Page 31 of Fake Love

This woman isn’t looking at me as if she is disgusted by the fact that I decided to hide behind a drug all the while my mom was suffering. No, she’s looking at me with empathy, like she understands my struggles and will never judge me for them.

“What finally made you go to rehab?”

I know we're having a serious conversation, but I can’t help but actually let out a snort at her question.

“Would you believe me if I told you that a strip club owner that also happens to be the head of the mafia back in Chicago was the one that set me straight?”

Jen is silent for a bit, her mouth opening and closing as if she can’t find the words to say to my crazy scenario.

“That cannot be true.” She says, shaking her head not wanting to believe it.

“It’s true. I became a member of his elite club and one day I had a little too much blow while I was there, nearly overdosing, which made one of his dancers call him. I broke down in the middle of a strip club and he offered to help get me clean, so I took him up on it.”

Again, she gives me a look that tells me that she thinks I’m talking out of my ass.

After staring at me for a long minute or two with her mouth wide open, she finally speaks.

“Holy shit. You would think that would be all over social media or something.”

I give her a shrug. “One good thing about my breakdown happening where it did, is the fact that what happens in there, doesn’t make it out. Dante protects his clients.”

This information must still be making Jen’s mind explode because instead of saying anything else, she takes a piece of pizza and shoves it in her mouth.

I watch her eat the slice as if it were my job to watch her.

Never thought that I would find a woman eating a pizza so damn sexy.

Never thought that I would be about to ask a woman to be my fake girlfriend either, but here I am.

“So,” she starts as soon as she’s done chewing. Ignoring everything that I just told her. “I’m going to guess that the reason you need a social media manager is because you need to show the world, show your loyal fans that you’ve rebuilt yourself after rehab. Is that right?”

She’s right on the money.

“Right. My skipper thinks that I need to show people that I’m worth being here. To let people see that I’m not the man that I was before I went to rehab.”

“Your skipper?”

Right, a football girl. “Sorry. My team manager. You know, the captain of the ship, the skipper.”

A blank stare, all I get is a blank stare.

“What I call the team manager is not important.” I say, grabbing a slice of pizza.

If you can even call it a piece of pizza, it barely has any crust. Which makes me wonder if I can find Chicago style pizza somewhere in the city.

“How soon will I be able to start?” Jen asks, my thoughts of deep-dish pizza fading away. “That is if I even want the job.”

“I would say it whenever you wanted. The sooner the better, but I wouldn’t want to mess with your job at the coffee shop.” I have to be considerate here.

“Today was actually my last day there. So, I’m as free as a butterfly.”

“Why did you quit?”

Now she’s the one shrugging. “It was time. I couldn’t handle another Karen telling me to remake their coffee eight times.”

She gives me a smile as I’m taken back to the day that we met and she talked about the one customer that had her do just that.

“Well, I guess that means that you’re open.”

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