by Emma Hart
“I don’t know. Random facts about each other?” Mason suggested. “Do you have a crazy ex I should watch out for?”
“Nope. I do have a raging asshole of a cat, though.”
“Good to know. I have a raging asshole of an elderly next-door neighbor.”
“Thankfully, I don’t have one of those.”
“Yeah, well, if you ever come to my apartment, don’t be offended when she threatens to shoot a “floozy” for knocking too many times on my door.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Do you have many women banging down your door?”
“Two weeks ago, she accused the UPS woman of sleeping with me. So, no, but it doesn’t bother her. She still thinks every woman at my door is part of some sort of harem.”
“She sounds fun. I’d take her to girls’ night.”
“You really wouldn’t. She didn’t believe that my sister was my sister for a year and a half. I still don’t think she entirely believes me now, and she pulled out her fucking passport once.”
I laughed, choking on a fry. “Okay, that’s a little too crazy, even for my girls’ night.”
“Does your girls’ night get crazy?”
I snorted. “The last one ended with me going on a fake date with you. It’s not balls to the wall partying, but it’s hardly a snoozefest.”
“No wonder my sister picked your ad. She’d fit right in with your friend group if that’s the case. Pretends she likes to party, but she’d rather be in bed.”
“I feel that in my soul. Being in bed doesn’t involve heels.”
“Ah, I don’t think you’re going to bed with the right people.”
“I’m going to bed with my cat. As long as I pet him between the ears, he doesn’t care what I wear to bed.”
Mason laughed and picked up a wing. “What a hot date.”
“You have no idea. Henry has it going on.” I met his eyes with mine and quickly dropped my gaze so I didn’t burst into giggles. “Okay, where do I need to be on Friday?”
“I’ll pick you up,” he said, covering his mouth with a napkin. “That way, I know you won’t run away halfway through.”
“Damn it, it’s like you read my mind.”
“Call it a sixth sense.” He smirked. “My grandpa is kind of ornery, so dinner is early. Can I pick you up at five?”
Damn. That was early. “Sure. Do I need to dress fancy? I’m not sure I can take two fancy nights in one go.”
“No. Make sure you wear shoes you can run in, though, just in case we need to make a break for it. All my elderly relatives will be there, and things can get a little…crazy.”
“Crazy how?”
“Well, my great-aunt Pru likes cocktails with dirty names,” he said slowly. “And my great-uncle Charlie has a book of checks for sexual favors that he carries around with him and hands out to women he thinks are hot.”
“Oh. Wow.”
“And Grandpa Ernie just thinks he’s hot and that every woman wants him. He once tried to do a striptease. At my parents’ anniversary party.”
“Wow,” I repeated. “And that’s just the dinner?”
“Sadly. That’s just the dinner.” Mason paused. “Maybe you should see some family tapes to be adequately prepared for this hellhole I’m dragging you into.”
I looked down at my half-eaten hot dog. “I think I’m gonna need a meal a whole lot fancier than a hot dog.”
***
That was how, the next day, Mason Jackson ended up in my apartment between his work shift and mine. He’d come armed with a laptop tucked under his arm and a cheeseburger from my favorite burger bar in town.
What? I wasn’t going to be eating dinner because of this. I needed sustenance if I was going to work until midnight.
I still had my doubts about this, but my sister was right—there were worse things I could do than pretend this hunk of hotness was my boyfriend.
Having a fake boyfriend was better than no boyfriend at all, right?
I sat down next to him on the sofa with my burger and wriggled to get comfortable. “All right, let’s do this.”
“I don’t think you’re ready for this.”
“You’re probably right.” I picked up the burger and took a big bite. “But let’s do it anyway.”
Mason side-eyed me. “I think I might know why you’re single.”
I shrugged, chewing the burger, then swallowed before I spoke. “I don’t care. Take me at my burger-eating, hot-dog-loving, full-mouth-speaking self, or get outta here.”
He looked at me for a long moment before he chuckled, shaking his head. “You’re refreshing, do you know that?”
“Like a box full of ice-pops,” I replied. “Now play these videos.”
“All right. The first video is from my sister’s twenty-first birthday.” He double-tapped the trackpad on the laptop and the screen filled with a video. It was of an older woman, dressed in a knee-length, bright red dress and a while shawl. White curls framed her face, and I watched with mild amusement as some country music kicked in and she grabbed a handful of her skirt and kicked up a line dance.
Slowly, a host of other elderly people joined her, and the music changed to some weird remix of Luke Bryan. None of them missed a beat.
I was impressed.
“See, I can’t line dance now,” I said, wiping the corner of my mouth to get rid of some wayward ketchup. “So the fact they can do it at, what, eighty? That’s impressive.”
Mason wrinkled his face up. “You’re weird.”
“Yes.” I drew the word out slowly. “I think that was established with my weirdo ad offering my fake dating services.”
“Huh. I didn’t think of it like that. Not sure what that says about me.”
“That you’re a weirdo, too.” I got up and grabbed two bottles of water from the fridge. “Is that the worst your elderly relatives did? Because my grandpa took us fishing in Alaska when I was thirteen and I had to watch him roll up his pants, showing his little chicken legs, all because he wanted to show us how he could catch a salmon with his bare hands.”
