by Emma Hart
“You’re good, Kirst, really. I’m not taking a date.”
“No, no, you are. She has the same weird sense of humor as you do. You just have to pretend to like her.”
“No pressure, then.”
“Listen to this! She’s a hoot!” She sat up a little straighter. “Okay. Name: Lauren Green. Age: Twenty-five. Profession: I’d have to kill you if I told you.
“Offering my services as a fake date for one night only. Got a wedding you need a date for? I’m a classy girl in public with a dirty side in private. How about a family get-together where you’re the only single grandchild going? This blue-eyed brunette with a passion for pizza is the one you’ve been looking for. Or if you’re heading to a party and need to make that one person jealous—I’ve got an ass you could crack diamond on. Contact me at [email protected] with your needs. And no, I’m not charging. But I’m not buying my own drinks either.”
Against my will, I snorted.
All right, I would admit it. Once.
Whoever this Lauren was, she was good.
“Kirsty, no.” I shook my head. “I’m not taking a date, much less a stranger.”
She bit her lower lip. “Problem.”
“If you tell me you already emailed her and set it up—”
“Okay, then, I won’t.”
I put my coffee cup down and buried my face in my hands. She had to be joking. There was no way she’d emailed a total stranger based upon a humorous Craigslist ad and set me up with the writer of said ad.
Was there?
Wait, scratch that shit.
This was my sister. My annoying younger sister who’d made it her life’s mission to get all up in my business at every available opportunity.
She had.
She’d emailed this Lauren girl.
“Kirsty…” I pinched the bridge of my nose and peered over at her. “Don’t tell me you’ve emailed her and set this up.”
She held her hands up and scooted the stool back a little. “Like I said, I won’t.”
“For fuck’s sake!”
“She’s gonna be there!” Kirsty stood up and pointed at me. “Do you want to show up there, single, while she’s flaunting her piece of shit?”
My jaw tightened as I gritted my teeth. “Claudia’s business is no longer mine. I couldn’t give a fuck if she shows up in a horse-drawn carriage with some foreign prince on her arm. She cheated. I ended it. It is what it is.”
“She’s going to take him, and you know it.” She raised her eyebrows. “Do you really want to show up with freaking Trevor of all people?”
“I don’t give a shit what Claudia does. She can go with who she pleases. I’m not going to go with some strange woman to make a point to a woman I no longer care about.”
“Come on. It’s been five months. Just long enough for you to move on but not so much that you don’t care about what she’s doing.”
“I don’t care.” I passed her a cup of coffee. “Honestly, Kirst, I don’t. I haven’t thought about her in weeks. I don’t need to take some stranger to an event I couldn’t give a shit about just to get under her skin.”
Kirsty stirred some sugar into her coffee. “Sure you do. It’ll be funny.”
I side-eyed her as she sipped. “I’m glad my life is a source of amusement for you. I’m not taking anyone to the reunion.”
“Oh, come on. You know what Claudia’s like. She’s going to lord her new relationship over you.”
“I could show up with Naomi Campbell on my arm and she’d still lord it over me,” I replied dryly. “I’m not taking a stranger.”
“Then meet her before. She won’t be a stranger then.”
“You’ve lost your damn mind.”
“Can’t lose something I never had.” She grinned. “Besides, she’s already swapped her shift to go.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. I didn’t need to get my eyes tested to see that I was fighting a losing battle. She’d organized this fully behind my back because she knew I wouldn’t agree to it.
She was a pain in my fucking ass.
“Just do it,” Kirsty said. “I’ll give you her number so you can text before. At least you’ll know a little about each other. And, if you’re really only staying an hour, then it won’t be hard to fake it.”
I sighed and leaned forward in despair. “Fine. Give me her number.”
And I’d use it to cancel the damn date.
***
MASON: Hi. This is Mason. My sister Kirsty gave me your number.
I had no idea what else to say to her to open this line of conversation. It was the most awkward fucking thing I’d ever done, and I’d once ended up on a blind date with a woman old enough to be my mother.
Still didn’t know how that’d happened.
Oh, that’s right—the internet happened.
I swigged from my beer and ran my fingers through my still-wet hair. Lauren’s number had been burning a hole in my pocket all day when I was at work to the point that I’d been distracted and almost plastered my own thumb to a wall.
I glanced at my phone. Still no reply. Why would there be? It’d been fucking minutes.
Jesus Christ, this was going to be the end of me.
It was why I had to cancel it. My nosy ass sister was a thorn in my side, and this date was not a good thing.
I’d meant it when I’d told her that I couldn’t give a flying, dancing shit about my ex-fiancé. Claudia Simmons was nobody to me now. That’d changed the moment I’d found her in bed with one of her co-workers six months ago.
She’d thrown six years of a relationship down the drain for a quick roll in the hay—and she wasn’t even seeing the guy anymore.
She was seeing her boss instead.
She could stay there. She was nothing more than a social climber, and while I’d been thinking about spending my life with her, she’d been thinking about how she could level up and find someone richer than me.
