6. Chapter 3
Chapter 3
Lucy
M y girlfriend.
The words bounce around my brain as if they were on caffeine. I won’t try to dissect why he felt the need to say I was older; I can do that later. I had an inkling when he said to play along at the sound of another woman’s voice that he might pretend to be my boyfriend. (Thank you, Romance Writer Brain. You’ve finally come in handy in a real-life situation.) But still, hearing those words curated a momentary flicker of questioning before I schooled my expression into something that comes naturally for me—a lovestruck fool.
I can allow myself to get lost in this fantasy for one small second. Tearing my gaze from my handsome just-for-the-moment boyfriend, I notice the slender brunette female is staring at him. I adjust myself so I’m blocking as much of his sullied clothes as I can with my petite frame, but then his hands find my waist, and he pulls me flush against him .
I won’t deny I’ve had similar fantasies, though he was shirtless and, well, the stench of crab wasn’t present.
Mentally shaking the image and focusing on not feeling inappropriate things, I reach out to shake the brunette’s hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Lacey.”
She shakes my hand, but she’s still looking at Stone.
Lacey drops my hand and says to Stone, “I didn’t know you were seeing anyone. Usually you blast your women all over your socials.”
His hands tighten around my waist as he nonchalantly says, “I’ve been having way too much fun with my Lucy May over the past two months to even care about posting.”
My heart thumps and tingles race down my neck. Two months. So we’ve been together since April. Got it.
My Lucy May…
Why do I feel like I could live within those words rolling off his tongue every single day of my existence from here until the end of eternity?
I turn to face him with a sharp smile. “Oh, you…” I say, dropping my words off because I have no idea what I was about to call him. Devilish man? Handsome hunk of hotness? Silver-tongued snake? Roguish, redneck rake?
Any would suffice but may not be appropriate in this context.
Instead of attempting to speak again, I place my palm over his heart.
Which is buried not only under rib cage, muscle, and skin, but also a pink-now-orange shirt coated in crab juices.
I tap my fingers a few times before slowly bringing my hand back down to my side and balling it into a fist so I don’t accidently rub the juices and stench onto my clothes. Then I turn back around to face the woman who apparently has a rich history with Stone.
“How wonderful,” Lacey says, but something flashes across her eyes. Hurt? Sorrow? It’s a similar expression to Karoline’s when she talked about how much she hated that she didn’t hate Mason. A look that says Lacey wished Stone would have been more than he was.
What did Stone do to this woman…?
Jordan lets go of her hand and slips his arm around her waist. Lacey places her hand on his chest, showcasing a big ole diamond ring glistening off the sunlight.
“Well, we should probably get going. Lunch plans,” Jordan says. He looks concerningly at Lacey, and it swells an emotion deep within my soul—loneliness. How nice would it be for a man to read me the way Jordan read Lacey’s uncomfortableness?
Like the way Stone read you earlier when you were upset at work? my brain so generously reminds me. Apparently, my internal thoughts are pro-playboy boss. But my conscious thoughts know better.
Jordan and Lacey wave goodbye as they walk away. I glance at Stone, who is donning an expression I’ve never seen on him before (and I’ve cataloged many of his facial contortions… for book research purposes and all). His eyes are a misty blue, cheeks sunken and lips rolled inside his mouth. Sweat beads from around the edges of his hairline as he runs his fingers through his styled honey blond hair.
“What happened, Stone?” I move to touch his arm but instantly retract my hand. He isn’t mine to touch. He is my boss. He is two years younger than I am. I bet he hurt that woman in the past and now it’s coming back to haunt him. Just like he would hurt me if I allowed myself to open up to him.
Don’t make assumptions, Lucy.
Yeah? Well, I’ve been hurt too many times by making excuses for men. I’m not doing that anymore. I will believe my eyes instead of talking myself in circles to justify uncouth behavior.
“Just a girl from my past,” he says, planting a smile on his face. “Let’s go.”
“Am I free from being your fake girlfriend now?” I reach to open the door of his truck, but his hand closes over mine. We lock eyes. An evil grin unfurls slowly across his face as I continue to ask my questions. “Also, why tell her I’m older? What’s with that?”
“Don’t worry about it.” His voice is cool before warming to a mischievous tone that matches his face. “Hm. You were only my fake girlfriend for a span of minutes—” He gestures down his soiled shirt and pants with the hand that is not still resting on top of mine. Mercy above, his touch is absolutely electrifying. “—and all this requires more, I believe. That is, if you truly want to make up for dumping a plate of crabs on me.”
