Act Like You Love Me (An Accidentally in Love Novel) (Entangled: Bliss)

by Madsen, Cindi

  Her hook came up, and she cast it again, sloppier than she usually did—sloppy enough her dad would’ve had a stroke over how he’d failed as a teacher—and started the process of reeling it in. “So you didn’t answer the question. Is moving to California what you want?”

  Sawyer recast his line—in the same too-far spot. “What I want is to write movies that make people laugh, cry, grip the edge of their seat. Whatever reaction, I want it to be big. To make an impact.” He ran his thumb over the handle of the fishing pole. “Cheesy, right?”

  She couldn’t keep from reaching out and giving his wrist a quick squeeze. “Not at all.”

  It was a good thing he was just her practice boyfriend and she was lowering her expectations, because otherwise she’d think this was one of those moments where they had a deep connection and everything would be forever changed between them.

  “So, why’d you— I think I got something.” He jerked up the pole and sure enough, the end was bent and the line tight. Her line was still slack, blowing in the breeze, so she was extra glad she hadn’t said anything about him casting too far out. She scooted away from him so their lines wouldn’t tangle.

  “You wanna reel it in?” he asked.

  “You go ahead. You caught it.”

  “No, seriously, drop your pole and get over here. I’ll help you.”

  Well, if he was going to help her… She set down her pole and moved toward him. He put both arms around her and let her take over reeling it in. “Spin it as fast as you can. He’s hooked good, so don’t give him any slack.”

  The fish was fighting hard, and it was obviously a big one. Her arms started burning from the exertion.

  “You got it,” he said, his lips right by her ear. When the large bass finally came out of the water, she couldn’t help but squeal like it was actually her first time catching a fish. She glanced over her shoulder to find him grinning back at her.

  And it took everything in her to keep from dropping the pole and kissing him again.

  “So how’d you like your first time fishing?” Sawyer asked after walking her to her front door.

  It was way too late to clarify that she’d been fishing multiple times and knew enough about bait and lures to star on her own fishing show.

  Sawyer’s eyebrows rose, and she realized she still needed to answer. Since she was trying not to be a complete liar, she went with, “I had a nice time fishing with you.”

  Usually this would be the part where she waxed poetic about the breeze carrying the scent of flowers and the glittering lake, and how she didn’t want it to end. But she stopped herself. She needed to maintain an air of mystery. This method was taking some getting used to, but it was actually working. Sawyer was leaning in, his hand gripping the doorframe, his gaze fixed on her lips.

  “Well, I’ll see you later,” she said, pulling away. Hopefully leaving him wanting more.

  “Maybe next time we can rent a boat and take it out on the lake. Or if you’re done with fishing, we could do something else…” He shot her a smile that made the rest of the world fade to gray.

  Danger. This was the point where she could turn back into her usual babbling self if she wasn’t careful. Focus, Brynn, focus. Cool. Indifferent. “Maybe.”

  She closed her door, waited five whole seconds, and then did a celebratory dance. She did it! She’d actually pulled it off.

  Chapter Seven

  Drawn by the scent of brewing coffee, Sawyer padded into the kitchen, squinting against the light.

  “I’m about to make some eggs,” Mom said, pulling a carton out of the fridge. “You want bacon, too?”

  “Do you even have to ask?” He got out a mug and filled it with coffee. After a couple of nights sleeping at the house, he’d decided he needed a solid eight hours on a comfy mattress, so he’d come back to Mom’s. It’d taken him forever to fall asleep, though, because he kept picturing Brynn out by the lake, her thin cotton dress blowing in the breeze. He replayed having his arms around her, and then he was coming up with ideas to get her to go out with him again. He’d never be able to keep from kissing her next time, especially if she was going to smile at him the way she had yesterday.

  “You look happy this morning.” Mom put several strips of bacon into the skillet.

