Page 17 of Bad at Love
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“Why are you staring at me?”
“I’m thinking.”
A few moments go past and then I straighten up, getting it together. This is Laz we’re talking about. Who cares if I just said he’d be the perfect boyfriend? He knows we’re just friends. He knows I didn’t mean anything by it.
“The thing is,” he begins to say, choosing his words carefully, “you know I would be a horrible boyfriend.”
“I was just joking.”
“I know. But honestly, I would be. We’re great together because we’re friends and nothing more.”
Shit. As much as I know that’s true and it shouldn’t be any other way, for some reason that really stings. I grimace, trying to hide it from him.
“I mean, I can’t seem to keep a girl around for longer than five months. All my relationships crash and burn and I’m the one at fault. I’m the one breaking up with them. So, we both kind of suck at this whole dating and love thing.”
“That’s for sure.” I don’t know where he’s going with this but it’s enough that my heart is starting to race. I start playing with my hair in order to calm down. Who needs a fidget spinner when you have a plethora of split ends?
“Maybe there’s something we could do to…help each other.”
I look at him sharply. “Help each other? Like be each other’s wingman, wingwoman…wingperson?”
He considers that with a tilt of his head, the sun catching the ebony strands of his thick hair and making them gleam. “Yeah. That could be part of it. Maybe at the end of it all.”
“At the end of what?”
He shrugs with one shoulder, wrist draped casually over the top of the steering wheel. He glances at me over his aviator shades. “Maybe we could date each other.”
I swallow hard.
Whoa.
Whoa.
I wasnotexpecting that.
“Are you high? Did you smoke up with Scooby before you left the house?”
“No,” he says plainly. “I didn’t. I’m serious.”
“You just said that you would be a horrible boyfriend.”
“That’s true. But I don’t want to be. And I don’t mean that we would actually date each other. We would just pretend to date each other.”
I shake my head, trying to find the words to convey my confusion. “But…what? That makes no sense.”
“It does, trust me.”
“I ain’t trusting nothing from you right now. You’re crazy.”
He exhales. “Let’s get a burger in you and I’ll explain. You have low-blood sugar and are borderline hangry, so nothing will make sense until you eat.”
My stomach growls at the thought and I narrow my eyes at him. Sometimes I hate how well he knows me.
It’s not long before we’re sitting at the bar at the busy Umami Burger restaurant and I’m shoving their namesake dish down my throat when Laz starts at it again.
“Feeling better?” he asks, stealing a French fry and dipping it in wasabi aioli.
