Chapter 13 #2
He understood all about the awkward. “Trust me, it cannot be more awkward than what just happened in here before you arrived.”
“Do I want to know?” She ticked her head to the side, a stray curl bobbing against her neck.
Good thing he was on a relationship diet or he would find something like that totally adorably attractive.
He gave a quick shake of his noggin. “Nope.”
“Right.” She drew a deep breath, her chest heaving with the motion. “Ollie got into stunt camp this morning, yay.”
That was a forced “yay” if he’d ever heard one. “Congrats.”
“Yeah…okay…so…” She paused. Didn’t speak. “How do you feel about committing fraud?” she asked, totally serious.
He nearly choked on his spit even as his mouth went dry. “I feel like it’s a bad idea.”
“Okay, but hear me out…”
“Molly?” He shook his head. They should nip this one in the bud before the feds showed up and he was out of a job and a family. “I don’t commit felonies.”
“But misdemeanors are okay?”
He drew his eyebrows together because it felt a little like this was a set-up, and he didn’t like set-ups of the date variety or the criminal variety. “Prefer not to do that, too.”
She sat taller, angled her body toward him. “Hear me out.”
“I make no commitments.” He crossed his arms.
“Of course you don’t. You’re you.” Her sarcasm was on point, but it stung a little all the same.
“Ha,” he said, rolling with it so she could spit out whatever it was she needed to spit.
“So, you know about the whole matchmaking competition for Agnes and Charlie.”
He nodded again. Yeah, he knew about it. He’d even watched her video about it and cast his vote in her favor—not that he needed to broadcast that after her commitment snark.
“I’m getting beat by a matchmaker with a partner.
They’re teaming up.”
Yeah, he’d seen that, too. They made for good web-based television, but he didn’t need to point that out. Instead, he stayed silent and let her finish…
“Agnes had an idea.” She played with the strap of her purse some more, not meeting his eyes. “While I think it’s a bad idea…”
Still, he waited.
“She thinks that you and I banter well together and we should pose as a fraudulently real couple for my videos,” she continued quickly.
That was not at all what he expected her to say. Huh. He did his very best to keep his expression neutral, but
he struggled against a whole wave of what the hell? “Fraudulently real?”
“Like we pretend it’s real, but really it’s not.”
Right. Okay. He pretended like he was speaking with one of his kids. “I think fraud—of all varieties—is a bad idea.”
“I know.” Molly held up her hands. “I know. It’s ridiculous. But then I started thinking…”
Why was he worried this wouldn’t end well for him? “What if we reframed it? Not so much fraud, just…
pretend. Like a dress-up relationship. You said your mom is all about your dating habits,” Molly continued. “So, this would let you off the hook and buy you more time. Until you actually want to date.”
He said nothing because he wasn’t quite sure what to say. The only thing Molly could’ve done to surprise him more was to show him she’d added him to Let’s Hookup just like his mom.
“It’s not like it’s real between us,” she assured him. “It’s just a mutually beneficial arrangement of…convenience. Let’s just ignore the whole F word.”
He didn’t think they were pondering the same F word…
“Fraud,” she confirmed, like she were reading his thoughts. “It’s not fraud,” she said this way too loudly for his comfort. “A convenient set-up. Nothing more.” Nothing more. Except an enormous relief for him. He grinned.
Call him selfish, but he appreciated how this could work out for him.
Suddenly, the fates were smiling. The heavens opening up. The hallelujah chorus playing.
He stared at her for a beat. This gorgeous, wonderful woman with an answer to his most pressing problem of the moment.
“I’m in,” he said, holding his hand out to shake.
She frowned. She shouldn’t be frowning. Not when she was getting her way.
She didn’t take his hand. “You’re in?”
“Yeah.” He stood, ready to go back to work without the threat of more hookup apps. “Anything else?”
“Uh.” She did not stand. She remained sitting and looked up at him with more innocence than he’d ever seen from her before.
Crap. Were they going to make this weird? He really hoped it didn’t have to be weird.
“You can’t just be in,” she said, like she was ready for an argument.
Which made little sense because… “Why not?”
