Chapter 7 #2
“Because you’re not going to make it weird,” I say finally. “You helped me at the bar and then ran away when I tried to thank you. That’s not the move of some guy looking for a fuck. That’s the move of someone who’s genuine and who doesn’t have a hidden agenda.”
A strange expression crosses his face—surprise, maybe relief—and some of the tension leaves his shoulders.
“So?” I press, sliding my hands forward on the table. “What do you say? You help me, I help you. Your teammates off your back, and assholes off mine. It’s a clean transaction, no feelings and no drama, and we’ll both be getting something we need.”
He’s quiet for a long time, and I see the war happening behind his eyes—fear battling against something else, something that might be hope or desperation or just the same kind of tired pragmatism that brought me here. Then, to my genuine surprise, he nods.
A slow smile spreads across my face. “You’re in?”
He hesitates. “If we’re going to do this, we need a story,” he says.
My own surprise registers. “A story?”
“Yeah.” He finally meets my eyes, and there’s a sharpness there I didn’t expect, a kind of analytical clarity that doesn’t match the stammering mess from the bar. “Your bandmates are going to ask questions, and my teammates definitely will, so we need a backstory.”
Holy shit. He’s actually thinking this through like an engineering problem.
“OK,” I say, matching his energy. “Where do we start?”
“Where did we meet?” he asks, his voice steady now, focused.
“The bar,” I say immediately. “You came back the night after you were there with your teammates. We talked after the show.”
He nods, making a mental note, and I can practically see him filing it away. “What do we have in common?”
A laugh, sharper than I intended, escapes me. “Nothing.”
He frowns, and it’s such an earnest, worried expression that I almost want to hug him. “That’s a problem,” he says.
“Why?”
“Because people are going to wonder why we’re together if we have nothing in common. It needs to make sense.”
I chew on my lip, thinking. He’s right. If this is going to work, we need at least a few threads that tie us together. Something that sounds plausible when his teammates grill him or when Joel gives me that skeptical look that says he knows I’m full of shit.
“Music,” I say finally. “You like music, right?”
He shrugs. “Sure. Doesn’t everyone?”
“What do you listen to?”
“I don’t know. Mostly just… whatever’s on.”
I groan, dropping my head into my hands. “Kellerman, ‘whatever’s on’ is not attractive and may actually be a fireable offense in a fake boyfriend.”
The words are meant to be a joke, a light jab to get him to play along, but the effect is instantaneous. A deep, painful-looking blush floods his face, starting at his collar and racing all the way to the tips of his ears, and his eyes drop to the floor.
And just like that, I realize this is more delicate than I thought, and that this arrangement is going to need more than a verbal agreement. He will need to be trained to be comfortable with me, with flirting and with touching, because right now any of that would blow a fuse.
“That’s not going to work,” I say, trying to course correct. “You need to have an opinion, and it doesn’t even really matter what it is…”
“OK.” He thinks for a second. “I like classic rock. My mom used to play it in the car when I was a kid. Led Zeppelin, The Who, that kind of thing.”
I perk up, latching onto the detail like a lifeline, hoping it’ll help to settle him down. “Your mom?”
He nods, and there’s something soft in his expression now, something unguarded. “Yeah. She’s a librarian back in Harmony.”
“Harmony?” I repeat, testing the name. “Where the hell is that?”
“Small town about an hour from here.” He looks embarrassed, his gaze dropping to the textbook. “It’s nothing special.”
“It’s perfect,” I say, and I mean it. “Small-town kid raised by a single mom who works at a library. That works.”
He tilts his head, studying me with those kind, confused eyes. “Where are you from?”
I hesitate, because this is a part of me I usually keep locked down, not sharing the detail unless I have to. My Camden address is a weapon people use against me—proof I’m from a poverty-stricken hellhole, proof I don’t belong, proof I’m an imposter and that their suspicions were right all along.
But if we’re building a story, he needs to know.
“Camden,” I say finally, meeting his eyes, daring him to say something, to make the face I’ve seen a hundred times before, the mixture of pity and discomfort and the silent recalculation of who I am, where I’m from, and what my prospects likely are. “Is that a problem?”
“No,” he says quickly, and there’s no judgment in his voice, just genuine curiosity. “Thanks for telling me.”
The defensiveness in my chest loosens, just a little, and is replaced by something warm. Because in a single exchange all my priors about Ben Kellerman are confirmed. He’s afraid of his own shadow and built like the Incredible Hulk, but at his core, he seems like a nice guy.
And fuck knows I don’t know too many of those.
“Well, now you know,” I say, my voice softer than I intended. “So, small-town boy, big-city girl. We met at the bar. You like my music. I think you’re…” I pause, choosing my words more carefully this time. “I think you’re cute, and one of the good ones.”
The corner of his mouth lifts in something that might almost be a smile. “I like your… uh… I—”
“You like my everything, Kellerman,” I say, smirking and leaning back in my chair with my arms crossed over my chest. “Right?”
I notice his eyes flicker down to my chest for a nanosecond, then back up to my eyes, a check to make sure he’s not leering or being gross. But he averts his gaze quickly, flushing beet red, and proves to me that he has the confidence of a seventh-grader but is respectful.
Which is better than the alternative.
Yep, we’re definitely going to need some training if we’re to convince anyone we’re dating, my mind chimes in.
“This is crazy,” he says again, but there’s less conviction in it this time.
“Yep.”
“But it might work.”
“It will work,” I correct, injecting confidence. “If we stick to the script.”
There’s a double meaning to my words that I’m not sure he catches, but it’s more of a reminder to me to keep it, proverbially, in my pants. There’s definitely an attraction there, but I need to keep this guy—this miracle, needle-in-a-haystack, good guy—strictly business.
My future depends on it.
“OK,” he says. “When do we start?”