  “It’s a good morning.” He’d forgotten what it was like to wake up looking forward to the day instead of planning ways to get through it. How addictive it was, that desire to see another person, before it got messed up and overly complicated. Even though he knew it couldn’t last forever, he was going to let himself enjoy it for a few hours before he screwed it up with thinking. “By the way, there’s a bass in the fridge. I caught it yesterday and thought maybe we’d have it for dinner tonight or tomorrow.”

  What was really crazy was he wanted to ask Brynn to come over. He could say that she needed to taste the fish she caught. But that was a bad idea. Mom would start expecting him to stay, and he had no doubt she’d instantly get attached to Brynn. Not to mention it would probably scare Brynn away.

  But maybe he could swing by her place later. Or maybe he should play it cool and wait to talk to her tomorrow at rehearsal. Tomorrow night suddenly seemed so far away, though.

  “How’s the house coming?” Mom asked. “Are you sure we don’t need to hire someone to help you?”

  “I’m sure. I’m enjoying doing it, actually.” He took a sip of coffee. “Everything’s in the transitioning stage, but I’ll start on new flooring next week. I was hoping you’d go with me to help pick it out. Make sure it’s something you like.”

  Mom waved a hand through the air. “It doesn’t matter what I like.”

  “Still. I could use your help.” Sawyer took in the faded wallpaper and the linoleum from the eighties. “I could help you fix up this place, too, if you wanted.”

  “Oh, I don’t need anything fancy.”

  Once again, Mom was putting everything she wanted last. It was why the lake house never got renovated until now, for someone else, instead of years ago, for her. “I’m not saying fancy, but just a little update. Whatever you want.”

  “Why don’t you look for a place that you’d like instead? There are some nice homes that recently went up for sale a few streets over. Or if that’s too close to me, then the east side is nice. And when you think about it, it’s kind of silly to put so much work into the lake house only to turn around and sell it when you could—”

  “Mom…you know I’m not staying. This isn’t my home anymore. New York is.” He’d said it without thinking, because that was how he felt. But since he was trying to sell the California idea—to her and to himself—he added, “Or possibly Los Angeles, if that’s where I need to go for my career.”

  Mom didn’t say anything, but her shoulders tensed. She cracked the eggs so hard he was pretty sure there’d be shells in the pan. “I thought you could write from anywhere.”

  “Me, too, but if there’s more opportunity…” He didn’t want to say much else because he knew they’d simply talk in circles, the way they seemed to whenever this subject came up.

  “Is it so bad that I want you to settle down? Start a family?”

  Was it so bad that he didn’t want those things? She’d definitely say yes.

  Mom clung to family life, to being here, like she needed and cherished the memories. When Sawyer looked around, though, he only remembered the bad. That last part of his senior year, when it was clear Dad wasn’t going to hold on much longer and Mom had to do everything for him, from feeding him to taking him to the bathroom. Earlier that year Sawyer had football to distract him, but right before graduation, he stopped going to class, and when he actually went, he was outlining in his notebook. That was when he’d written his first screenplay. It was full of awful lines and had no plot, but it’d been the perfect escape. So when Dad died a few months later, Sawyer jumped at the chance to get away from this place. He’d moved to New York and worked at odd jobs until he finally got accepted to the New York Film Academy
. And he’d never looked back.

  He didn’t have the desire to get married and have kids, and he wanted it even less after his last relationship.

  But none of that would make Mom feel better—in fact, it’d crush her. So he set down his mug and tried to sound as though having a family might be in his future someday. “I’m only twenty-five, Mom. Don’t worry; I’ve got time for all that other stuff later.”

  “You never know how much time you have,” she said.

  There was nothing he could really say to that. But it did make him realize Mom was right about limited time. So screw playing it cool. Sawyer wanted to spend every second he could with the girl who’d made him fall asleep with a smile on his face.

  …

  On Sundays, the bait and tackle shop opened an hour early—at seven instead of eight—and closed at four instead of six. Since her family’s only religion was fishing, Brynn used to think that was why. But now she suspected Mom was just that serious about everyone sitting down for Sunday dinner. In the past hour alone, she had sent no less than ten texts, everything from asking about wine choices, to salad dressings, to what exact time Brynn was getting there, and did Paul know that dinner was starting at five sharp?

