AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She laughs and sits back in her seat as she meets my eyes. “Do you really think you can pull this off? I mean, you have to pretend to be into me for a solid month. We get a test run at Thanksgiving, but that’s only one day and night. We can meet in between to make sure we have our story ironed out, but once we get on that cruise ship, we’ll be stuck with each other for a whole ten days. There won’t be any hiding. Although, if you get tired of me, I suppose we can feign a fight or something…”
“I won’t have an issue pretending to want you, Delaney. I assure you.”
“OK.” She worries her lips together as she sucks a deep breath in through her nose, seeming to completely miss the compliment I just paid her.Did I mention she’s adorable?“Then I guess…I guess you’re hired.”
“I won’t let you down,” I say, holding my hand out to shake hers across the table. The moment she places her delicate paw inside the meaty hand that is mine, a brand-new blush creeps over her cheeks. “That’s something you’ll have to work on.”
“What is?” she asks.
“Blushing every time I touch you.”
She licks her lips. “How do I do that?”
“Well, you expect that I’m always going to touch you. And I will, Delaney, a lot. Liam is a hands-on kind of guy.” I lean in and give her a wink before pressing a soft kiss to the top of her hand. I swear her face catches fire.I think this job is going to be the best one I’ve ever had.
DELANEY
“Tell me this isn’t dumb. Tell me I’m nervous for nothing. Or better yet, tell me to cancel the whole thing,” I say into my cell as I roll a straightening iron through my hair to create the perfect beach waves. Liz is on the other end of the line offering me moral support while I quietly—scratch that, Ivery noisilyfreak out.Why did I think I could go through with this?
“Del, you’re going to be fine,” Liz assures me, laughing at the way I’m huffing and puffing and finding a thousand reasons why I can’t even go to Thanksgiving dinner anymore. I’ve contemplated calling to tell my mother I have food poisoning, that there was an emergency at work, that I was kidnapped and being held for ransom untilafterthe holidays—I even entertained the idea of saying I have a case of the bubonic plague. All options seeming better than going through with this ridiculous farce.
I know I should just call it off and come clean, but that would truly be worse than all my pretend excuses put together. Not only will my entire family be disappointed in me, but they’ll feel sad and sorry for me too. I’m the girl who can’t get a boyfriend. I’m the girl who needs my family to set her up. I’m the girl who had topaya boy topretendto like her… See where I’m going with this?
“I just hate lying. I mean, I know everyone lies a little to their parents to keep them off their backs. But this one is a doozy.”
“It’s for a good cause though. Your Aunty Joan will be so happy seeing you coupled up, and you won’t be forced to sit next to another glasses-wearing stranger that makes your skin crawl. Nate is the kind of man your family should have been setting you up with all along. He’s gorgeous to look at, and besides the good looks, he really is a great guy—even when heisn’tplaying a part. He’ll look after you, I promise.”
Switching the phone to speaker, I let out a sigh as I place it on the bathroom counter before I move to the other side of my hair. “He makes me nervous,” I admit.
“Nate?” Liz laughs. “He’s like, a giant teddy bear squish ball, Del. There’s nothing to be nervous about. Did I tell you he took me to an awards dinner once? It was back when I was cheerleading, and there was this big—”
“Wait. You were acheerleader?” I ask, feeling blindsided since Inevertook Liz as the cheerleading type. We met in college and she was always kinda…optimistic emo—if that could ever be a thing. She loved nineties grunge rock and oversized sweaters and smoky eyeliner and nude lips. I couldn’t imagine her being all glittery and…peppy.
“I haven’t told you? Gosh. It was all I cared about in high school, but then I broke my ankle at the start of senior year and never went back to it. Blessing in disguise, really, because like I was telling you, there was this awards nightno onetold me about. So, I didn’t have a date, and I was faced with either going stag and looking like a loser, or finding a date at the last minute. Mom suggested I go with my brother or my cousin, but that would just be social suicide, and since Nate was over at the time, he said he’d do it. Perfect gentleman the whole time, really easy-going. You seriously couldn’t ask for a better fake boyfriend.”
“So, this is something he’s done a lot then? Rescue desperate women from the judgmental stares of others?”
“I guess you could say that,” she says with a laugh. “It’s not an advertised service though.”
“Is working as an escort something peoplecanadvertise?”
“I don’t know that he’d label himself as an escort,” she says. “He’s more like a knight in shining armor, I guess. So don’t go thinking he sells his body to the night.” She says the last part like she’s a vampire on Sesame Street, and I can’t help but laugh.
“OK. Note to self: don’t treat Nate like a hooker—”
“Except ifhecomes ontoyou. Paid or not, if that man tried to take me to bed, I’d throw down like a five-dollar hooker on Taco Tuesday.”
“That’s five tacos for one blowjob! har har har!”I say, mimicking The Count before Liz and I both fall into fits of giggles.
“He could charge me a dollar per thrust and I’d happily pay up,” she says between snorts.
“One thrust! Two thrusts! Three and four! Five thrusts, six thrusts! Ten thrusts more!”I continue counting and rhyming while I finish with my hair and switch off the flat iron. Liz is in a fit of giggles in my ear, so of course I keep going, getting dirtier and dirtier as I move through my apartment, collecting my things before I head out to pick Nate up and drive out to my parents’. “Oh! Yes! That’s great thrusting! Har har har!”Just as I finish my final Count von Count cackle, I pull my door open and find myself face to face with the delicious Nate himself. His hand is raised as if ready to knock, and he has a highly amused smirk on his face. “Liz, I have to go.” I hang up before she can even respond then look up to Nate’s mirthful blue eyes. “Don’t you just love Sesame Street?” I give him my best impression of Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman.
His grin grows wider, but he doesn’t miss a beat. “More than life itself,” he says, stepping to the side so I can lock up.
“I thoughtIwas coming to collectyou?” I say, gathering my wits as I try to balance a pumpkin pie and my overnight bag while I lock the deadbolt. Nate takes the pie and bag from me. “Thank you.”
“No problem,” he says, sneaking a look under the bakery box’s lid. “And I figure Liam is the kind of boyfriend who would drive his girlfriend all the way to Oakwood Falls. So, I’m here to pickyouup. You look gorgeous, by the way.” His eyes travel from my carefully made-up face and hair to my heeled feet. My heart hammers in my ears.
