11. Nora
CHAPTER 11
NORA
His words won’t make their way through the haze of hungoverness. I blink at him. “You can’t be serious.”
“I’m always serious.”
That makes me roll my eyes. I know enough about West Calloway to know that’s not the least bit true. Practice with me. He doesn’t know what he’s suggesting. Doesn’t know just how inexperienced I am, thank god. I’ll never tell him that.
“You want expensive dinners, Nora? You want flowers, and chocolates, and to flirt with no consequence?” His eyes are that amber color, the one that makes my stomach tighten. “Do it with me.”
I shake my head slowly. “You don’t mean that.”
“Why wouldn’t I?” He doesn’t look away from me, and his full focus is a terrifying thing. “Tell me, then. Why do you want to practice so badly?”
He’s too intimidating to tell this to, and yet the words tumble forth. “I’m not good at dating. I almost never do it, but I want to fall in love. I want a relationship… So I need to get comfortable with it.” This is humiliating. I want to sink through the seat, and that humiliation makes my voice testy. “I need to practice.”
“You must have men asking you out all the time,” he says. His face tightens, draws together with confusion, like what I’m saying is idiotic. Makes no sense. I know I should laugh—or giggle—and brush this away. Say the thing he wants to hear.
But I’m so tired of pretending.
“Guys ask me out sometimes. But I say no.” I curl my fingers into a fist, my nails digging into the flesh of my palm. “They want things of me, they have expectations… and I can’t relax. Can’t have fun with them when I feel like they just want a performance from me.”
He’s quiet for a long moment. Just looks at me.
Any moment now, he’s going to laugh. Give me a sneering response.
Instead, he just nods. “Right. Come, we’re going to the library.”
He stands, and I look up at him. “Why?”
“We need pen and paper.” He shoves his hands into his pockets. “Consider it another stop on your tour.”
I follow him down the adjoining hallway and through the large oak door.
The library is huge.
It has a high ceiling, twice as high as a normal room in the house. There’s a ladder along the dark wooden bookshelves leading up to a mezzanine. A frayed oriental carpet covers most of the floor, and several leather couches are centered in the corner around a stone fireplace. The other side has a pool table with a rich velvet cloth.
There’s a bar cart too. Tucked into the corner with an array of liquor on it.
The library looks like something out of an old film set. I love it immediately and follow him into the old space.
West doesn’t seem floored.
He walks to an ornate desk and grabs a notepad and pen out of one of the drawers. He hands it to me. “Write a list of everything about dating that makes you uncomfortable. Everything you want to practice.”
“You’re…” I look down at the piece of paper and back up at him. “Seriously?”
“Yes,” he says. “Look, you don’t like me, right? You’ve made that clear. So you don’t have to worry about hurting my feelings. You can practice rejecting me over and over again, if you need to.”
There’s a weird kind of logic to it.
I take the pen he’s holding out. Thick steel, engraved. Calloway Holdings.
“There’s no way you’re going to agree to this,” I say. “There’s no way I’m agreeing to this.”
“Then we’ll negotiate for it.” His voice is gruff. “If we’re going to pretend to be a couple anyway, why the hell not? Might as well get something you need out of it.”
Why not, indeed .
I write things down. My handwriting is sloped and slightly sharper than usual. I get granular. It’s pathetic, really, to see it all written down, but I’m past caring. I want to prove to him just how little he will want to do this.
When I talk about practicing dating, I mean it. Everything.
The dinner or the drinks. The conversations. Saying no, saying yes. The way they look at me, their hands on my waist, the conversation. And then the goodbye.
I write that up and underline it. The damn goodbye after a date. When I just want to leave, but they want to linger, looking at me with those intense I’m about to kiss you eyes. I even add that to the list.
I glance over at West while I’m writing. He’s leaned back, eyes on my pen. His eyebrows are drawn down low.
“That’s all?” he drawls, looking at where my pen’s stalled.
“No.” I add a few more points. Rejecting a man in person. Pushing him away if he tries to kiss me. Rejecting a man over text. Arguing.
That part I won’t mind practicing with West.
Handling conflict without running away. Setting boundaries.
Receiving and accepting compliments and gifts.
Going out on romantic dates.
Asking for what I want.
Zeina’s words ring in my head. She wants me to practice being present and showing my true self, not the version I think they want to see.
