Chapter 5 #2
“This was my parents’ house.” Torin gestured with his pint glass to the room.
“My dad passed a few years back and my mum needed to move into assisted living for her Parkinson’s.
I rent this from her, but she refuses to take much from me.
She also won’t let me help with the cost of the assisted care community she’s chosen.
The only way around that I’ve found is to have a tenant that I can collect rent from.
Since she hasn’t asked to see the lease, she hasn’t questioned the amount of rent I’m giving to her. ”
Understanding filled me. “So you’re giving her far more than I’m paying, aren’t you?”
“Indeed.” Torin’s expression was inscrutable, but I couldn’t help but warm toward a man so willing to go to uncomfortable lengths to help his mother. He clearly didn’t need a roommate but had been willing to open his home to one if it meant helping his mum.
“But…”
“But I don’t know if you’re the answer. I don’t know how I feel about Loren Brae knowing you’re living here. And frankly, I’m not sure how much your chaotic energy will disrupt my life.” Torin squeezed his eyes shut as he realized what he’d said. “Sorry. That whole truth spell thing.”
“It’s okay.” I slumped back into my chair, deflated. “You’re not wrong. Chaos seems to follow me wherever I go.”
“I like a simple life,” Torin said. “Quiet. Unbothered. I like to be in the trees. I have more work than I know what to do with. I’m not home much. But when I am …”
“You want peace and quiet.” I understood what he was saying. Which meant he was also going to flip when he heard what I had in mind. “But don’t you get lonely? Do you go out much?”
“Here and there. I’ll grab a pint with the lads when I’ve got time. But until you can fix this spell issue, I’m not sure I’ll be going out much, no.”
I noticed Torin didn’t answer my question about if he got lonely or not. I guess that was one way to get around the truth spell. He could just choose not to answer a question.
“So…”
Torin pinned me with his gaze, and I gulped, nerves pinging around in my stomach and making me fidget in my chair.
“Spit it out,” Torin ordered.
“I wasn’t able to find a direct solution to the truth spell issue. Yet.” I winced as Torin’s face hardened. “I did find some options for reversing spells, generically, but I’m worried that I could inadvertently make the situation worse. I’d like to proceed with caution.”
“Then I’m stuck? How am I meant to go out in public? What do I say when Mrs. MacPherson at the shops asks me to go on a date with her daughter, who I’m fairly certain isn’t into men at all?”
“Um, you can say you’re busy?” I took a deep breath. It was now or never. “Or, you could say… that you were already dating someone.”
“Who? That would be lying.” Torin looked at me like I was not the sharpest knife in the drawer.
“Um, me?” I suggested and Torin jumped out of the chair, shocking me with his movements.
“You?” he shouted and I winced, gritting my teeth together. “Do you have any idea how that would look?”
“Admittedly, not great, but I’m sure it would be fine. In time,” I said, folding the paper napkin he’d given me in half. And then half again as he paced.
“How does that even make sense, Liora? Please. Make it make sense for me.”
“It wouldn’t be real dating,” I rushed to explain, folding the napkin faster so I could get my words out. “It would be fake dating. Just until we get the truth spell turned around.”
“How does that even make sense?” Torin scoffed, and tears stung my eyes.
I’d never been great at keeping my emotions in check when someone was mad at me.
“I mean, it sounded like you find me attractive. So you wouldn’t have to worry about saying the wrong thing to someone else. You could just say you were dating me, and nobody would be the wiser, right?”
“Of all the wild ideas…” Torin stopped his pacing and gaped at me. “You want to fake date? After the whole town thought I cheated with you years ago? Simply because you think that I’m attracted to you?”
“I mean, not only because of that. It was just … you said some pretty explicit stuff about me earlier … so it seemed like … and it could explain why I was living here … and I … it was just a thought … I don’t know…
” Helplessness reared up in me, and then a tear spilled over, streaking down my cheek, and I sniffed, furious with myself for even proposing such an idea.
“You’re crying?” Torin shouted, incredulous, and I hung my head, another tear dripping down my cheek.
“Aye,” I whispered, unfolding the napkin to dash at my cheeks.
“Bloody hell, woman.” Torin rounded the table and surprised me by dropping to his knees by my chair. “Please don’t cry. I can’t handle it.”
