Three
Liam
T abitha seems a little nervous for some reason. Did I not get the food right after all? I wrote down everything Lyra said and handed it directly to Alan in the kitchen of the Tartan. Seemed easier than trying to remember that Tabitha is a heathen who likes her hamburgers medium well with mayo only.
Except it seems that detail is burned into my brain. It makes me curious what else she likes that is completely opposite of what I prefer. Everything about Tabitha interests me, but this is the first time ever I’ve been in a sanctioned role where digging in might be encouraged.
“I have to confess,” I say casually when my burger—medium rare with cheddar, pickles, ketchup, and mustard—is mostly gone. “You’re going to have to really sell me on whatever it is that you think you’re going to get out of whatever I’m doing here.”
Tabitha sets down her burger, which is not the first time she’s done that in order to speak, as if her brain can’t make words while her hands are occupied. It’s cute, even though it’s part of what clues me in that she’s out of sorts.
I hate that she isn’t automatically comfortable with me. It’s one of many reasons I’ve never thought about pursuing her the way I wish I could. Lyra is a big one, too. She’s been warning me away from Tabitha since my fifteenth birthday.
“It’s okay, I have a plan,” she says with a little more cheer. Probably because we’re moving on to the purpose of my visit, which is not the date I wish it was. “I need you to take me on a few dates.”
A bite of hamburger sticks in my throat and I cough, my eyes watering. It’s only after I take a huge swig of my water bottle that I can formulate words. Maybe she’s on to something with not talking and eating at the same time. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Practice dates,” she corrects in a hurry. “Not real ones. Here at the store. So I can work on my confidence. How to talk. How to sit. What to do with my hands.”
She flips a palm to the side, nearly knocking over her own water bottle in a giant exhibit A of her point.
“Why can’t they be real dates?” That sounds like my voice, but surely I would not be dumb enough to open that can of worms. They can’t be real dates because…reasons I struggle to remember all at once.
“Because I have to practice. Duh. If I were on a real date with you, I would be so nervous that I would forget all about my objective.”
Good . I almost growl it out loud. I don’t. That’s not what this is. I guess. “What do you need to practice?”
She brightens a bit more. I like this well enough to push down my feral need to talk her out of this ridiculous idea that ends with her running off to meet her dream guy under the mistletoe, only it’s me instead. Or it’s no one because I don’t show up, leaving her to think ShreddingPages is a jerk.
“That’s where the plan comes in.” She pulls out printed sheets and hands them to me.
Baffled at the care that went into this, I glance over the grid. “You printed out the plan?”
“It was too hard to read on my phone. There are a lot of details.”
“Uh, huh. This has days across the top. And there are five.”
Her bottom lip disappears between her teeth as she bites it. “It’s a lot. I know. We can cut it down. I know how busy you are, and getting five days of your time is—”
“Fine,” I cut in. “That is literally not the issue. I’m done with ski groups by 4:30 at the latest.”
Have to be, or we’ll be skiing in the dark this time of year.
“Well, sure, but you have a social life, right?” She laughs. I don’t.
“Assume that when I said I was in, I meant I was free.” I point to the plan. “You need five days of help?”
Brows knit, Tabitha gives me the side eye with a hint of working-something-out. “You have five free nights? In a row?”
Oh. Walked into that one. Scrambling, I grin to hide how pathetic I feel. “This week. Good thing you didn’t hit me up after Christmas.”
Tabitha nods as if this makes more sense. “Lucky timing.”
Lucky she can’t see through my big fat lie, more like. I’m between women. Ish. If a six-month dry spell counts as between-ish. I quit dating when I joined the book club, actually. “Now that we’ve established that I’m here and a willing participant who is not standing up my flavor of the month, spill this plan.”
“It’s simple.” She gets animated again. “I need help with basically everything. So each night will be dedicated to one thing. Planning the meeting. Small Talk 101. Body language coaching.”
“Hold up.” I pinch the bridge of my nose as I visualize coaching her through how a man shows that he’s into you. “These are terrible subjects.”
Tabitha sits back in her chair, her shoulders slumping, but she’s trying hard to hide it. “Maybe not to someone like you.”
Ugh . This whole plan needs to go out the window if it’s making her feel this bad about herself. “Tab, you have got to get over the idea that dating comes easy to me. You don’t see a Mrs. MacLellan around here, do you?”
“But if you wanted one, you could have ten candidates lined up,” she points out.
“Sure. So could you.” I stare at her until she rolls her eyes. “You know what I’m talking about. Your dad owns half of Kilt Valley, including the building we’re sitting in. Does that make Mr. Right magically appear? No. It makes it a million times harder to sort through the gold diggers and status seekers and people who care about power.”
Not to mention the ones who figure out that Leith MacLellan, the hugely famous movie star, is my brother. Ironic since we haven’t spoken in four years. That’s why Lyra and I are so close. Why I won’t jeopardize my relationship with her, not even for Tabitha.
