Page 17 of Love is an Open Book
“This is very thorough.” He taps his fingertips against the page, and I notice a small nick at the junction of his thumb and hand, probably from pushing the wheelbarrow around at work, picking up the slack for the new hire he told me about who didn’t realize the job involved manual labor. “But is it really necessary? We’ve never needed any formal agreement like thisto keep our, uh—” his eyes flick back to the paper where the subheading IN THE EVENT OF FEELINGS jumps out at me “—our distance.”
Haven’t we, though? I think about that night in the bar back in college, when I asked him to vow not to let me date friends, including him. Does he ever think of breaking it?
Instead of entertaining those dangerous thoughts, I say, “That’s why I decided to scrap the idea. But I wanted you to see the potential risks before you commit.”
“I’m committed already,” he says, rubbing his clean-shaven jaw, tanned skin slightly rosy from the scrape of the razor.
“But if we go to a restaurant right now, nothing would be different, unless we take steps to make things different. More than just dressing up and ordering a bottle of wine,” I add when he starts to protest. “Getting physical would fix that, but obviously that’s out-of-bounds.”
“Obviously,” he says, holding my gaze in a way that makes my cheeks flush. If he were anyone else... Nope. I mentally shove that door closed and lean against it for good measure.
“Besides, physical chemistry alone isn’t enough to build a romance on,” I continue, rushing to get to my next point. “And it definitely isn’t enough to make two characters who’ve been friends for years throw caution to the wind and try for something deeper.”
He looks less than convinced. “So what do you have in mind?”
This is the moment I’ve been waiting for, but I feel a little queasy. “The contract was meant to illustrate all the potential loopholes of fake dating. This—” I lift up the binder “—is how we get around those.”
Eyeing the binder warily, Gavin palms the back of his neck. “This looks like work. I thought you were supposed to be having fun. Getting out of your rut.”
I bristle. “I’m not in a rut.”
“Creatively speaking,” he says. “All I’m wondering is how this—” he points to the binder, which I’ve affectionately titled The Love Notes “—is any different than your outlines and note cards?”
Pretty impossible to come up with a rebuttal when I used note cards to organize my thoughts, and the first tab of the binder is an outline. “Okay, yeah. I’m leaning into my strengths. But a date without ground rules is too ambiguous. I’m giving us parameters.”
“This is just a bunch of date ideas?” He visibly relaxes, like the idea of planning dates with me is a relief compared to whatever else I had in mind. Surprising, but then again, he doesn’t have my encyclopedia of romance knowledge to know how risky fake dates are. Good thing I’m an expert.
“Not traditional dates. Tropes. Like the marriage pact,” I say, excited to have the perfect lead-in. “Remember I said we’d circle back to that.”
He opens his mouth. Blinks.
“The concept, Gavin.”
“So to be clear,” he says, and bright spots of pink appear on his cheeks. “Getting married for non-romance reasons is or is not one of the tabs in your binder?”
“Not. And you’re the one who brought it up,” I add, defensive.
“Did I?” His eyes are twinkling now.
“I was just using it as a jumping-off point to introduce my plan.” I wave a hand. “Forget marriage of convenience. It’s not important.”
“If you say ‘marriage’ again, I’m breaking out the shot glasses Sera and Joe brought you from their trip to Greece. We’ll make it a drinking game.”
It’s a testament to our long-standing friendship that this suggestion doesn’t earn him a glare. “My point is that tropes willgive us parameters for our ‘dates’ that will allow us to do things outside of the norm without blurring the lines between our friendship and what’s pretend.”
Wordlessly, Gavin takes the binder from me and opens it on his knees. He licks his index finger and uses it to flip the page. A habit I’ve always found a little gross, but somehow, watching him do it, thoroughly absorbed in what I’ve written, it brings to mind thoughts that would definitely violate the contract, had I signed it.
His brow furrows and I glance at the page to see he’s reading the description of the secret-baby trope.
“That one is only on the list for the sake of thoroughness,” I explain. “Can’t test it, so...”
“You don’t want to hide a baby with me?”
“That’s not what it means—”
“Our relationship started with light breaking and entering,” he says. “Kidnapping would be a natural progression.”
I cross my arms. “You’re never going to let it go, are you?”
