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24
BEAU
“Any news about the DI package?” Lyndi asked, pursing her lips as she sat across from me at the coffee shop on Main Street.
“Not yet, but it’s been less than a week. I should hear something by the end of next week, according to the monitor.”
“Fingers crossed.”
Fingers and toes.
But this would be fine. I’d just do what Zac said and have a long-distance thing with her if I needed to. Whether they made me go to Hawaii as planned or if I got the DI package approved but had to serve my three years in San Diego, I knew one thing for sure: I wasn’t going to let her go.
We’d only been actually dating for five days, since her cousin’s wedding, but it felt like so much longer when combined with the weeks of fake-dating and the year I’d skirted around my feelings. I could picture our life together so clearly, I could taste it. And whether we had to do it thousands of miles apart or in the same town, I knew it would be great.
But there was one more thing we hadn’t talked about, and that was my business. And I had two out-of-town weddings coming up tomorrow and Sunday, so we needed to bite the bullet and do it.
Mr. Fake Date would come to an end if my package got accepted, but until I left, could I keep doing this? And if I went to Hawaii, would she be okay with me doing it there? I had to tell her about the debt. She needed to know the business wasn’t simply because I liked going on all these fake dates.
“So, we need to talk about tomorrow,” I said, taking a sip of my coffee to soothe my desert-dry throat.
She sucked in a breath and fidgeted with the end of her ponytail. “I’ve been trying not to think about it.”
“It makes you uncomfortable, doesn’t it?”
Biting her lip, she answered me without words.
“Lyn, I do it for the money. My dad’s bills… his treatments. It’s a lot. I can’t afford it on my salary alone, even after factoring in his crappy insurance from his time at the factory.”
She closed her eyes and looked at her lap, then when she looked up again her eyes were rimmed with red. “That makes a lot of sense. So many things make more sense.”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, so, listen,” she said, taking my hands across the table, “I understand why you need to do it. I don’t have to be comfortable with it.”
I shook my head. “You do, actually. I like being the one person you don’t have to make yourself uncomfortable around because you’re trying to do what’s expected of you.”
“Well, don’t forget about Layla. And my mom. She’s pretty understanding.”
I gave her a look to suggest that her mom might be understanding about some things, but she was also responsible for Lyndi putting herself in uncomfortable positions. Like, oh, I don’t know, fake dating me in the first place? Not that I could really complain now.
She squeezed my hands and then let go, leaning back. “Beau, come on. What do you want me to say? No, I don’t love the idea of you being Mr. Fake Date. But now that I know you have your dad’s bills to worry about, I’m not going to be the reason that’s hanging over your head.”
“You’d be a valid reason.”
“Either way, let’s not make any rash decisions about the business right now, okay? You might have to stop anyway if you get these new orders, and I know that’s going to be tough for you to let the debt keep stacking up. And if you don’t get new orders, we’ll talk about it then. Besides, don’t you know you’re not supposed to quit your job until you have a new one lined up?”
I chuckled, loving how her brain worked. “Yeah. I could come up with a different side gig idea.”
“True.”
“Though, I’m not really sure what else I have to offer other than my good looks,” I teased.
She laughed, making the weight on my chest ease off a bit. “Stop it.”
“Sorry.”
“Oh, I know,” she said, eyes bright. “What about shooting lessons? You could work weekends at a civilian shooting range, right?”
