Page 18 of Make it Real
Greg stood in a huff and left. Jed waited until the last glimpse of his pressed shirt had disappeared out the door before his shoulders relaxed. It seemed impossible he thought Greg might actually fight him. More importantly, I couldn’t believe he’d really been willing to do that for me.
It felt about as modern as Gran’s insistence I needed a man to take care of me, but I really,reallyliked the idea of Jed going to bat for me. I would have happily watched him sock Greg in the face. Although, after all the leg-grabbing, I think I deserved first swing.
Jed finally turned to me. The dangerous light in his eyes had been replaced by concern. Worry, even. “You okay?”
Yes. Yep. Totally not imagining you beating up my handsy date.
“I’m okay. Thanks for that.”
“You mind if I sit down?”
Please!the girliest of my girly thoughts cried out. But I remembered my dignity at the last second, and kept it to a casual, “Sure.”
He sat on the barstool next to me, his eyes doing that laser beam of curiosity thing again. Never very far from spilling my guts on a normal day, when he looked at me that way, I wanted to talk just to fill the awkward silence. So I spilled.
“He was another set-up. A friend of a friend of an elderly friend, you could say. We had dinner, and I let him convince me to come here after, and I guess he figured he could convince me to go to his apartment, too.”
Jed’s gaze turned hard again, the smile that usually brightened his face nowhere to be seen. Probably best not to go into detail about how Greg had tried to order me a double Tequila Sunrise even after I’d said I didn’t want any alcohol tonight.
“But obviously, I wouldn’t have gone anywhere with him even if you hadn’t shown up. I would have told him off at some point. Well, maybe not exactlytold him off. I’m kind of bad at confrontation, but I would have got the message across. Eventually.”
Now he looked perfectly incredulous.
“It’s not that hard. I just politely say no a few times, and after a while, they get the hint and take off.”
Jed blew out a breath. “They all treat you like that?”
“Well, this guy was probably the worst of the bunch. But yeah, they get pretty annoyed when I don’t just fall into their beds.”
That angry look came back. I liked it in my defense, but to be honest, I didn’t want to see it all that much. I preferred happy, fun-loving Jed to ready-to-bloody-a-guy Jed.
“To be fair, a couple of the dates Gran arranged didn’t put that kind of pressure on, but they weren’t exactly dreamboats either. Even the nicest of the lot made fun of my job as a teacher, so…yeah, not the best assortment of guys.”
Everything they said about how much modern dating stinks? All true. Maybe something about the anonymity of dating sites, or in this case, grandma networking. You’d think the guys would have tried harder not to be jerks when their relatives were setting them up just like mine, but so far, it hadn’t worked out that way.
Would Greg have been more of a gentleman if I’d threatened to tell his grandma on him? Doubted it.
Jed sighed, dragging a hand down his face as if this night had been a hundred and fifty hours long. “All right. I’m in.”
I froze, not wanting to jump to conclusions here. He’d just obliterated my bad date into dust, I wouldn’t presume to ask for more.
“You’re in?” My voice came out tiny and unsure.
His mouth twisted up into his usual grin. “Let’s do this fake dating thing.”
Relief and elation got their pom-poms out to cheer for this man. “You mean it?”
“If it will get your grandma and her friends off your back and keep you from dating guys like that, I do.”
I wrapped both my hands around his forearm and—wow. Delightful. Strong and muscly, powerful and warm, I’d never held an arm quite like that one. Ten out of ten, would definitely grab again.
Remembering I’d been grabbed five minutes ago and hadn’t loved it, I let him go.
“Okay, so tell me how this is supposed to work,” he said, focusing all his attention on me. “Get me up to speed.”
“Well…”
To be totally honest, I’d never thought through the logistics of fake dating. After the idea had come to me, it’d seemed like the solution to all my problems, and I’d been so excited, I’d immediately asked Jed to do it. I didn’t know what the specifics should look like. There wasn’t a Fake Dating Handbook somewhere that I knew of.
