Chapter Five #2
“MUTUALLY BENEFICIAL?!” My voice has gone up about three octaves. “This says I have to pretend to date you!”
“Only for work functions and select social obligations.”
“I didn’t—this can’t be—” I wave the papers at him like they’re on fire. “WHAT IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW?”
“You signed it.”
“Because I didn’t think there’d be a secret fake dating clause buried in the middle!”
“It’s not secret.” His voice is infuriatingly calm. “It’s on page fifteen. Clearly outlined.”
“WHO PUTS THAT IN A ROOMMATE AGREEMENT?!”
Crew just shrugs. “Someone who needs a fake girlfriend.”
I stare at him, bewildered and breathing hard. Then it clicks.
“The rent.” I let out a strangled laugh. “You lowered the rent. I thought you were being nice, but you—” I jab a finger at him. “You were buttering me up. Like I’m a brisket.”
“I wouldn’t say buttering—”
“Oh my God. Oh my God.”
The silence stretches between us, broken only by Murphy meowing from somewhere in the living room, completely unbothered by the chaos unfolding in the kitchen.
“Are you serious right now?” I finally manage.
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“I need a minute.” I hold up a hand when he opens his mouth to speak. “No. Shh. I need to process.”
He starts to say something anyway, and I do the only thing I can think of—I grab a cookie from the cooling rack and shove it in his mouth.
He blinks at me, a cookie sticking out from between his lips, looking so startled that I almost laugh despite my fury.
“Chew,” I instruct. “Quietly. While I figure out whether to kill you or hear you out.”
He chews—quietly.
I take a breath. Then another. My heart is pounding, and my brain is spinning. I can’t believe I signed a contract agreeing to be some stranger’s fake girlfriend without even reading it.
Actually, no. I absolutely can believe it. It’s exactly the kind of impulsive, skim-the-fine-print mistake I would make.
Gavin is going to have a field day with this.
“Okay.” I pull out a chair and sit down heavily. “Explain. From the beginning. Why do you need a fake girlfriend badly enough to put it in a legally binding document?”
Crew swallows the last of his cookie and leans against the counter, arms crossed. For a long moment, I don’t think he’s going to answer.
Then he sighs, and something in his posture shifts—softens, just slightly. “My boss wants to transfer me to Alaska.”
“Alaska?”
“Anchorage. It’s, uh, technically a promotion—heading up a task force—but I can’t…” He stops, then starts again. “I’ve spent two years building a life here. Finding doctors I trust. Getting my medication right. Establishing routines that keep me functional.”
I wasn’t expecting that—the medication part. The vulnerability in his voice when he says it.
“Medication for what?” I ask, then immediately backtrack. “Sorry, you don’t have to answer that. That’s personal.”
“It’s okay. I have uh, anxiety. And OCD.
” He says it flatly, like he’s reading from a medical chart.
“I have intrusive thoughts—worst-case scenarios on repeat. My brain likes to convince me that everything is about to fall apart, and the only way to prevent it is to control every variable in my environment.”
I think about the seventeen-page contract, the alphabetized spice rack, the way he washed my coffee mug within twelve minutes of me setting it down. His whole energy that I thought was just a mister-type A alpha thing is…anxiety and OCD?
“That sounds exhausting,” I say softly.
“It is.” He’s not looking at me now, his gaze fixed somewhere over my shoulder.
“Therapy helps. So does medication. But it took a long time to find what works, and if I move to Alaska, I have to start over. New doctors. New routines. Time zones that’ll mess with my circadian rhythm. New everything.”
Without thinking, I push the plate of cookies toward him. He glances at it, then at me, and something flickers across his face—surprise, maybe. Or gratitude.
He takes another cookie. “Anyway, my friend Foster suggested that having ties to the community might be enough to get my boss off my back,” he continues. “A serious relationship. Roots. Something that makes it harder to justify uprooting me.”
“So you decided to… what? Trick your roommate into being your fake girlfriend?”
“It seemed logical at the time.”
“Logical.” I let out a disbelieving huff. “It’s insane.”
“You’ve mentioned that.”
“Why couldn’t you just… I don’t know, get a real girlfriend? You’re not exactly hard to look at.” The words slip out before I can stop them, and I feel my cheeks flush. “I mean—you know. You’re tall. And employed. Women like that.”
He’s quiet for a moment. “I don’t do relationships.”
“Ever?”
“Ever.” His eyes meet mine briefly.
“Like, not even in college? High school?”
“No.”
I stare at him. “You’ve never had a girlfriend.”
“No.”
“But you’ve…” I gesture vaguely, feeling my face heat up. “You know. You’re not a virgin.”
The corner of his mouth twitches, almost forming a smile. “I’ve had sex, Emmie. I’m not a monk.”
“Right. Okay. Good to know.” I’m definitely blushing now. “So you’ve had sex, but never a relationship. Why?”
He’s quiet for so long that I don’t think he’s going to answer. When he finally does, his voice is rougher than before.
“I grew up in foster care. Eleven homes before I aged out. Then I joined the military, which gave me structure but not exactly emotional intelligence.” He picks at the edge of his cookie. “I don’t trust easily. I don’t know how to… open up. Let people in. And women usually want…more.”
“So you’re not good at feelings?” I suggest.
“Not good at being human,” he corrects, and there’s a wryness to it that makes my chest ache.
I think about what he said earlier. Intrusive thoughts. Worst-case scenarios. A brain that constantly tells him everything is about to fall apart.
I recall the way he looked at Murphy last night, betrayed that his own cat liked me better. The way he stood in my doorway watching me decorate, eye twitching but not stopping me. The way he washed my mug without saying anything, managing his discomfort quietly so I wouldn’t have to change.
Crew Jensen is a disaster wrapped in control issues, wrapped in a really excellent body.
And apparently, I’m his fake girlfriend now.
I pull the contract toward me and read through Section 7 again, more carefully this time.
Attending work functions. Okay, I can do that.
Answering phone calls with “appropriate enthusiasm.” Vague, but mangeable.
Social media presence. I barely post anyway, so two photos a month isn’t a big deal.
Two months’ duration, or until the transfer is canceled.
“So let me get this straight,” I say slowly. “You need me to pretend to be your girlfriend for a couple of months, show up to some work events, post some cute pictures, and then we’re done?”
“That’s the general idea.”
“And in exchange, I get…”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. What do you want?”
I want none of this. That’s what I want.
This is insane. This is absolutely insane. I should tear up this contract, find a new apartment, and pretend I never met Crew Jensen with his stupid gray eyes and his stupidly perfect forearms.
But.
I need this apartment. I need the stability. The rent’s within budget. And honestly, something inside me feels a twinge of sadness for him—the big, muscular man who has probably never experienced love in his entire life.
There’s also the way he shared his story with me—the foster care, the anxiety, the therapy—that makes me believe he rarely opens up to anyone. Yet, he confided in me. Plus he did lower the rent from what he initially wanted for the room.
“Okay,” I hear myself say.
His eyebrows raise in surprise. “Okay?”
“I’ll do it, but on one condition.”
“And that is?”
I grab a pen from the clutter on the table and flip to a blank page in my notebook. “I have some rules of my own.”