Chapter 8 #2
“And your best friend worries about you forever, yeah,” Simon said, flashing a broad smile at me, his eyes glittering with the promise of laughter.
He was dressed down this morning by comparison—jeans, but new ones that fit properly, and a soft-looking linen shirt with the sleeves rolled up, unbuttoned far enough for a tempting peek at his collarbones.
He looked…
Sexy.
There was no other word for it. And I wasn’t the only one who’d noticed.
While he was standing in line, a woman in athleisure wear had struck up a conversation with him, ponytail swishing as she’d laughed at something he said.
The guy serving in the food truck had given him a speculative once-over before Simon had gestured at me and he turned the visible-from-twenty-feet-away flirting down a couple of notches.
“Did you tell the food truck guy I was your boyfriend?” I asked as I realized he must have.
Simon paused mid-bite, licking his lips. He glanced at my face, then turned his attention to his sandwich. “Maybe,” he told it.
A smile tugged at my lips. I nudged his foot under the table to let him know I wasn’t mad.
I wasn’t mad at all. We’d pretended to be together all yesterday evening—but that was in front of my family.
This was different. This was casually turning a stranger down in favor of a fictional boyfriend.
Me.
The guy serving at the food truck thought Simon was my boyfriend.
I wriggled in my chair, taking another bite of my breakfast to avoid grinning like an idiot about that. It was just a lie. Just another spur-of-the-moment lie to avoid an awkward situation.
But the fact that it was Simon pretending he was dating me…
“Guess we’re even now,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck.
“I think I might still owe you a favor or twelve.”
I already owed Simon hundreds of favors. He never called them in.
I wished he would. He was so good to me, but he never let me do anything for him except occasionally grab him coffee, and even that he fought me on more often than not.
Even knowing now that I was coming into an absolute fortune in a couple of years, he’d still insisted on buying me breakfast this morning.
Simon licked bacon grease off his thumb once he was finished with his breakfast, sitting back and sipping his coffee. I was still working through my sandwich, always slower than he was. He never complained, or rushed me.
The beachside setting suited him, the combination of his natural summer highlights and the linen shirt giving him what I thought Delilah would call an elevated surfer chic look.
I hadn’t forgotten the glimpse I’d gotten of what his body looked like under his clothes these days, and the shirt he was wearing was just fitted enough to make my fingers itch to reach out and touch him.
I hadn’t dated in a year—since I broke up with Corey—and hookups had never held any appeal for me. No matter how much evidence I accumulated to the contrary, I always believed whoever I was dating was it, for me. That I’d be with them forever.
Which was beside the point. The point was that the length of time since my last breakup was probably contributing to how badly I wanted to climb Simon like a tree.
This self-knowledge didn’t change the fact that I did.
Worse, it didn’t make it any more likely that I was going to. Fake boyfriends did not come with real sex.
Simon grabbed our trash once we were both done, taking it to the trash can beside the food truck before I could do it. Of course.
I got up and followed him, since his car was in that general direction. Not that I was eager to get back to the house, but I knew I’d hear about it if we stayed away too long.
Simon smiled at me as I approached. The same smile he always gave me—on anyone else, it was the kind of smile reserved for someone they’d just seen again for the first time in years.
On Simon, I thought of it as my smile. He smiled at everyone, all the time, but the way he smiled at me was different.
It was one little piece of him that was all mine, that I kept squirreled away in a pocket next to my heart.
He reached out as I got within an arm’s length of him, tucking an imaginary strand of hair behind my ear, his thumb lingering on the shell. My breath caught in my lungs, pulse speeding up as I met his eyes. What—?
“Don’t look,” he murmured. “Audrey’s behind you.”
Oh. Right.
I locked eyes with him to stop myself turning. His thumb caught the edge of my jaw, then tucked under my ear as his fingers curled around the back of my neck, brushing the hairs there. A shiver rolled down my spine, skin tingling all the way from where Simon was touching it to the small of my back.
“Think I’m selling it?” he asked, inching closer.
“Maybe—”
“Simon, Theo!” Audrey called behind us, stopping me from finishing that sentence with you should kiss me.
Simon looked over my shoulder, breaking into one of the smiles he offered to everyone else.
Audrey was dressed in mauve leggings and a sheer white tank that showed her matching mauve sports bra through it, hair tied back in a sensible ponytail and skin glistening with sweat.
“Out for a run?” Simon asked, warm and friendly as ever.
I wanted to be indignant about that, but I couldn’t. Simon’s distaste for Corey aside, he generally gave people the benefit of the doubt to an extent other people might have thought was naive.
It wasn’t. He was smart, he knew not everyone’s intentions were as good as his were. It was just that he didn’t assume that of anyone. Not until he had irrefutable proof. Sometimes not even then.
All the same, as I turned to face Audrey, Simon’s hand curled around my hip. Another warm shiver ran through me, skin prickling all over at the subtle possessiveness.
Audrey’s gaze darted to the same hip. She hadn’t missed it.
She turned a brilliant smile on Simon. Without the bright red lipstick of yesterday, it was a little less sharklike.
“I am!” she enthused. “Do you run?”
Simon laughed. “Not unless I’m being chased. Not even then, honestly. In the event of an apocalypse, it’s safe to say the zombies will get me first.”
Audrey laughed. It wasn’t the kind of laugh that was for show—it was genuine, punctuated by a snort she covered up with her hand, color rising on her cheeks.
She was pretty. All Delilah’s friends were.
“We were just getting breakfast,” he added. “Away from, y’know…” He trailed off with a gesture in the direction of the house.
