appreciate that, so I force myself to shut up and ask, “Did I hear that correctly? You want me tomove inwith you and be yourfake fiancée?”
He licks his lips, gripping the edge of the counter and pressing his weight into his hands as he leans in my direction, his gaze unwavering. “Yes.”
I blow out a breath. Then another because I think I’m actually hyperventilating a bit. I pick up the now empty brown paper bag, wrap my hand around the top of it and start breathing into it. The room goes fuzzy, and then suddenly I’m on the floor blinking up at him.
“Did I just pass out?” Now that would be fucked up.
“No,” he says, hovering over me, two fingers on my wrist, his eyes on his watch as he checks my pulse. “I moved you to the floor because your eyes were starting to roll, and I didn’t want you to fall and hit your head. Your pulse is racing.”
“Gee, I wonder why,” I deadpan. “I’m fine.” I’m actually not fine, but I don’t want to be on the floor anymore. I move to get up and he helps me until I’m reseated on the stool. “Well, that happened and was definitely awkward, but not as awkward as what you just said to me. Explain why you need this.”
He tells me all about what happened with Katy at camp this week and how he has to go to court on Monday and not only convince a judge he should be responsible for her finances, but also that she needs to stay with him and not be forced to move states and live with people she hardly knows. Now that social services got involved when she ditched camp to come and look for me, he’s afraid he might lose her because the biggest strike against him is his lack of home life stability for her.
“And you think this is something I can fix?”
He sighs and then boosts himself up until he’s sitting on his counter. He pops the plastic top on one of the to-go containers, picks up a piece of gyoza, and pops it in his mouth. I do the same because I’m not sure what else to do right now and eating always helps.
Plus, who am I kidding? I’m a total whore for gyoza.
He swallows, wipes his mouth with his napkin, and then says, “I don’t know if you canfixit. I do, however, believe you can help. Especially with Katy. You reach her in ways I can’t. You seem to speak each other’s language and it’s not one I’ll ever be able to speak. So, from simply a Katy angle, I’m hoping you’ll consider, at the very least, spending more time with her.”
“And the other side of this?”
“The other side is I know having a live-in fiancée that Katy is in love with will show a more stable home life, both for me and for her.” He has the grace to wince, and then stares silently at me, watching me like I’m a cornered animal as he waits for me to react in some way.
Only I’m not sure how to react just yet, so I go about digging into one of the sushi containers. I grab a piece of spicy tuna roll with my hands because I’m too lazy to use the chopsticks, and then swirl it through the soy sauce and wasabi before shoving the entire piece in my mouth.
“Why me?” I garble around my mouthful. I hate the thought that I’m having with that, but it’s there. I’m a Fritz.
“You’re the obvious choice. Katy skipped out on camp just to see you,” he says simply. “I could entertain someone else if I was desperate enough and felt Ineededa fiancée or wife to make it so they don’t take her. I don’t know if that’s the case. I just know Katy needs you, and with that opportunity, I need you as well.” He grins, making his dimple pop as he glances down at the counter for a moment only to look back up at me through his lashes. “Both you and your current situation make you the perfect woman for this.”
“How do you mean my current situation?”
He rips the paper on a set of chopsticks, splits the wood, and then hands me the sticks so I can use those instead of my fingers.
“You’re living with your sister and brother-in-law, which I know you’re not entirely thrilled about. You’re young, beautiful, single, and we have a chemistry that will appear authentic to anyone who might challenge us.”
“You’re asking me to lie in a court of law that I’m engaged to you?”
“I’ll be the one who lies, and if you’re wearing my ring and living with me and agreeing to be engaged to me—even if temporarily—then it’s not exactly a lie, is it? We’ll be engaged. People enter into arrangements like these for various reasons all the time.”
He has a point in that.
