Page 22 of Take A Number
“Why would she be pissed at you for kissing your boyfriend?”
“’Cuz she knows you aren’t real.”
“She doesn’t know. She thinks she knows.”
Norah nods thoughtfully, and the car goes quiet for a long moment. When I glance over, I see she’s chewing on her lip and looking dejected. I fucking hate it. Norah is my friend now whether she likes it or not, and I can’t leave her high and dry. We can fix this.
I exhale heavily and decide to drop an idea that’s been stewing in my mind ever since we started dancing earlier tonight. Actually, this idea occurred to me when she first asked me to be her fake date in the alley, but I wasn’t sure it would work. With tonight’s sudden change of events, it might be our best option.
“What if we stay together in this fake relationship for a few weeks…pretending obviously…but we do it long enough for you to be my fake date to Kate’s wedding?”
I glance over to see Norah’s reaction, and she’s staring at me like I’ve spoken in tongues. “Are you being funny?”
“No,” I reply with a bitter laugh. “Hear me out. You told me you’d owe me one for helping you tonight…well, I need a date for Kate’s wedding, and you need to prove your mother wrong so she stops riding you about Douche Nozzle Nate. So…we stay together. It’s only three weeks…I can totally be your fake boyfriend for that long.”
The word is foreign and strange on my tongue because I can’t remember the last time I was someone’s boyfriend, let alone dated the same person for three weeks straight. I’ve been doing casual flings for a long damn time now. But hell, being a fake boyfriend can’t be that hard.
“How do you honestly expect us to pull this off?”
I shrug. “We tell everyone we’ve been dating in secret because of our business connection, and it’s now become serious. I’ll play the dutiful boyfriend one more time for your parents. We can do dinner or something. I’m pretty sure your dad likes me, though after I slipped you the tongue in front of him, he might like me a bit less, but I can handle him. Otherwise, if I disappear now, your mother will know she was right. But if you double down and we go to Kate’s wedding together, maybe she’ll shut up about this guy and leave you alone.”
Norah huffs out an incredulous laugh. “What about your social life? Don’t you go out every weekend? Are you going to keep sleeping with other women while we’re in this fake relationship? That would make me look really stupid.”
I roll my eyes. “I can keep it in my pants for three weeks, sugar lips.”
Norah gapes at me for a long while, and then finally says, “Why would you do this for me?”
I exhale heavily to drop her with the real truth. The selfish truth. “So earlier I told you Kate and Lynsey are trying to set me up, right? Well, it’s because they think I’m depressed or that my penis is depressed or some shit. They called it a peen-tervention…which is not a thing.” My neck cramps as my muscles begin to tense with annoyance. “It’s ridiculous and annoying, and Kate thinks I’m going to ruin her wedding if I don’t bring a nice girl—not that I’ve been dating not nice girls…they’ve just been…a little young? It’s all so fucking stupid, and it’s making me question my taste in friends, but the truth is, I don’t want Kate to worry about me on her wedding day. I don’t want her to think about me on her wedding day. I want to look like I’m having the best time ever because, despite the fact I had feelings for her and they weren’t reciprocated, I’m good. I’m over her, for real.”
“Jesus, Dean, are you nervous right now?” Norah asks, and I hear fucking laughter in her voice. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you nervous.”
“I’m not nervous. It’s just, their concern bugs me. Kate deserves to have the perfect day, and if you and I are together, I think that’s about as perfect as I can get. It’ll totally put her mind at ease.”
The car goes quiet for a while, and I briefly wonder if I sound like I’m pining for Kate. Which, I’m not. But fuck, I don’t like being pitied by my friends. And I had fun with Norah tonight, so being in a fake relationship with her for a few weeks won’t be a hardship. In fact, the thought of being tied to her for a couple of weeks doesn’t even make me feel cagey like it has when other women have brought up the relationship thing. It’s probably because I know it’s going to be a fake arrangement. Definitely.
And actually, maybe it’ll be the break I need from fooling around with random women to figure out why the fuck I have been so out of whack lately. As much as I hate to admit it, Kate and Lynsey weren’t wrong in that assessment.
Norah’s quiet voice breaks the silence. “Wouldn’t you feel weird lying to your friends?”
I shrug dismissively. “It’s not really a lie. I mean, we can even be official on social media. Just because we both know it’s going to end after Kate’s wedding doesn’t make it any less true.”
I glance over to see Norah chewing nervously on her lip. “So, does that mean more dates?”
“Not necessarily,” I reply with a shrug. “I mean, if something comes up, great. We can be there for each other. But I’m guessing our daily lives won’t be impacted from now until Kate’s wedding.”
Norah clears her throat and tugs at the hem of her dress. “I feel horrible that you’re jumping through all these hoops because I lost my temper and called you myboyfriend.”
I exhale heavily, still not quite used to the sound of that. “You’re my friend, and this is the kind of shit I do for friends. Hell, I offered to be Lynsey’s baby daddy if Dr. Dick didn’t get his head out of his ass. Faking a relationship with you for three weeks will be nothing compared to almost becoming a father.”
Norah barks out a nervous laugh, and I look over to see she’s staring straight ahead, shaking her head back and forth in disbelief. “I think I had you pegged wrong, Moser.”
“Let’s not make this a big, emotional thing. You and I can go steady for a few weeks so you can stick it to your mother. And that Nate Douche Stick guy can go find some other tree to pee on.”
“Nice,” Norah replies flatly.
I shrug. “You know what I mean. You wanted to get out of seeing him because he’s clearly the worst, right?”
“Yeah, but I mean…he wasn’t as bad as I was expecting.”
