14. Clarence #2
And the fit is the problem. Her hand is small and warm and it slots into mine like the two of them got measured for each other, and my chest pulls tight and stupid over a thing that is supposed to mean nothing.
She’s doing logistics. She’s checking a box on her four-in-the-morning list. I’m standing here with my whole pulse in the three inches of skin where our palms meet, talking myself down.
It’s a drill. It’s not real. Knock it off.
“See? That’s natural. That doesn’t look forced. We can do that.”
“Yeah. Real natural.” My voice comes out way lower than I meant it to.
She grins, gives my hand a little squeeze. “Wow. Try to contain your enthusiasm, you’re going to give us away. People are going to think I dragged you into this.”
“You did drag me into this.”
“Details, details.” She turns my hand over in hers, studying it like she’s grading it. “Okay, you’ve got good hands for this, at least, big and warm and very convincing as far as fake-fiancé hands go.”
“I’ll add it to the resume.” I keep my voice flat, even though my pulse is doing embarrassing things right where her thumb is resting.
“And at the event, when we’re talking to people, you put your hand on my back. Not low, not grabby, just here.” She takes my free hand and puts it on the small of her back. “Right there. That says we’re together without making it weird.”
Her shirt has ridden up where her arm lifted. My thumb is on bare skin. Warm and soft and right against her spine.
Neither of us moves.
I should say a normal thing. I should make it a joke, the way I make everything a joke when I need a wall between me and a thing I want too much.
Instead I just stand there mapping the half inch of her I’m allowed to touch and wishing the rest of it were mine to touch too, which is exactly the thought I am not supposed to be having in my own kitchen at eight in the morning.
“That’s, um.” She clears her throat. “That works. That’s good.”
“You’re sure,” I say, low, near enough that it comes out almost a whisper. “Wouldn’t want to get the placement wrong in front of the donors.”
“Placement’s perfect.” She says it just as quiet, and she still hasn’t pulled her shirt down.
My thumb hasn’t moved. She hasn’t stepped away. And this tiny bit of skin is doing more to me than the whole kitchen counter thing from the other night, and she knows it, because her breathing just changed.
Stop, I tell myself. She is handing you a job, not an invitation. Do the job.
“Good. That’s good,” I manage, and my voice is completely wrecked.
She steps back too fast and tugs her shirt down, not quite looking at me. “Okay, moving on. Let’s do the story.”
“Right. The story.” I put both hands back on the counter where they can’t get me into any trouble.
“So when someone asks how we got together, you let me lead, because it’s simple. You were there for me after everything went to hell, we started out as friends, and it turned into more. That’s all anybody needs from us.”
“And what do I say if they ask when I knew?” I keep my eyes on my coffee.
“You say early. You say you knew before you were ready to admit it.” She leans back in the chair. “Vague enough to sound real, specific enough that nobody digs into more details.”
“I say I knew before I was ready to admit it.” I repeat it back and my voice strips all the strategy out of it and just leaves the truth sitting there.
She looks at me sideways, head tilting. “Why’d you say it that way?”
“What way?” I busy myself with the mug.
“Never mind.” She lets it drop, but she takes a second too long to do it. “Moving on.”
“Fine. What else?” I set the mug down before it gives me away completely.
“Eye contact.” She puts her hands on my shoulders and turns me to face her.
“You do this thing where you look past people when you’re uncomfortable.
Over their heads, at the wall, anywhere but their actual face.
You can’t do that with me. Not out there.
You have to actually look at me when I’m talking. Can you do that?”
“I’m great at eye contact, Charly. Especially when it comes to you. That part’s not going to be a problem.”
It’s out before I can catch it. Just raw and honest and completely unfiltered, and I can’t take it back.
She goes still. Her hands stop on my shoulders and her eyes go wide, just a little. Not surprise. More like she’s hearing a thing she already knew but wasn’t ready to hear out loud.
And here’s the part that’s going to get me killed.
When she looks at me like that, soft around the edges, the corner of her mouth tipping up like she can’t help it, I forget the whole arrangement.
I forget the donors and the plan and the four-in-the-morning list. Her eyes are brown with these flecks of gold near the middle, and when she aims them at me full-on like this, the rest of the kitchen just stops existing.
She is the best thing I have ever stood this close to.
I don’t know how I’m supposed to spend the next month pretending to look at her like I love her when I already do, and the pretending is the only part I’d have to fake.
That’s the thought I catch and shove back down. Because she’s not offering me the real thing. She’s running a drill. I am not going to be one more man who takes from this woman what she didn’t agree to give.
She doesn’t pull away. She doesn’t crack a joke. She just goes quiet for way too long, and then instead of stepping back she steps closer.
Her hands slide from my shoulders to my chest. Flat. Just resting there. Her face is tipped up toward mine and we’re close enough now that I could count her eyelashes, and neither of us is breathing right.
“Charly, what are we doing.” It comes out rough.
“I’m testing the eye contact,” she whispers. “For the donors.”
“That’s not what you’re doing.” My hands find her waist before I tell them to.
“I know.” She doesn’t move an inch.
My phone buzzes on the counter. Loud. Both of us flinch.
I glance at the screen. Text from Gerald, the closest thing I’ve got to a mentor in all this. Ran into Kara today. She mentioned worries about “the family situation.” Said it carefully, like she’d been told something. We should talk this week.
Adam’s still at it. Still wrecking everything while I’m standing in my kitchen trying not to kiss the woman who’s trying to help me fix it.
“Who is it?” Charly asks. Her hands are still on my chest.
“Gerald. My board chair. Kara told him she’s worried about family drama messing with the foundation.” I show her the screen.
“Then we’re out of time.” She steps back, and the wall goes right back up. “We roll this out at the donor thing next week. Before that, I tell Priya tomorrow, you call Gerald and just casually drop ‘my fiancée’ into whatever you’re talking about. Let it spread on its own.”
“Fiancée, huh.” I try the word out loud, and it tastes way too good for a thing that isn’t real. “That’s going to take some getting used to.”
“For both of us. But we keep it low-key. No big moves, no posts, no announcements.” She shrugs. “Just two people who are together, not making a thing of it. The quieter we are, the more people buy it.”
“You’ve really got every angle figured out.” I shake my head at her, half impressed, half a little scared of her.
“I’ve had a lot of practice planning stuff that blows up in my face. This time I’m planning one that won’t.” She says it like a joke, but it doesn’t land like one.
She grabs her mug and heads for the door. Then she stops in the doorway and turns back around.
“One more thing.”
“Course there is.” I almost smile.
“When we’re out there doing this, when you look at me the way you’re supposed to.” She stops. Her voice goes quiet. “Don’t make it too good. Because if you do, I’m going to forget it isn’t real.”
She’s gone before I can get a word out, the door clicking shut behind her. So I say it to the empty kitchen instead.
“That might be the hardest thing you’ve ever asked me to do.”