Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Pippa
The smell hits me before anything else. Salt and vinegar mingling with the faint hint of fried batter.
It’s an unmistakable smell, one I love. My stomach growls with hunger, which is perfectly convenient since Rhett and I are standing in front of a tiny, blue and white, fish and chip shop near the river.
“Authentic fish and chips to cap off the day,” he says, grinning down at me.
“Yup? So authentic they wrap it up with old newspapers like they used to in ye olden days.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes, greasy fish wrapped in newspapers is really quite charming.”
He laughs, that easy, infectious laugh that has me melting every time he does it.
When we reach the front of the queue, I order for us – two portions of haddock and chips with lots of salt and vinegar, mushy peas, and two cans of Coke.
The girl behind the counter makes up our order quickly and efficiently, asking if we want them wrapped or open.
I tell her open and she nods. When the order is ready, we each grab a Coke and our steaming hot fish and chips with a layer of newspapers beneath waxed paper.
We step back out onto the Thames walkway.
The sun is dipping low, casting golden reflections across the water, and the air smells faintly of the river mixed with fried food.
I watch Rhett take a bite of his fish.
“Well?” I ask expectantly.
“Good. Very good. Eating these out of the old newspaper really does make it feel authentic.”
“Like you’re a proper Londoner now.”
He nods with a full mouth, and I take a bite of my fish and pause for a moment to moan with pleasure at how delicious it is.
“Authenticity is everything. Real fish and chips like real Londoners, and not forgetting that walking along the river bank eating them is the real magic.”
He nods sagely. “Yup. This is how real love stories start with fish and chips in our hands, the wind in your hair, and the city lights reflecting in your eyes.”
I almost choke on my chip. “Wind in your hair? It’s barely blowing.”
Rhett dips a chip into a little pool of vinegar that has formed in the corner of his tray with exaggerated seriousness. “You’re missing the metaphor,” he says, grinning. “Just go with it.”
We walk side by side, laughing, the crunch of crispy batter between our teeth and the occasional squawk of a seagull punctuating our conversation. Somewhere between the greasy fingers and the sun glinting off the water, our talk turns inevitably to our fake relationship.
“So,” I say, nudging him lightly with my elbow. “We need to be on the same page in case anyone asks us a question. Let’s get the official timeline sorted first. How long have we been together?”
He gives me a sidelong glance. “Hmm. By my calculations, it would be approximately eight hours of concentrated fun, give or take a few minutes of panic in the Dungeon.”
“Eight hours?” I repeat. “I was thinking longer. It doesn’t have to be true. It’s all fake anyway. It just has to be feasible.”
“Fine,” he says, raising his hands in surrender. “How long have you and Mr. Dependability … I mean George … been estranged?”
“Nearly six weeks,” I say mournfully.
“Ok, then, how about a month?”
I nod in agreement. “Month is good for me.”
“The first date, what was it?”
I bite another chip, my mood turning reflective. “How about it was raining heavily, I saw you jump into the river to save a drowning cat.”
He stops mid-stride. “What? No. No one is going to believe that nonsense. It’ll be easier to pull off if we stick to the truth where we can.”
“Fine,” I concede moodily. “Drinks. We met over drinks.”
“And the first kiss?”
“First kiss? George isn’t going to ask about that.”
“Yeah, I know. But it’ll feel more real if we have a more hypothetical history. For the timeline.”
I roll my eyes, but I play along, tucking a stray curl behind my ear. “Well, if we’re going by the almost truth method, we haven’t had one yet. But that’s just a detail. George doesn’t need details. Let’s just pretend you walked me home after our first date and kissed me goodnight at my door.”
“That sounds like something I might have enjoyed.”
I hit his forearm with the back of my hand, and Rhett grins at me. I can’t help but return the grin. “What about today’s date? That counts too, right? We can say I made you laugh until soda came out of your nose.”