My heart races as my nerves continue to fry like chicken strips at his touch. “Are you suggesting I continue to be your fake girlfriend for some reason? I’m sure there are a million other things I could do to make up for spilling my food on you…”
As the words escape my mouth, his sly smile widens and eyes twinkle and dance. Whatever dark mood that Lacey woman had him in has vanished. The predator has come out to play with his willing-but-unwilling prey .
Maybe this is a part of his dark mood, now that I think about it?
When I’m feeling dark, I like to pretend I’m a suave, confident, and sexy woman who is capable of toying with men and then disposing of them. Not that I’d have the guts to do it in real life…
Is Stone Harper actually a good guy disguising as a villain?
Why in the world am I so internally twisted that the thought turns me on…?
Get. Some. Help. Lucy, I mentally clap back at myself.
Stone moves closer to me, our bodies inches apart against the passenger door of his truck. He tucks a strand of flyaway hair behind my ear before leaning closer and whispering, “What are you offering, Lucy May?”
Even the putrid smell of drying crab juices can’t keep my heart from beating quicker at his nearness.
A villain.
Stone Harper is definitely in his villain era.
No, not an era. He was most likely born this way.
Is he the truly evil kind or the morally gray kind?
Nope. Doesn’t matter.
I shove him away as he laughs under his breath. I take a few steps back, but he doesn’t follow. Instead, he opens the door for me. “Get in, Lucy. Don’t worry, your virtue is safe with me. But I do require your fake girlfriend acting skills.”
One: Little does he know my virtue is far from intact.
Two: Do what?!
I climb in the lifted F-150 and wait for him to settle into the driver’s side before responding. “Why in the world do you need me to pretend to be your girlfriend? Can’t you just go get an actual girlfriend?”
The truck roars to life as he gives me a cheeky grin. “I could, but the woman I want to make my actual girlfriend sadly doesn’t feel the same way.” His grin morphs into a playful pout as he shifts into gear, backing out of the parking lot.
He’s not talking about me, right?
Of course he is. He’s been after you for months. Don’t act oblivious to it, Lucy. You know the signs.
I choose to ignore the signs because he doesn’t actually want me for me. He wants me for his own satisfaction. If I ever said yes to him for real, it would purely be for my own satisfaction, but I’m trying to be better than caving to Loneliness’s siren call of temptation. “What’s the occasion? Will we be seeing that woman again?”
At the mention of Lacey, he tightens his grip on the wheel and presses his lips into a firm line. “I’m not sure why we saw her here, but yes. She will most likely be at the wedding.”
“A wedding? You need me to be your fake girlfriend for a wedding?”
His voice is cold as he replies. “Yep. My buddy, Tate, is getting married this weekend. I need to drive down to Dasher Valley tomorrow morning to be there for the bachelor’s party tomorrow night. Then the wedding is Saturday afternoon. We will drive back on Sunday.”
“We? I haven’t said yes,” I state. He looks at me for a brief second. It’s an expression I would imagine a fox, if it were human, would wear the moment it knew it had locked onto a rabbit. Or maybe it’s the look a bird of prey sports as its talon close around a small puppy.
“Yes, we. Us. You and me. I hope you didn’t have weekend plans. If you did, cancel them. I’m cashing in on the whole ‘I’ll make it up to you’ right now.”
“ H e didn’t give you any more information?” Emma Jane asks, a certain joyous flair to her voice. I narrow my eyes at the ash-blonde barista who is currently sitting across from me in the empty café. I helped her clean earlier as we chatted before we sat down to talk some more. She’s been my constant companion since everyone else abandoned me at the beginning of the month.
Ugh, fine. I know I need to quit thinking that way.
Karoline got married and moved to Nashville, and my sister got engaged and moved to a whole different country. They both call me frequently and check in on me and love me well from afar, but it’s not the same. I also have my lifelong best friend, Hadley, but she’s married and now expecting. I don’t always want to pull her from taking care of Braxton and her pregnant self over my inconsequential, miniscule lack-of-love problems.
I’m thrilled Emma Jane came to work at this coffee shop-slash-bookstore, and I’m ecstatic she’s single and intent on staying that way.
