14. Lila
FOURTEEN
LILA
I stare at Grant. We’re apparently on two very different pages in our flirtationship right now. Not that I mind the contents of his page—I’m a big fan of having his arm around me. It’s just that my body’s in a little bit of turmoil, considering the big swing from folding in on itself after being confronted with Josh, to bubbling with fizzy excitement when Grant purred the word “princess” in my ear.
Out of the corner of my eye, I catch sight of Josh. He stands there looking increasingly disgruntled, like when he’s not recognized right away by the maitre d’ at a restaurant and it’s suggested he might have to wait for a table.
Grant looks over and notices him. “Hey, man.”
It’s only two words, but that greeting is the least friendly thing I’ve heard him say. I finally catch up to the idea this might be more than spontaneous affection. This might be Superman flying in to rescue me.
“Lila, who is this?” Josh’s question carries an undercurrent of demand, as though he has a right to know anything about me at all.
“This is Grant, my…” My what, exactly? Stargazing friend? Sn ack supplier? Man I’ve known for all of five days? He squeezes me tighter against him, and my hands automatically go around him.
Dang. He doesn’t mess around on ab day.
No, Lila. Focus.
His eyes widen a touch, like he’s trying to convey a secret message in the subtle movement. Still, I think I get it.
If I’m wrong, I’ll have to move to a whole new country this time.
“He’s my boyfriend,” I blurt out.
I guess I didn’t sell that so well because Josh’s mouth curls into a smirk. Someone else gives a very loud gasp, however. I look past Grant’s shoulders to see the worst of all possible witnesses: my mother.
Living in Sunshine has its perks, but the odds of running into someone you don’t want to see on any given day are exceptionally high.
“Lila.” She swoops over to us, eyes darting between the three key players like she’s not sure who deserves the more pointed stare. “This is unexpected.”
She could mean literally so many things in this moment. My ex-fiancé standing here looking like he’s in town for a summer wedding. Grant with his arm slung casually around me as if we do this every day. Me, disheveled and dirty like I just rolled out of the woods. Oh, wait .
“Joshua.” She gives him a polite nod, but no more than that. Go, Mom.
He appears far more relaxed. “Helena. It’s lovely to see you again.”
She turns to us. “And this is…?”
“Your mother doesn’t know your boyfriend?” Josh says. Can a person pull a muscle in their face from smirking too hard? One can only hope …
I fight the urge to wax off his eyebrows, and paste on a big smile for my mother. “Mom, this is Grant. We met on the Horizon Hikes trip. Grant, this is my mom, Helena Parrish.”
Nerves skitter through me as her eyes get comically wider. Clearly, she didn’t expect me to go into the woods for five days and come back with a significant other. I think we’re all in agreement on that one.
I feel weirdly protective of Grant as she looks him over. Given the two choices, it’s hard to say who I would expect her to appreciate more. Debonair Josh in his expensive outfit and French cologne? Or rugged Grant who looks like he can split wood with his bare hands?
I got my non-outdoorsy genes from her, so I can’t be sure his trail guide chic will win her over. I’ll just have to count on the whole cheated on me thing to keep Mom’s focus where it belongs.
“It’s good to meet you, ma’am.” He shakes her hand, and I swear she’s swooning already.
In a sea of horrible awkwardness, that’s one tiny spot of relief.
“Ooh, that accent. Where are you from, Grant?”
“Born and raised in Texas.”
“Really?” She looks excessively impressed by that, as though she’s always hoped I would snag myself a Texan. Her eyes cut to me, and some of her excitement fades. “Lila, how did you get those holes in your shirt?”
“Marmot. We should probably get going?—”
“Wait just a minute. I want to know how all of this started between you two.”
Of course she does. Hope and I don’t love romance books for nothing. It doesn’t matter that we’re tired and filthy and standing on the sidewalk on Maple Street for everyone to see. Mom’s already got dreams running through her head about the two of us, and she wants to fill in as many details as she can.
“Yes, tell us more about your new boyfriend , Lila.” Josh doesn’t use air quotes, but I hear them.
“I would, but we have to go get Grant checked into his hotel.” I pat his stomach and have to force myself not to trace the muscles beneath his shirt. I guess pawing at him isn’t only something I do when I’m asleep. Bad Lila .
“How about dinner?” Mom says. “My husband and I would love to get to know you, Grant.”