“Or we could steer well clear of that image,” he says dryly, “and just call it the day we laughed so hard it hurt our ribs.”
I pause dramatically. “Or we could say it happened this afternoon during the London Eye at the very top. You were being ridiculous, and I couldn’t help it.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” he says, bowing slightly. “Ridiculous can be charming, you know.”
I laugh, shaking my head. “You’re quite mad, aren’t you?”
We continue walking along the river, our fish and chips gradually disappearing. We have grease on our fingers, and Rhett has a dot of tartar sauce smudged across his gorgeous chin. Weird, but I want to lick it off.
I catch him staring at me once, his head tilted a little bit to one side, a sexy smile tugging at his lips, and I have to remind myself that this is all fake, it’s just for George.
It’s nothing serious. Except it feels so easy, so natural.
I can’t imagine George and I ever doing this.
He would complain that his fingers are greasy and mutter about the lack of wet wipes.
The wind would annoy him. Worse, he doesn’t like walking and eating together.
He thinks it is uncivilized not to sit at a table to eat.
People are not horses, he would say. I frown.
What the hell am I doing? Moaning about George.
I love him. Still, if that’s my only complaint, then surely, it is right to want back what we had.
“So,” Rhett says suddenly, stopping my thoughts, as he leans closer so that I can hear him over the faint roar of traffic and the occasional call of the river boats. “Where did we first meet again?”
“You know very well where. The bar, Mason’s, you know, the one where I asked you out. You said yes. Then you pretended to be Roger, and we arranged to meet.”
“Oh, yes,” he says, pseudo-nostalgia in his voice. “Jessica Rabbit herself asked me out on a date. How could I forget?”
“Right,” I say, shaking my head. “That’s our official how we met. We can’t really lie about that because George might have seen the video online.”
“Video?” Rhett echoes.
“Oh God, you haven’t seen it? Someone videoed me in that awful Jessica Rabbit dress and put it online,” I mutter crossly.
“I saw,” he admits.
I dig him in the ribs with my elbow.
He laughs. “And for the record, that dress is lots of things, but awful isn’t one of them.”
“Easy for you to say. You didn’t have to wear it.”
“But look what it led to. Here we are,” he adds, smiling. “Eating fish and chips on the Thames, pretending to be an actual couple.”
I grin. “Quite frankly, I feel like Alice in Wonderland. This whole episode is quite bizarre.”
“Are you sure about that?” he asks, leaning in again. “Personally, I think it’s going shockingly well. I mean, we’re laughing, eating greasy food, trading details of our lives, and making history up as we go along. I’d say we make a good team.”
“Flattery will get you everywhere, Rhett.”
He laughs. “Good to know. I’ll keep that in mind for future reference.”
By the time we’ve polished off the last of the fish and chips and deposited the papers in a trash can that we passed by, I notice that the sky has deepened to a dusky orange color, and the city lights are starting to flicker on along the riverside.
I pull out my cell phone, realizing that I need to give him my address so that he can pick me up tomorrow for the opera.
“Right,” I say, leaning against the railing behind me while I quickly type out my address and text it to him. “Here’s the plan for tomorrow night. I’ve just texted you my address so you can pick me up at seven o’clock. That will give us enough time to get there early.”
His phone pings. He pulls it out and looks at the text message I’ve just sent him. “Got it. Seven o’clock sharp. And I assume you’ll be dressing to impress?”
I blink at him. “Dressing to impress?”
“Yes,” he says, his eyes glinting with mischief. “It is the opera, after all. Besides, don’t we want George to see exactly what he’s missing out on? You know, give him the full effect of his loss.”
“Dress to impress it is,” I say slowly, a small laugh escaping me. “Show that man what he threw away.”
Rhett smiles pityingly. “Poor guy. He doesn’t stand a chance.”
I shake my head, laughing, feeling light in a way I haven’t felt in weeks. I try to tell myself it’s because I am one step closer to getting George back. And I also try to believe it.