It bugged her more than anything that I was happy to be a builder. That I was content in my “little person’s job,” as she’d once called it.
It was no wonder that I wasn’t all for dating, really.
My phone buzzed with an incoming text message. Lauren’s name appeared on screen, and I picked it up to see her response.
LAUREN: Hi. I’m Lauren. Your sister said you’d text.
Jesus, was Kirsty striking up a friendship with this—admittedly witty—stranger?
MASON: Look, I need to be honest. She set this up entirely. I wasn’t looking for a date for the reunion.
Her response was swift.
LAUREN: Ah. I did wonder. So you don’t need a date?
MASON: She responded to your ad because my ex is going to be at the reunion. She hates her and thinks I should have revenge by taking someone with me. I’m sorry she wasted your time.
LAUREN: Don’t worry about it. Honestly, I only put up the stupid ad because my friends and sister were on my back about dating. I didn’t think anyone would actually respond to it, so the joke was on me.
I cracked a smile at that. If I was honest, it was the exact kind of ad I would have responded to if I’d actually needed a date.
MASON: For what it’s worth, I’d have responded if I needed one. It was pretty fucking funny.
LAUREN: Thanks. I was going for off-putting and unattractive, but pretty fucking funny works.
MASON: You probably shouldn’t have put the part about being dirty between the sheets. That’s not how to write an unattractive ad.
LAUREN: Yeah, in hindsight, that was the wine talking.
MASON: It didn’t help your cause.
LAUREN: I know that now.
LAUREN: Can I be nosy?
MASON: My sister wasted your time, so I suppose I can’t say no.
LAUREN: LOL. That’s the most begrudging agreement I’ve ever gotten.
LAUREN: Okay. What did your ex do that was so bad that your sister tried to set you up with a fake date just to get at her?<
br />
I should have known that was coming.
MASON: She cheated on me after six years with a co-worker. It was about six months ago.
LAUREN: Whoa, shit, I’m sorry.
MASON: Don’t worry. I’m over it—Kirsty apparently isn’t.
LAUREN: I guess your ex is going to be at the reunion?
ME: Yeah. We got together when she came home after college. Kirsty hates her, but I couldn’t care less. I’m not looking forward to seeing her, but it’s not the end of the world.
LAUREN: I’m sorry.
MASON: It’s ok. Really. I guess Kirsty thought me taking a date would get under her skin.
LAUREN: Would it?
MASON: Maybe. She’s that kind of person. If she can’t have it, nobody can.
LAUREN: Wow. You’re a good person. I’d be finding the hottest person imaginable and climbing them like a koala in a eucalyptus tree in front of my ex if I were you. I’d rub it in their face so hard they’d get a free facial.
I laughed. Shit, she was a hoot.
And was she right? Was I a good person for not wanting to rub anything in Claudia’s face after what she did to me?
LAUREN: Look, I’m just throwing it out there: I changed my shift anyway and I don’t have any plans. If you decide that you want to be petty, I don’t mind being your fake girlfriend. I’ll even climb you like a tree if you want me to.
Fuck it. I had nothing to lose. If nothing else, she sounded like she’d be a really good time.
MASON: All right, you twisted my arm. They rented out the function room at The Beachside. Send me your address, and I’ll pick you up at six-forty-five.
CHAPTER FOUR – LAUREN
In hindsight, this had all been a terrible idea, from beginning to end.
What in the ever-loving fuck was I doing? I knew nothing about Mason Jackson except what I’d learned from our brief text conversations, and even that had been the basics so that I didn’t look like a total fool when I pretended to be his girlfriend.
He was twenty-eight and worked as a builder. His grandpa had recently moved in with his parents, Mason’s favorite movie was The Equalizer, and his favorite food was buffalo chicken wings.
That was all I needed to know to get through the night.
In return, I’d told him that I was twenty-five, worked as a bartender, lived alone, and had a new baby niece. My favorite movie was Mean Girls and my favorite food was cheeseburgers.
That was all he needed to get through the night.
I was a little more comfortable knowing that the reunion was at the bar where I worked. It meant I wasn’t totally alone, because Stella would probably be working the bar in the function room.
It was weird to think that, if I’d kept the shift, I likely would have met Mason anyway.
I shuddered that thought off and looked at myself in the mirror. My strapless, bright-pink dress seemed a little overkill, but it was my date dress. Not that it was a lucky charm or anything, because if it was, I wouldn’t be single and wouldn’t need a date dress, but it was The Dress.
You know the one. Every woman has The Dress that flatters every part of their body. For me, it was this one. It hugged my boobs like a glove and was fitted to the waist where it flared out all flirty and girly.
It also hid the fluff on my hips, and any dress that could hide the extra few pounds there was a dress you cherished.
At least if you were me. I was pretty sure the cheeseburgers went straight to my hips.
I slipped my feet into nude heels, then checked to make sure that my light-pink lipstick hadn’t smudged.
Thankfully, it hadn’t. I took a few seconds to run the brush through my straight, dark hair one more time, then tucked my lipstick into my clutch purse and headed to the living room.