Mason’s finger hovered over the trackpad as he looked at me. “Did he catch one?”
“No. It jumped out of the water and smacked him in the face. He doesn’t do that anymore.”
“Smart man.”
“A smarter man would have stuck to a fishing rod. Anyway, what other clips have you got on here?”
“All right, I was going to save this, but since you found the line dancing perfectly acceptable…” He tapped on another video. It burst to life, filling the screen. “That’s Grandpa Ernie.”
I watched as the old man with a rounded belly and a walking stick started to sway side to side to Ed Sheeran’s Shape of You. “I don’t see the problem.”
Mason sat back on the sofa. “Keep watching.”
This was a trap, wasn’t it?
It felt like a trap.
I watched for a good minute and nothing happened. Just his grandpa, swaying side-to-side, to Ed Sheeran.
Then, the beat kicked in.
And so did Grandpa Ernie.
His walking stick was discarded with a flourish, and he ran his hands over his body like a drunken stripper before he did, in fact, strip off his shirt.
To reveal a latex shirt.
“Um,” I whispered.
Mason muffled a laugh.
Grandpa Ernie moved to unbutton his shorts while a group of older ladies hollered and whooped like it was a bachelorette party.
“Mason, I’m scared.”
“You said you didn’t see a problem.”
Grandpa Ernie slid down his pants to reveal a pair of leather budgie smugglers.
“There’s a problem! There’s a problem!” I quickly shut the laptop down and scrambled back on the sofa. “My eyes!”
This time, he didn’t hide his laughter. It was so loud that it attracted the attention of Henry who, sensing new blood, bounded over to the sofa.
I knew what was happening.
; I was going to let him do it, too.
Hey—if you show someone a video of an old man stripping to leather sex clothes, you deserve to have a cat sit on your head.
Mason threw his arm over his eyes as he laughed so hard he had to clutch at his stomach with his other hand.
And, Henry being Henry, stopped to look at me with a questioning tilt of his head. When I didn’t tell him to stop, he plodded across the back of the cushions and dumped his chubby self right on top of Mason’s head.
He stopped, his laugh petering out. “Uh, Lauren? Is your cat sitting on my head?”
“’Row,” Henry mewled.
“That’s yes in cat,” I replied.
“Why is he sitting on my head?”
“Because Henry’s an asshole.”
Henry responded by licking his paw.
See? Asshole.
“Right. Can you get him off?”
I leaned against the arm and hugged my knee to my chest. “I don’t know. You could have warned me about the leather wonder I was about to be exposed to.”
“Then you wouldn’t have watched it.”
“Of course I wouldn’t have, you lunatic. I’m going to have nightmares about that for weeks. Did you see that?”
“Yes. I was there.”
“Then you deserve my fat cat sitting on your head.”
“This is against my human rights.”
“Seeing your grandpa in leather budgie smugglers is against mine!”
He fought laughter again. “You’re not going to move the cat, are you?”
“Not on your life.”
Mason sighed. “Aw, look at us. Our first real fight as a fake couple.”
Henry bounced off his head to a sunspot on the windowsill, apparently done with being my revenge plan.
“Yeah, well, I take my apologies in size Sauvignon Blanc.”
His blue eyes dragged a path over my body as he looked me up and down. “I’ve seen you eat nothing but junk. Are you one of those irritating people who can eat what they want and put on no weight?”
“Okay, first.” I held up one finger. “You look like you could walk into the cast of the Avengers, so don’t come at me with that. Also, I run. Every day. And I don’t always eat junk.”
“You run?” His eyebrows shot up.
“I don’t know if I should be insulted or not.”
“No, I just—you don’t look like a runner.”
“And you don’t look like Chris Hemsworth, but here you are on my sofa looking like a dark-haired Norse god,” I shot back. “What’s your point?”
He held up his hands, fighting another laugh, one that made his eyes shine. “Hey, I have a physical job. I rarely get to the gym, but I’m always moving.”
“Have you ever worked behind a bar? I’m not exactly running a call center back there. It never stops sometimes.”
“Do I look like I mix cocktails?”
Doing what he’d done just minutes before, I took a long, hard look at him, from head to toe.
It was a mistake.
If I were a sloth, I wouldn’t just climb him like a tree; I’d hang off him for a nap, too.
Lord, he was hot.
Focus, Lauren.
“No,” I said. “You look like the lone wolf who waits for the cocktail-drinking girls to accidentally spill their drinks on your shoes.” I glanced at the time. “Speaking of, I have to go and make those cocktails.”
Mason grinned. “You want me to come and get hit on by drunk girls?”
“As someone who has no say in your life whatsoever, I don’t care what you do.” I stood up and looked at him over my shoulder. “As your fake girlfriend, I’m a bit of a tiger, so I wouldn’t.”
“I know.” He snorted, following me to the front door with his laptop tucked under his arm. “I’ve seen you play the possessive girlfriend. If this weren’t all fake, I would have been a little turned on.”
I locked the front door and tossed my hair over my shoulder. “Please. You were totally turned on.”