Being authentic, I add.
There’s more I could write. Kissing. Making out. Having sex.
But I’m not adding that. It feels like far too much of an ask, and glancing up at West, the idea of pressing my lips to his makes my entire body tighten.
I wonder what he’d be like as a kisser. I wonder if I’d even be brave enough.
When I’m done, there’s almost no space left on the back of the sheet of paper, and West’s mouth has pressed into a thin line.
“That’s it, I think.” My voice is casual, like I haven’t just written a bullet-pointed essay.
He holds out his hand. I hand back his pen but don’t let go of the note. I hold it between us instead. “This is everything I want to practice. If you agree to all of this, then… I’ll pretend to be your girlfriend, including in front of your family.”
I raise an eyebrow.
“Wouldn’t you like to keep your mother’s matchmaking at bay?”
“You’re better at this than you give yourself credit for.” He heads to the bar cart in the corner. It’s only noon, but he pours himself a finger of whiskey. “Want some?”
No. Not really. But if we’re going to talk about this, I need something in my hand. Something to do. “Yes. Please.”
West’s lip curls, like he sees my reasoning. But he pours me a drink. I curl up on one of the sofas, but he stays leaned against the desk.
And then he starts to read my list.
I take a long sip of whiskey. God, I don’t like it. Never have. I tap my fingers against the crystal and look away from him. To wall after wall of books. The whole place is dark, but in a comforting way. It makes me want to stay here longer. Curl up on one of the armchairs.
The wooden door to the side must go to his home office. The one Ernest told me was off-limits.
The silence is deafening.
I take another sip of the whiskey just to give myself something to do. “Is this Alex’s whiskey?” I ask.
West doesn’t look up from his list. “Yes.”
“Mhm. Thought I recognized the flavor.”
His eyebrows are drawn together, a furrow between them. A few more long seconds pass, and I click my fingers against the crystal tumbler again. The whiskey doesn’t work well with a stomach tied in knots.
“Just say something,” I ask him.
His lips quirk. “It’s a long list.”
“It’s not that long.”
He lowers the piece of paper. “This is everything involved in dating.”
I shake my head. “No. Not everything.”
His eyes snap to mine. Warmth floods my cheeks, and my stomach lurches the way it always does when anxiety comes knocking. It doesn’t include sex.
“No, I suppose it’s not everything.” His jaw works, and he looks back down at the list. “But damn near. So you want to practice this.”
“Yes,” I say. “And like you said… rejecting you. Or arguing.”
He lifts an eyebrow. “Good thing my ego can take it.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“I am,” he says. “But there’s only one way to see if I’m wrong. So this is what you want, then. In return for us pretending to be a couple.”
My fingers tighten around the glass. “Yes.”
He puts the paper down on his desk. “That’s a tall order.”
“It’s not that tall.”
He crosses his arms over his chest. He looks broader when he does that. He’s so different from any of the men I’ve ever gone on a date with. Maybe that’s good. It will make it easier to pretend. “The dating thing in public, that’s for your safety. But this?” He holds up the list. “If we do this, trouble, then I need our relationship to look ironclad in private too.”
“Ironclad,” I repeat.
“Yes. Parties. Events. Investor dinners.” He taps his knuckles against the desk. “My family.”
“You want us to pretend all the time.”
“Yes. Like you said, I want to… keep matchmaking attempts at bay.”
I dig my teeth into my lower lip. He wants us to sell this, then. I’ve never been in a relationship. But I know how to pretend. How to smile for a camera and make people feel at ease.
“How often will we practice?”
“Once a week,” he says.
“Three times a week.” The next words slip out, tight and teasing. “You don’t really do relationships, so I’m not sure if you’re really an expert in all of this.”
His lips curl at the corner. “We’ve already established that you’re not, so I’m willing to bet I have more experience than you.”
Damn it. I drain the last of my whiskey. “Three times a week. That’s my final offer:”
His eyes narrow. “Three times a week, then.”
Victory makes it hard to think. I’ll be practicing. With him. With West.
“One final thing.” He braces his hands against the edge of the desk behind him. “These lessons? Your brother can never know about them. They stay between us.”
“I’m not in the habit of discussing my private life with him.”
“Don’t start.” He throws back the last of his whiskey. “Or I’m going to be in deep fucking trouble.”