A check of the time on my phone said Mason was running a few minutes late, and I headed to the kitchen to take a quick swig of wine for courage.
I felt…weird.
I didn’t know how to describe it. This date put a whole new meaning on the idea of a first date, mostly because I had to pretend that I knew the guy whose face I’d never seen.
At some point during the past five days, we’d been casually texting each other, neither one of us had ever thought to ask the other for a picture.
Now, I was regretting it.
Jesus, what if he was ugly? Not that there was anything wrong with it, but I was going to my place of work with him. If he wasn’t attractive, there’d be no getting away from what a disaster it would be.
That was shallow of me. I knew that. I wasn’t exactly proud of it, but I wasn’t going to lie and say that looks didn’t matter to me.
Looks mattered to everyone.
We were biologically inclined to fall in love with and marry and procreate with the person we were most attracted to, and that started with looks.
Again: shallow.
But tell that to biology and evolution, not me. I was just a product of it all.
I was also not a great actress. Seriously. I only participated in one school play, and it’d been a complete disaster. I was not cut out for acting, which brought forth another question about why the hell I was doing this.
I literally had to act the entire night.
Act like I knew Mason.
Act like I was falling for him.
Act like I was attracted to him.
Him being hot was literally the only thing I had to grab onto right now. I needed him to be good looking so that I didn’t have to fake hanging off him or, as I’d said to him in our very first conversation, climbing him like a tree.
Not that I’d do it in public. I wasn’t actually a koala, but hey, it’d made him laugh.
Four knocks at my door made me freeze.
Oh, my God.
He was here.
Swallowing, I smoothed out my dress and approached the door. My hand shook as I reached for the handle and opened the door.
And laid eyes on the most beautiful fucking human being I’d ever seen in my life.
He was a few inches taller than me, even when I was in heels. Muscles filled out the white shirt that was undone at his neck and had the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Light-wash jeans with a rip on each knee hugged his lower body, leading to shiny shoes that peeked out from beneath the bottom of the pants.
He had the thickest dark hair that was swept over to one side; long on top, short on the sides. Dark stubble decorated his chin and jaw, breaking only to reveal full, soft-looking lips that were currently curved up into a small smile.
And the eyes.
Motherfucker, those eyes.
Bright blue. Magnetic. All-consuming.
And they were focused on me, taking me in, from head to toe.
Holy shit, there was a God. And he’d heard my freakin’ prayers because Mason Jackson was surely heaven-sent.
There would be zero problems pretending to climb this man like a tree.
I swallowed. Hard.
“Lauren?” he asked, a twinkle in his eye.
“That’s me. Mason?” I replied, holding out my hand.
He looked at it with a flash of amusement before he took it, gripping it tightly. “That’s me. Sorry I’m late—I got stuck in some traffic in town. Are you ready to go?”
“Yep. Let me grab my purse.” I turned away from him, my eyes widening for a second.
Jesus, he was tall, he was hot, and he shook my hand in a way that said he could grip just about any part of my body and I’d freakin’ love it.
I gripped my clutch and tucked it against my body. Thanks to early summer in Northern Florida, I didn’t need a jacket, so I stepped out into the hall, making sure to lock my door behind me.
“Are you sure you’re okay with this?” Mason asked, glancing at me as we waited for the elevator to reach my floor.
I nodded. “I advertised a fake date. Honestly, I’m fine with it. Besides—if it goes really bad, I work at the Beachside, so I can run away and hide from you.”
He
laughed. It was a delicious sound. Like melted ice-cream on top of a hot chocolate brownie. That’s what it would taste like if laughs could be eaten.
Hnnnnng.
Okay. I needed to get ahold of myself. This was going to be a disaster if I didn’t calm the fuck down.
I took a deep breath as I stepped into the elevator.
“You didn’t mention that you work there,” Mason said, hitting the button for the ground floor. “I’ve never been there.”
“Really? I thought everyone in town had been to the Beachside.”
“Nah. I’m more of a sports bar guy instead of a beach bar.”
“It’s not really a beach bar.” I paused. “All right, kinda, but only because it’s right on the beach.”
“That makes it a beach bar.” He chuckled. “Plus, they don’t play sports or serve wings, and that’s a deal breaker for me.”
“Right. Your love affair with buffalo wings.” I looked at him and tapped my temple. “See? I remembered.”
He laughed as the elevator shuddered to the ground floor. Holding out his hand, he made sure the doors stayed open and motioned for me to exit first. “Honestly, if they served wings, I might go.”
“Really? You can’t eat anything but wings? They do great food. You’ll see tonight. The party spreads are epic.”
“Will there be wings?”
“No, but there won’t be cheeseburgers either, and you don’t see me complaining about it.”
“I’m going to find your manager and tell him to serve wings. What kind of a bar doesn’t serve wings?”
I pushed open the door to the building. “The kind who doesn’t want sports yobs shouting at TVs?”
“Point well made.” Mason shook his head. “I can’t believe there are no wings.”