“Because we haven’t laid any ground rules.”
“My only ground rule is you stop using the word fraud around me. I have a reputation to uphold.”
“Right. No more fraud.”
“Molly.”
“You said it first, I was only confirming.” She bit at her lip. “It can’t be this easy.” She stood then so they were face-to-face. Meaning, she was right up in his space. “What will we tell people?”
“That we’re together.”
“But I can’t lie, not to my friends. Not to Rachel.” The pulse at her neck beat thicker.
He toyed with the pen in his hand. “This was literally your idea. F-word and all.”
“That’s not the point.” She lifted her hands, not making one ounce of sense.
“So we don’t lie to Rachel,” he said, cautiously. “Don’t lie to your friends. We only lie to my mother and the rest of the world.”
“But if Rachel knows, then Travis will know. He’ll tell your mom.” Her face was getting red and blotchy. She needed to take a breath.
“Travis won’t say a word,” he assured. “Trust me on that.”
“How do you know?” She was back in his personal space. Unfortunately, he didn’t hate it.
“Because he just married my ex-wife with my blessing and encouragement.” Also, Gavin had been holding on to the secret of who broke his mother’s diamond necklace when they were kids for just this moment. Spoiler, it was Travis. “I think he can keep our—whatever this is—to himself. He owes me.”
She shoved her hands on her hips. “This cannot be that easy.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because it’s true.” She sounded exasperated.
He held back the urge to touch her. On the chin? On the shoulders? He couldn’t touch her. But that didn’t mean that… “Sometimes things are easy.”
“Not in my world.” That escaped curl against her neck bobbled again as she shook her head.
He moved back behind his desk like a coward, too afraid that he might do something foolish like reach out to her. “I guess it’s a good thing you’ll be spending time in my world for a bit.”
They both let that gem of logic seep into the moment.
And now she didn’t look so sure, even though she’d asked and he’d agreed. So he moved back to her. Let his arm touch hers. Allowed that teensy bit of contact serve as a conduit between them. Nothing intense. Only enough to form a small connection.
“You need something.” He folded his hands like he often did at board meetings when he didn’t quite know what to do with them. “I need something.”
“Yes.”
“So it’s a mutually beneficial arrangement where everyone involved gets what they want.”
“Well…”
If they were going to do the fake boyfriend and girlfriend thing, he needed to get used to touching her. That’s the reason—the only reason—he let his hand linger at the denim covering her shoulder.
The whole fake thing? That’s probably the only reason she let him get away with it.
“Why do I get the impression you’re overthinking this?” he asked.
“There should just be solid boundaries and parameters and all that.”
“Okay.” Should he grab a notepad? Somebody from legal to draw up an agreement? He wasn’t sure. “What are your boundaries and parameters?” He dropped his hand.
She glanced at it, but didn’t make any move toward him. “What are yours?”
That was easy enough. “To not have my mom pimp me out on Let’s Hookup anymore.” Other than that, he was pretty open to suggestions.
“Is that what was happening before I came in?” She widened her eyes.
He pursed his lips and nodded. “Unfortunately for everyone.”
That sly smile he’d gotten used to on her inched across her lips. “I really love your mother.”
“Would you like to take her for a while? I’ll loan her out. Maybe she should be your partner on the videos?”
Molly shook her head. “No, Agnes is right. It needs to be all relationship-y. That wouldn’t work.”
“My mom would also probably offend your mother.”
Molly started toward the door, but paused. “My mom isn’t that kind of mom.”
“The kind that gets offended or the kind that is inappropriate?”
Molly smiled. But it was a sad smile. “My parents are more hands off than anything. It’s okay though, they raised me and we know I’m awesome, so they did something right. And they send Ollie birthday and Christmas gifts. They are the best grandparents they know how to be.”
“What I wouldn’t give for a small dose of not overbearing.”
“It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”
Somehow, he believed that. For all her banana bread toaster tart Momster qualities, his mother would do everything possible to ensure those she loved were happy.
Her brand of happy. But her brand of happy was usually from the heart. He couldn’t fault her for that.
Turned out, though, he could manipulate the situation. With Molly’s help.
This would not suck.