She’s looking at me with a giant dose of compassion and other stuff I don’t want to examine too closely. “I had no idea, Liam.
The whole subject is making me fidget like the chair suddenly got less comfortable in the last four seconds. “It’s not a big deal. I’m fine with it. Serial dater here, remember?”
“Except you’re free this week,” she murmurs. “I wonder why that is.”
“Moving on.” I clear my throat, but the rawness doesn’t fade. Probably because I don’t ever tell people this kind of stuff, least of all Tabitha freaking Douglas. “I’ll do whatever you planned for three of the five days, but the other two are mine.”
That gets her attention. “What, like you have subjects you want to teach me?”
Oh, boy. Do I. But that is not what we are doing here. “I mean, the whole point is you’re asking me for my expertise. You’re going to have to trust me.”
She crosses her arms. “Is the activity for your two days negotiable?”
“Not even a little bit. First item of business. How to deal with rejection.”
Tabitha practically recoils as if something smacked her in the face. “Rejection. You think ShreddingPages is going to take one look at me and balk?”
“It’s a possibility.” A light in her eyes dims and it slices through me as if she’d picked up a machete to make her point. “I mean, obviously he’s not going to run away when he sees your face.”
“He might,” she insists. “I’m not supermodel material.”
The fact that she considers this a negative puts steam in my blood. “What kind of men are you hanging out with? Tab, you’re a beautiful woman. Your hair color is so unique that people dye theirs to try and match it. You’re educated and kind. Why in the world would anyone not fall at your feet?”
Since I did that exact thing just a few hours ago, she should believe me.
Eyes wide, Tabitha stares at me. “Is this you flirting with me? You never flirt with me.”
“Then you should know I’m not doing it now.” Frustrated for reasons I cannot begin to articulate, I rake a hand through my too-long hair, which is normally covered by a beanie or a ball cap, neither of which are appropriate for whatever this is. “I don’t flirt with you because flirting is what I do with women who don’t matter.”
Okay, way too much information. Reeling it all back is likely fruitless, but I can’t sit here and let her think that she has rejection in her future because there’s something wrong with her.
If anything, it’ll be because there’s something wrong with me .
It’s not lost on me that the only way I can be authentic with Tabitha is when I’m in the middle of a command performance. I wouldn’t be here telling her this stuff otherwise.
But that doesn’t mean that I have to encourage her to keep going down this path. My goal is still talking her out of this mistletoe disaster in six days.
She’s still watching me carefully. I blow out a breath. Failure is not an option here or she’s going to end up hurt. That would feel way worse than the machete to the gut a minute ago.
“Let’s get back on track. Rejection. How to handle it,” I say firmly. “What if he doesn’t even show up?”
Nodding a bunch, she stares at a spot above my head. “I thought about that. Like, what if he’s as shy as I am? This might be all for nothing.”
I nearly groan at the simplicity of that solution. Of course that’s what I need to do. Let her go through this first lesson, which is how to set up the meeting according to the plan laid out across the table. Then all I have to do is say no when she contacts me. I can even tell her that I am not good in person and that’s why I’m using an app for a book club instead of finding an in-person group.
Yeah, I’m a little slow.
“Well, looks like you did actually come up with the best plan,” I say brightly. “Send him a message and say you want to meet. Get that settled and out of the way, so we know what we’re working with. You never know, he might just decline out of the gate and then we don’t even have to go through with all of this.”
The thought is depressing. I’m actually looking forward to having an excuse to see Tabitha four more times this week. But it’s better if I let her down now.
“Oh, no,” she says, horrified. “I couldn’t possibly. What if he does say no? I can’t—I mean, this is why I asked for your help. You obviously have a much better idea of what I should be learning in these sessions than I do. What can we do tomorrow night that will make it easier to handle being steamrolled?”
Dang . Yeah, I’m super awesome at being the wingman for a woman I’ve had a crush on for over ten years. I sigh. What we need to be working on is how to get me out of this impossible situation. Since that’s not happening, the next order of business is building up her confidence because clearly no one has ever done that for her in the whole of her life.
No wonder she’s so shy. She’s been spending time with people under the expectation that they’ll be disappointed in her. And what am I doing? Reinforcing that.
“Okay, hold off on contacting him.” I roll my eyes at myself for caving so quickly, but internally where she can’t see it. “Tomorrow we’ll work on small talk. You can spend the whole time practicing on me.”
Yay. I have to ensure that goes well by doing the opposite of what I did today—being all over it. Acting like I’m into her after spending a decade pretending I’m not.
“But we didn’t talk about the meeting. How to set it up. What’s the perfect scenario.” A line appears between her brows as she frets over it.
“Trust me, Tab. You just have to show up and it will be perfect.”