He said nothing as we headed for the stairs.
“You can say something. That was a joke.” I glanced at him, heat rushing to my cheeks.
His lips pulled into a smirk, eyes flashing. “I reserve the right to not respond.”
Oh. My. God.
Scratching behind my ear, I dipped my head and almost tripped over my own feet. Mason grabbed my arm, steadying me, then slid his fingers up over my shoulder to tilt my head up with two fingers.
My eyes met his.
“You’re cute when you get flustered.”
“I am not flustered!”
“Your defiance doesn’t make you any less cute. In fact, it’s a little hot.” He winked, dropping his hand and turning, disappearing down the stairs before I’d even managed to mentally form a sentence together.
“I’m not flustered!” I yelled into the stairwell, chasing him down.
“Still cute!” he hollered back with the sound of a door opening.
I kept running until I reached the lobby. The front door was just about to click shut, but I caught it before it did and stepped out into the late afternoon sun.
Mason was nowhere to be seen.
“Damn it,” I muttered, clutching my keys. “Freakin’ men.”
CHAPTER TEN – MASON
LAUREN: I was not freaking flustered.
LAUREN: Or cute.
LAUREN: The last time I was cute was before I could talk.
LAUREN: And I DON’T GET FLUSTERED, MASON.
LAUREN: Jesus, I hate you.
I laughed and locked my phone. She’d totally been flustered—the bright pink of her cheeks had given that little secret away. There was also a part of me that was regretting the pretending to be in a relationship thing, because if she couldn’t pretend not to be flustered…
That was before I even considered the fact that I was looking forward to seeing her again.
That was a real fucking problem.
And I hated myself for it already.
It would be all too easy to pretend to be with Lauren. I didn’t have to spend a party with her to know that. It was too easy at my reunion. It was too easy at the bar, and the diner, and at her apartment. Even when her jerk of a cat sat on my head.
And when we’d stopped on her stairs and I’d tilted her face up, it’d taken every bit of self-control I possessed not to kiss her.
To brush my lips over hers, to see if her lips were as soft as they looked.
I rubbed the back of my neck and got rid of those thoughts before they went too far. She’d already made her position clear; anything more intimate that hand-holding and hugging was off-limits, and I was going to respect that.
I wasn’t going to force her to do anything she didn’t want to do. Except for watch weird videos of my family members.
Hey—she was going to see it in real life. At least now she knew what to expect and she could react appropriately.
Three knocks at my truck window jolted me out of the hole I was thinking myself into.
I pressed the button to lower the window and looked into the scowling face of my great-aunt.
“Are you coming in or what? I’m not paying you to sit in your truck on my drive with a fairytale look on your face.”
“Aunt Pru, you aren’t paying me at all.”
“I know. But I’m paying you the honor of gracing you with my presence, aren’t I?”
“You’re right. Forgive me.” I hid the twitch of my lips and motioned for her to step back so I could get out. I paused to grab my toolbox from the passenger seat and jumped out after here. “What’s the emergency?”
“My new clock needs hanging.”
I stopped halfway to the front door. “You called me here immediately after work to hang a clock?”
“Yes. I’ve been waiting for your father to do it for a week.”
“So why didn’t you call Dad?”
Evil amusement flashed in her dark-blue eyes. “My panicked calls don’t work on
him anymore. You’re a real sucker.”
I took a deep breath and grimaced. She was right. I was. “You win. Show me the clock.”
Her cackle wouldn’t have been out of place in a Disney movie—with her as the absolute villain. Hell, she’d probably dress as Maleficent one time before she died.
She’d probably make that outfit her funeral one. She’d be buried in it, and she’d go fucking laughing.
I followed her through to the kitchen. The eccentric style of her house barely even registered now. Except for the bright yellow living room curtains and a fox’s head on the wall—those were always a little on the jarring side.
The fox’s eyes just kind of…watched you.
“Where do you want it, Aunt Pru?”
“Right there.” She pointed to the place where her old clock had been. The nail that had previously held it up was still in place.
“The nail’s still there. Why do you need me to put another one up?”
“Because that’s my clock.” She pointed at a huge, iron clock that was twice the size of the last one. “And I don’t think the nail is going to hold it.”
No. No, a nail was not.
“Jesus, Aunt Pru. You’re lucky I brought my drill.” The woman was insane. Who needed an iron clock?
Nobody. That was who.
Still, I got to work like she wanted. She fixed me a coffee while I started drilling, and it wasn’t until I was done putting the hole in the wall that she finally talked to me again.
“Your mom told me about your new girlfriend.”
Of course she did. “Mmm,” was all I replied.
“What’s she like?”
“She’s nice.”
“Nice? Screw me sideways, Mason. My tablecloth here is nice. It doesn’t sound like you like her that much at all.”
She was baiting me. “Mhmm. She’s a nice girl. It’s early days. Mom’s getting a little carried away.”
“You know your mother. If she were an ant, she’d be the one carrying food back.”
“Probably.” I fitted the correct fixture to hold the clock. “You’re going to Grandpa’s dinner, right?”
“I am. Will I meet her?”
“What do you think?”