Page 20 of My Fearless Fake Fling

“Get your stuff,” Len repeated.

I jolted into action, packing up my supplies from my station and gathering my purse and favorite sweater from the back.

Dion hugged me before I left, a hug like he wouldn’t be seeing me again. It moved me in a way that made me hug him back.

“Enjoy this,” he said, then let me go.

I wasn’t sure what he meant by that. Though he worked under the false assumption that Len actually wanted me and not that when he eventually showed his real colors with some gorgeous supermodel, I lose my marbles and end up getting fired by Meredith because she’d known Len much longer.

“Thanks,” I said, instead of correcting him. What good would it do?

Len lifted the box from my hands to carry out to his truck.

“I had an idea,” he said, stopping to open my door.

“Okay?”

“You up for it?”

“I guess,” I found myself answering, and surprisingly, I was.

He placed my box on the floor of the backseat and drove out headed east.

Nothing existed out this way. Well, only that ‘wilderness experience’ park. Butno, he wouldn’t take me to a wilderness experience.

Except he would.

The proof of that statement slapped me in the face when he turned down the long, could-be-used-as-the-setting-for-a-horror-flick drive. The long,long, seeminglynever-endingcould-be-used-as-the-setting-for-a-horror-flick drive. “Your idea wasn’t to take me out here to kill me so you could dispose of my body, was it?”

“How’d you guess? Now my nefarious plan isruined.” He made his voice high and whiny, like a pouting little girl.

The truck hit a crater, which jerked my head and sent it cracking hard against the window glass. “Ouch,” I cried out, rubbing the side of my face where I’d hit it.

And the jerkface laughed at my pain, even as he tried to pretend he wasn’t by faking his concern. “Oh, baby…” He laughed. “You alright?”

“No,” I shouted, then punched him in the arm, which only made him laugh harder.

Though his laughing had the added effect of making me laugh. Because whether I want to admit it or not, if the situation were flipped and Len had hit his head, I’d be doing the exact same thing.

“Let me see.” He took hold of my chin to turn my face, checking it over where I’d hit it. “No bruise. Just red.”

He bent in to kiss the red spot. Then he went back to driving, fiddling with the radio station to get a good song. Or whathethought of as a good song because in my opinion, he’d passed several.

Then the first lyrics of Bon Jovi’s iconic son “Living on a Prayer” flowed through the speakers.

“Kami likes her drinks on the rocks…With taxes and tip, she’s down to one buck it’s true, so true…” Len took over for the singer.

“I don’t think those are the lyrics,” I corrected him. “But you be you, Len.”

“What can I say? I like to make up my own.”

“Well, those were interesting.”

“No—Kam, let’s play truth or dare.” Len cut himself off to sing a ridiculous chorus that did not go to the song.

And aw, heck, I couldn’t stop myself. “No Len, I’d rather wash my hair,” I joined in.

Fist pumps and devil horns in the air, Len and I banged our heads to the beat of the music until he hit the parking lot at the end of the drive and turned into a spot, throwing the truck into park.

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