  “I’m sure you’ve texted him a hundred times to remind him,” Brynn muttered. She wasn’t sure what was going on with Mom, but she was taking stressing over dinner to a whole new level. Apparently she wanted to make a really good impression on Paul’s new girlfriend.

  I still can’t believe I haven’t gotten any of the info on this girl. She would’ve bugged Paul about her this morning, but he’d called in, asking if she and Travis could handle the store without him today.

  He hadn’t taken a day off in weeks, so of course she’d told him it was no problem. And it wasn’t. It’d been slow, and they’d done most of the closing jobs already.

  “Should I flip the sign to closed?” Travis asked.

  Brynn glanced at the clock. Four on the dot. “Yeah, and the place is clean already, so you can go ahead and leave. I’ll take care of everything else.”

  Travis grabbed the bag of lures he’d bought at a deep discount and his fishing pole from the back and headed out the back door, on his way to the lake, no doubt. Brynn changed the channel on the TV to a music station, ejected the cash register drawer, and got to work closing out for the day.

  Like the theater, the empty fishing store held a hint of magic. But instead of stories to be told about love and tragedy, there were possibilities of record-breaking fish and tales of the one that got away.

  A package with a Scum Frog popper caught her eye, and Brynn picked it up and smiled. Maybe there were possibilities of love stories behind some of the lures here.

  Only I’m just supposed to be practicing how to fall in love. A knot formed in her gut. She tossed the lure aside and tried to focus on numbers, but she ended up having to recount the credit card receipts twice.

  Finally, she got everything closed down and then headed to her car, thinking she’d get to Mom and Dad’s with five minutes to spare.

  Her phone chirped and she groaned. When she read the message, though, her stomach sank.

  You did get the dessert, right?

  She’d meant to pick up the cake from the bakery first thing that morning, but she’d gotten distracted thinking about the cute guy she went fishing with yesterday and automatically drove to the store.

  Mom’s going to kill me. Brynn glanced at her car and then down the street, where the bakery sat. It was at that three-block-away mark where it was almost silly to drive and almost silly not to. The street looked pretty crowded, though—apparently there were lots of people out and about this Sunday evening. Not wanting to waste even more time looking for parking, she hurried down the sidewalk. She made it two blocks, then had to stop for the red light.

  She heard a tapping noise. Then it got louder. She glanced around, trying to find the origin. Then she spotted Sawyer sitting in the corner of the Daily Grind Coffee Shop, knocking on the window.

  The pedestrian crosswalk sign flashed from red to white, but walking away from Sawyer felt rude—regardless of the fact that he’d done it to her before.

  If she blew him off now, though, she might not get another chance to practice her flirting on him. It had worked like a charm yesterday, giving her a much-needed ego boost, and she was curious if she could keep it up. Practice makes perfect, and there was a date with a hot cop on the line, after all.

  Brynn moved closer to the window and waved, flashing him what she hoped was an alluring grin. Sawyer held up a finger in the universal sign for hold on. He twisted back to his table, where she saw he had a laptop, notebook, and large coffee cup. He scribbled something on his notebook, ripped out the sheet of paper, and then held it against the window. In big block print it said call me and then had his number underneath.

  She dialed it, feeling silly standing outside the window calling him while he was right there, only a thick pane of glass away. “Call you now?” she asked when he answered.

  “No, call me later. Get in here now.”

  “I can’t. I’m late for…” Crap. If she told him she was late for family dinner, then that would undo all of her—she still didn’t want to call them lies. More like her carefully crafted character. Yeah, that sounded better.

  “Stop trying to think of an excuse,” Sawyer said, his deep voice soothing and undoing her at the same time. “You already took too long for me to believe any lame excuse you’d come up with now. It’s starting to give me a complex, actually, and I can’t write when I feel like that. Since you’re the cause, you need to get in here and fix it.”

