AllFreeNovel
Share Us
And oh, now the jacket was coming off.
“Well, we are getting into it. Because I’m not having you think I was turned into an old man who can’t kiss by the sight of your annoyingly nice mug. And especially not when the actual reason was just me seeing you gawping at me like you were about to have your face eaten off by an inexplicably bearded shark.”
“Okay, first of all, never talk about sharks with beards again.”
“I know, as soon as I said it I wished I hadn’t.” He rubbed a hand over his face wearily. “I’m gonna have some nightmares tonight, I tell you what.Jawscompletely fucked me up as a kid. I had to pretend I was bored by that Statham movie not long ago, because I was shitting bloody bricks.”
“I don’t blame you. One time I couldn’t stop bingeing stuff on the Discovery Channel that said the gigantic prehistoric ones are still alive in big ocean holes, and now I can never go on a boat. If part of fake dating is going to be doing stuff on a yacht we are boned. You’ll have to tranquillize me just to get me onboard, and then all the headlines will beAngry Man Has to Sedate Terrified Weirdo Before She Will Allow His Face to Come Anywhere Near Her.”
He shot her some angry eyebrows.
Though she could see there was laughter in his eyes.
And she knew why, too—because he had her. He had her. “So you do actually believe me, then,” he said. “About your terror throwing me off.”
“Well, you know. It sounds somewhat plausible, I suppose.”
“You cheeky mare. It’s not just fucking plausible, it’s the truth.”
“Fine, it’s the truth. But honestly I don’t know why it was that way. You understand my brain is okay with it, no matter what daft thing my face is doing. So just, you know, get in there. Do what you would usually do.”
He sighed and shook his head. “It’s not that easy, Mabel love.”
“Explain why it isn’t.”
“Because it’s not something you want. You’ve made that clear. And all I could think when I went to do it wasNo no she hates your big hairy demonic face stop now you disgusting pervert or else I’ll call the fucking police.”
What the fuck, she thought. And answered accordingly.
“I don’t think your face is big and demonic and hairy.”
“Yeah, but you do, though. You said so. I know you did.”
“What? When? I bloody never. Someone’s having you on. It’s bullshit.”
“Well, it didn’t look like bullshit when EatingButthole234356 showed me.”
He started riffling through his fax papers on his last word. He needn’t have bothered, however. She knew what was coming. She saw it behind his eyes, the second he mentioned a name that ridiculous. He was talking about Twitter, something on Twitter—and sure enough, there it was. Her replying to Connie after Connie had suggested that Alfie Harding was actually really hot.
And apparently, she had not agreed.
Which was good on theconvincing him she wasn’t gaga for his facefront.
But bad on thehurting his feelingsfront. And the latter won out. Of course it did. She couldn’t let that stand. “Alfie, that was four years ago,” she said, even though she knew it was going to make things worse for her. And it did.
“I know. But you must have meant it.”
“Even if I did, it’s not necessarily a bad thing.”
“Of course it is. You make me sound like the fucking Beast of Bodmin.”
“Yeah, but men who look like the Beast of Bodmin are—”
Don’t finish that sentence, she warned herself.
Because there was reassuring him.
And then there was reassuring him so much that she collapsed her whole house of cards. So she took a second and went with something other than just telling him she found him attractive: “—appealing to most women. And you know it. So stop talking daft,” she said, and it solved one problem. But apparently not the other.