I adore her, but a family dinner invite would be totally inappropriate at this stage even if everything with him were totally real. Hope wasn’t exaggerating when she said Mom doesn’t have a middle setting when it comes to our love lives.
“Grant has dietary restrictions, so…”
“I don’t mind accommodating.” She looks so happy for us, she’d probably cater to just about anything at this point, including bending over backward for made-up food preferences. One Kosher, gluten-free, vegan, diabetic-friendly menu, coming right up.
“I’ll text you.” Next month, after Grant is safely back in Texas.
“You’re both coming to Hope’s engagement party, then?”
I think the creeping feeling moving through me is my bones shriveling up. I just gave myself a faux boyfriend right before my sister’s big celebration. Either I drag him with me and field questions about our “relationship” all night, or I fake a breakup in the next week and field questions about that all night. This has to be some previously-undiscovered low beneath rock bottom.
Lesser evil, wherefore art thou?
“Yup. Yes. We’re definitely doing that.”
Mom looks satisfied. I can’t make myself check to see how Grant’s handling it. He’s been so sweet to me, but it would take a saint to deal with this level of psychosis without a few reservations.
“But now we’ve really got to run, so…” I tug him along, but he’s so big, it’s hard to get him moving.
“I didn’t catch your last name,” Josh says.
“He didn’t drop it,” I snap. The minute he has Grant’s last name, he’ll find everything there is to know about him online. Home address, every picture he’s ever posted to social media, that outdoors article Mitchell mentioned—Josh loves a good scavenger hunt. I don’t want to subject Grant to all of that if I can help it.
Kind of hypocritical, considering I just subjected him to the whole my boyfriend declaration. I can’t get too self-righteous about wanting to protect the man, but still. Josh wouldn’t use any discretion.
Crossing my arm in front of Grant, I shift to his other side so I can steer him away from our audience. I wave goodbye to Mom, but don’t bother making eye contact with Josh.
“Good to meet you, Grant,” Mom calls.
“You too, ma’am.” His accent practically demands a cowboy hat to tip.
We march half a block away before he turns up a side street. We pass a pizza place and a yoga studio, but Grant keeps walking. His arm is still around me—I’m not quite ready to discuss what just happened and lose that warmth.
My roller bag hits an uneven patch of sidewalk and capsizes, so I stop to right it. As soon as I do, Grant takes the handle from me, his duffel bag still over one shoulder. We start walking again, but his arm doesn’t return to my waist.
I guess that’s my cue.
“I am so sorry about this. I shouldn’t have said that back there. It’s just…I have no idea why Josh is here, and I wasn’t ex pecting to see him when I’m looking like this.” I gesture at my marmot-eaten shirt and dusty leggings. I don’t even want to think about the rat’s nest that is my hair. “He can be so…”
Manipulative. Dismissive. Condescending. I’ve got a long list of descriptive words for Josh, and very few of them are good.
“And now my mother is involved in all of this.” If I thought birds were my biggest source of nightmares, today is bound to prove that wrong. “She’s going to expect us at my sister’s engagement party. Everyone’s going to know about you by the end of the day. She’s a terrible gossip. A sweetheart, but she can’t be trusted with information like that.”
Grant stops at a huge SUV parked in the lot behind Horizon Hikes. He opens the back hatch and puts his duffel and my bag inside. He’s surprisingly chill, considering.
“But don’t worry about it. I’ll just tell her…” Not the truth. That’s far too humiliating. How else could I get him out of this? “We realized we only like each other when we’re stuck in the wilderness.”
I kind of hurt my own feelings there, but it’s a real possibility. We have literally nothing in common. Back in the real world, he might not find me as interesting as he did when I was the only single woman for miles around.
He shuts the car’s hatch and leans against it. “Is that what you want to do?”
Let Mom, Josh, and anyone else she happens to tell about my “new boyfriend” believe he dumped me within a week? I’d rather bathe in murky lake water.
“No. I want to show up at my sister’s engagement party with a mountain-climbing hottie on my arm so I can have a win for a change.”
One side of his mouth tips up. I must have it on my calendar somewhere that this is the day for blurting things without thinking. There’s no other explanation .
“Then let’s do that.”
“You would really pretend to be my boyfriend?” It seems like an awfully big thing to ask of him.
He stares at me for several long seconds, like he’s having the same thought. Maybe spelling it out like that is making him reconsider. That would be the sane choice. Fake dating isn’t on most people’s lists of life goals.
Finally, he flashes a smile. “Yeah. I’ll pretend to be your boyfriend.”