  “But I—”

  He hung up the phone, crossed his arms, and stared at her. She so didn’t have time for this, but she couldn’t exactly walk away. Her phone chimed with another text from Mom.

  Brynn glanced toward the bakery and then back at Sawyer. He frowned, a dramatic, made-for-the-stage kind of frown. And here she’d thought he was a serious guy. With a sigh, she backtracked to the coffee shop door, took a moment to inhale the delicious rich scent inside, and moved to where Sawyer was seated. The chair across from him scooted out—he’d obviously pushed it with his foot—and he gestured for her to sit down.

  Brynn twisted the bauble ring on her finger. “I really do have somewhere I need to be. In fact, I’m super late, and I shouldn’t have even come in here in the first place.”

  “What do you want? I’m on my third cup of coffee, so I’m thinking it might be time to switch to something else.” He stood, so close their bodies were all but touching, and she wondered just how angry her mom would be if she skipped tonight’s dinner.

  Probably somewhere between nuclear and apocalyptic fall-out.

  Her phone dinged. “One second.” Mom. Of course. At times like these, she wished she hadn’t insisted her mom learn to text. Then again, she’d be calling otherwise.

  Brynn sent a quick text back telling Mom that she was running a little late but would be there ASAP. Mom’s reply asked where Paul was and why he wasn’t there yet, so she sent another text explaining she didn’t know, but she knew he was coming.

  When she glanced up from her phone, she noticed something in Sawyer’s eyes—she swore he was looking at her like she was…pretty. Her heart swelled and she got that fresh-off-a-roller-coaster feeling. Everyone else—everything else—disappeared.

  Her hand moved to his face like it had a mind of its own. She ran her palm down his stubbled cheek. “You look nice. Very writerly.”

  He grinned. “You look nice, too. Very…” His eyes ran down her, burning every spot they touched. “I don’t even know the right word. And I use words all day.”

  She laughed. “Whereas the rest of us don’t?”

  He slipped his hands behind her waist, pulling her to him. She could feel the heat coming off him, and it was distracting to say the least. “Ah, back to mocking me again. You think I’m just going to let you get away with that?”

  He
r heart pounded against her rib cage, and being this close was making her lightheaded in a way that made clarity seem overrated. “You walked right into it. Really, you only have yourself to blame.”

  Her phone dinged again, vibrating in her pocket. “I’m sorry, but I’ve gotta go.” She reluctantly pulled away, hating how cold she suddenly felt without her body pressed against his. And for a crazy moment, she considered asking him to come to dinner. Confessing everything and turning whatever this was between them into a real possibility.

  But then she remembered the only reason he was this interested was because she’d been pretending to be someone else whenever she was around him. And according to what he said yesterday, he wasn’t even sure he was staying here permanently. In a way, that might be good. If she crashed and burned during this dating test-run—which, let’s face it, wouldn’t be all that surprising—he’d leave again, taking her humiliation with him.

  Still, she couldn’t get over the way he was smiling at her, genuine happiness swimming in his green eyes. How his hand drifted back to her waist, as though he couldn’t help himself.

  He seems…like he might seriously be interested. In me.

  Now she was imagining things. Dreaming them up like she always did, making every gesture mean more than it did. He didn’t care about her. She was a mystery, like Paul told her to be. It was possible he was only looking for a temporary girl while he was here, and she happened to be the closest.

  “I’ll catch you later,” she said as though she didn’t care either way.

  “You have my number,” he said as she retreated. When she glanced back, he was still watching her like there wasn’t anyone else in the room.

  Mom swung open the door and threw her arms around Brynn, nearly crushing the Double Chocolate Dream Cake between them. “Goodness gracious, I thought you must’ve gotten into an accident on your way here, you took so long.”

  Ah, hugs and a guilt trip, all at the same time. That’s motherly love for you.

  Brynn patted Mom’s back. “I’m fine. And I’m sorry I’m late. Is Paul here yet?” This was a win-win question because if he was, Mom would stop focusing on how Brynn was late, and if he wasn’t, Mom would focus on how he was late.