“I can’t help it. I don’t do well with people getting mad at me.” I sniffed and tried to hold my emotions back as a sob welled in my throat. It was more than just Torin shouting at me. I’d had a shite few weeks. How had I even gotten myself into this position?
“I’m not mad …” I looked down at where Torin’s face contorted, and then he stopped as the truth spell prevented him from completing the sentence.
Then he sighed and tried again. “Right. I am mad at you, but not in the way you probably think. I’m just not super pleased with this situation, okay?
It’s messy and I like neat and orderly. All of a sudden I can’t control what I’m saying, I have the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in real life living in my house, and now you want to pretend to date. ”
My mouth fell open at the same time as Torin’s and he swore roundly, standing back up to pace the room.
“What the hell, Liora? How am I supposed to live around you when I say things like that?”
“I mean, I’m not mad about you saying those things,” I admitted, wiping my eyes. “It’s nice to hear someone actually thinks I’m pretty.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Distracted, Torin whirled and braced his arms on the table, glowering down at me.
“It’s just … I’m not conventionally pretty.” I shrugged and stopped myself. The last thing we needed was to parade all my faults this evening. I’d already had enough embarrassment for the day, hadn’t I?
“And who, in their right mind, wants conventionally pretty?” Torin’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Your beauty is unusual, eye-catching, like the sun creating a rainbow in the dew clinging to a spider’s web at dawn.”
I froze, physically unable to speak, as he stared at me, his eyes unreadable.
Was that really what he thought of me? Nobody had ever compared me to such a fragile and delicate beauty before and I had no idea how to respond. My heart hammered, and I heaved in a breath, unsure of how to proceed.
Torin swallowed and visibly composed himself.
“So. There’s that. I see how this truth spell situation could cause quite a problem.” Torin turned and began to pace again while my thoughts scrambled to come back from being called beautiful. By him.
“I just thought fake dating might cover the situation for a bit, but it was probably a stupid idea.” I laughed at myself and took a wobbly gulp of my wine. “Just another harebrained scheme, I guess.”
“But it would have to be real, for it to work.”
I froze and turned to where Torin now stood, his back to me, staring at the fire. Had he just said he wanted to really date me? I stood, and taking my wine glass with me, walked over so I could see his expression as he stared into the fire.
“What do you mean by that, exactly?” I asked.
“It’s just that if anyone asked me if we were dating, and I couldn’t lie, I’d have to tell them we were fake dating. So it doesn’t really help, does it? Unless we date. For real.” Torin lifted his head and looked at me, and I could see the flames flickering in the reflection in his eyes.
It mirrored the flames flickering in my tummy.
Was he proposing we actually date? No, he couldn’t possibly be. He just needed to word it that way so he would not lie to anyone. But I would know it was fake. And surely, on some level, he would know that as well.
“But … what would that look like? How would it be real? If it’s …
not.” I stopped, feeling awkward. Turning, I plopped down onto his couch and finished my glass of wine, leaning over to put the empty glass on the table.
Torin snapped to attention, and without asking, he picked up my glass and crossed the room.
I turned, watching how he moved through the space, confident and comfortable, even though his body radiated tension.
Opening another beer, he poured it into a pint glass and filled my wine glass before returning to the couch with our drinks.
“I don’t know.” Torin sat across from me, and I cradled my wine glass, watching as the fire lit the warm liquid in the glass.
“But it might work. It would explain you living here without me having to discuss my mum’s finances and medical woes with the world, and it would be easy enough to explain anything untoward I said about my attraction to you. ”
“You’re really attracted to me?” I couldn’t help but fixate on that last part.
My stomach twisted, but not with nerves this time.
Something else pulled at me, long and liquid and lovely, and I couldn’t help but shift on the couch, crossing my legs more tightly.
It had been a very long time since I’d dated anyone.
Years? No one had taken me, my work, seriously.
So, I’d stopped trying. I hadn’t realized until this moment how I’d missed feeling as though I was attractive to a man.
“It’s impossible not to be.” Torin shrugged away my question as if it was a given.
I honestly had no words. I could not believe that this gorgeous, confident man, was attracted to me. I had so many more questions. I opened my mouth to ask if he’d always been attracted to me but stopped when Torin held up a finger.
“Don’t, Liora.” Torin’s voice rasped, and he took a sip of his beer. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to.”
“But what if I do want the answers?”