I take a sip of my vanilla latte. “He told me to be ready to go by six in the morning and to pack a pretty dress. That’s all. ”
She rests her chin in her hand as she leans on the square, wooden table. “Hm. That doesn’t give you much to go on. How long have you two been dating? What’s the meet-cute story? Do you know each others’ favorites?” She drums her fingers as she continues to spout off things me and Stone apparently need to talk about on the drive down to his hometown tomorrow.
His hometown.
I’m going to my boss’s hometown tomorrow and will presumably meet his family as his pretend girlfriend while some pretty married woman, who gets him in a dark tizzy, will be watching us at his friend’s wedding.
What in the romantic comedy novel is my life right now?
I should’ve said no.
Stood my ground.
But the romance author inside of me was a little too greedy to get her hands on this situation for “book research,” the lonely girl inside me was chomping at the bit to escape for the weekend, and the dark woman inside of me was foaming at the mouth to experience a date with Stone Harper.
My brain packed up its bags and took a vacation during that interaction, much to its dismay now.
“Good thing we have six hours to discuss all the things,” I jest with a roll of my eyes and another sip of my latte. “I need to quit my job after this.”
“Why quit? You don't trust yourself to go back to professionalism after pretending to be his girlfriend for the weekend?” Emma Jane bats her eyelashes innocently .
“Correct.” I decide to be honest with her since she’s one of the few people I have in my life right now, and she’s not directly connected with my other friends. “I might actually date him if I don’t quit.” Or worse… “This close proximity is slowly suffocating me. He’s the devil, and I have no business dancing with him.”
“You’ve danced with him once, I recall.” She giggles and stands, mimicking parts of our dance from back in February with shocking grace. How does she remember that? I didn’t even know her as well back then.
In fact, I still don’t know her that well. We talk about me when we’re together. I should change that.
Because I think Little Miss I’m Never Going to Get Married might be a closeted romantic. “The mistake of my lifetime.”
“Well, if you do date him, then great. If not, that’s great, too. I’m currently matchmaking an important person in my life, and I believe it’s going well. I even smell a wedding on the horizon. If you and Mr. Desperately In Love With You don’t work out for some reason, I can get you a new man.”
Yep. She’s a romantic. I should have known that by the nickname she gave Stone when I confessed to her about his insistent behavior a couple weeks ago.
“Matchmaking?”
She nods. “Mhmm. I’m quite good at it, too. I’ve only had this one success, but I used to mentally pair up couples in my head as a child. I’ve only now begun to act on it. I’m starting my own business. What do you think of my idea?”
Emma Jane is still dancing around tables on the wooden floors of the empty shop, her long skirt and apron billowing with her turns. She looks carefree and happy and graceful as the string lights create a warm ambience to the night. Books and Beans is technically closed, but she let me in and made me a cup of coffee anyways. I kind of adore this girl.
“I love that idea, E. J. What would your parents think?”
She stops spinning and sighs wistfully. “My father will be happy with anything I decide to do as long as I stick by his side.”
I notice how she doesn’t mention a mother, but I don’t press her about it tonight. That can be a conversation for another time.
I glance out the window to the darkened skies. “I should get going.”
“Text me details! I’m already on pins and needles wondering how this will unfold.” She unties her apron and tosses it behind the counter. “I’ll walk you out so that I can lock up.”
“I’m sure it will be uneventful. Or full of stories of me embarrassing myself. Nothing sincere and romantic, though. That’s a promise.”
The bell jingles above our heads as we open the glass doors to leave. After she locks the door, she embraces me. “Regardless, I think there might be something there. Please, do protect your heart. But also don’t be afraid to take risks and chances.”
I think over her words my entire drive home, which is only five minutes, but still.
Stone would ruin me. I know that. It’s not a risk or a chance I can take. My attraction to him is through the roof, but it’s just that—attraction. There’s nothing real between us. Just a bunch of heat and hormones and hellish thoughts .
Maybe this fake girlfriend thing will be good. I can get him out of my system without consequence. I can experience what it would be like to hold his hand and maybe even kiss his lips without forming attachment.
Then, when we come back to Juniper Grove, I can resume my workplace professionalism like none of it ever happened. I can find myself a man who I can trust and is good to his core and will be my prince.
Stone Harper will simply become an itch that I once scratched.
Though I’m an avid romance reader and pen novels myself, I’m not na?ve. I know real life isn’t like the books. Fake dating situations don’t lead to more.
I’m safe.