“The chaos?” Audrey finished for him, smiling wryly. “Yeah, I hear you. I love Dee with all my heart but she is not coping well with pre-wedding jitters and she’s taking it out on everyone in sight.”
I grimaced involuntarily.
“Sorry,” Audrey said. “She’s your sister, I shouldn’t talk about her like that.”
That took me by surprise. I waved her off, leaning subtly back toward Simon until my shoulders bumped against his chest. His fingers tightened on my hip.
When he’d first said Audrey had shown up, I’d wished she hadn’t. Now, I hoped she’d hang around as long as possible.
“I know what she’s like,” I said. “I…”
Something about being in contact with Simon must’ve transferred some of the grace he extended to everyone to me, because I couldn’t help thinking now that I’d been rude to Audrey yesterday.
“I, umm, wanted to apologize for the first impression I must’ve made,” I said before I could talk myself out of it.
Audrey’s brows rose, which only made me feel worse. On the other hand, Simon squeezed my hip. That was enough to give me the nudge I needed to go on.
“I was rude to you, and you didn’t deserve it. It wasn’t personal, I just…”
She waved me off. “You were tired and surprised by your mother trying to set you up with me when you already have this gorgeous and attentive boyfriend,” she said, gesturing toward us.
Simon let out a tiny, nervous laugh—the one he always did when someone paid him a compliment.
I tilted my head back to rest on his shoulder. “He is both gorgeous and attentive,” I said, turning to nuzzle his cheek.
It made perfect sense that Audrey had moved on easily from me to obviously being interested in Simon. People were lining up for him this weekend, thanks to his Ellie-assisted glow up.
I wasn’t sure if I should have been grateful to her or not.
“Don’t think this gets you out of telling me about the books you’re working on,” Audrey said.
“Mom’s behind the times,” I said. “I work in middle grade fiction now.”
Audrey beamed—a genuine smile, one that made her eyes twinkle. She was pretty.
Simon could do worse.
“I know,” she said. “I’m a children’s illustrator. I loved the Tiniest Dragon you were worked on. So did my daughter.”
I blinked at her. “Your daughter?”
“Divorced,” Audrey said, still smiling. “Happily. Layla would have loved you to be her new dad, though.”
Layla. The name made me smile automatically.
“Isn’t that the name—wait, is this a trade secret?” Simon asked.
Audrey looked between us, brows drawn.
“The acquisition’s been publicized,” I said to Simon, then turned my attention to Audrey, “I’m about to start work on the first book in a planned series. The protagonist’s name is Layla.”
Audrey lit up. If she had a middle-grade aged daughter, she must have married young. Delilah was only fifteen months younger than me—Audrey could have been a little older than her, but not much, since they’d been in the same class at school.
I’d been unfair about her. Simon would have been disappointed in me if I’d said any of the things I’d thought aloud.
“Send me a portfolio link,” I said as the urge to make it up to her—even if she hadn’t known what I’d been thinking—welled up in my gut. “I can’t make any promises, it’s not my decision, but I can make sure your name’s on the list for the cover and internals.”
Audrey laughed. “Cronyism,” she said. “But I’ll take it. Thank you. Are you guys headed back to the house?”
“We are,” Simon confirmed. “Need a ride?”
Was he interested?
Audrey was turning out to be nicer than I’d imagined. She was beautiful, and now she even came with a daughter. Simon wanted kids one day. He’d make an amazing father. He deserved to get the chance.
Before I could twist my stomach into a pretzel about it, Audrey held up a hand in refusal.
“Oh, no. I’ve still got half a run to finish and I think it might just take me a couple of hours.
But your mom asked me if I’d seen you this morning,” she said to me.
“Figured I’d return the favor you’re doing me by warning you. ”
“We’d better go,” Simon said wryly, squeezing my hip one final time before his hand fell away. The warmth of it lingered like a brand, but I missed the pressure instantly. “See you back at the house?”
“Eventually,” Audrey promised, taking off at a jog and waving without looking back at us.
I watched her go, wondering what Mom wanted with me. I didn’t understand why I was flavor of the month all of a sudden. She usually pretended I didn’t exist.
“You know, we could always stage a big messy breakup,” Simon said as he held Gertrude’s passenger door open for me.
Cold dread dropped into my stomach like a lead weight, my pulse speeding up so fast my ears rang.
“What? Why?” I asked before I could stop myself. If Simon wanted out of this arrangement, I didn’t want to force him to keep it up.
“Audrey,” he said, as though it was obvious, rubbing the back of his neck. “I mean, if you’ve changed your mind about her. She sounds kinda perfect for you?”
Did she?
Maybe on paper. In reality, though…
“I haven’t changed my mind,” I said. “That is, I mean… if you want to go home, I’ll—”
Simon stopped me with a raised hand. “If you want me here, I’m staying,” he said. “Just didn’t want to get between you and your soulmate. You were, y’know, flirting a little there.”
“I wasn’t,” I said. “I… umm. I was doing what I thought you’d do. You know. Being kind.”
Simon snorted. “You’re always kind.”
“I thought—”
Simon stopped me again. “Doesn’t matter what you thought.
It only matters what you did. You apologized for being a tiny bit rude, you offered her a golden opportunity.
It was kind. You’re not a bad person because you were annoyed at your mother for springing a blind date on you.
That only happened in your head. It didn’t hurt anyone. ”
I took a breath to respond, but I couldn’t think of anything to say to that. Simon had cut clean through my bullshit, like always. I wished Audrey was still here so I could kiss him.
“You’re not a bad person, Theo,” he added, soft and gentle. “Don’t let your family get into your head.”
Easier said than done, but he knew that. He was here with me because he knew it.
I could never have deserved him in a million years.
“Let’s head back.”