by Nicole Helm
“So, I’ll stay for dinner. Can I get back to work now?”
He stood there staring at her for another minute and she purposely avoided his gaze. Whatever he was looking for, she wouldn’t let him find it.
“Yeah, sure,” he finally said and left her little work shed.
Leah let out a long breath and sat down on her bench. She’d known this wasn’t going to be easy, but she’d thought the hard stuff would start with her parents’ arrival, not before.
Well, she didn’t have a choice, did she? Time to gird her loins, or something less...loin-related, and handle the hard stuff. Because the result was going to be a relationship with her parents and brother, whom she’d missed. And that was worth a little hard and a little embarrassment.
She’d do good to remember that.
CHAPTER FIVE
JACOB SAT AT the kitchen table armed with a notebook, a calendar, a pen and a pencil. He wasn’t Kyle’s level of anal rigidness, but he liked to be organized. He loved a good plan. How could you ever get what you wanted if you didn’t have a plan?
Leah, though, looked at everything as if it might bite and poison her. She was a great electrician. He’d never had one complaint about her work or her work ethic, but he had no idea how she did it all in the constant state of disarray everything in her orbit seemed to be in.
“Isn’t this all a little much for one week of...whatever?”
“Consider it a business plan.”
“If you say so,” she muttered. “Where’s Grace with the chicken?”
“She should be back soon. Now, let’s start with arrival. Flying or driving? And when do they get here?”
Leah let out a gusty sigh. “Driving. Friday. Get here around three o’clock.”
“Should I be there?”
“Hell no.”
“Is that a Leah ‘hell no’ or a girlfriend ‘hell no’?”
She worked her fingers through her messy braid, making it even messier, so the light brown strands framed her face.
Not that he was noticing that. Nope.
“I don’t think they’d expect you to be with me. I haven’t seen them in years.”
“And why is that?”
When she only pursed her lips, he leaned forward on the table, trying to catch her eye. “Don’t you think they’d expect me to know what the source of the problems you guys had is?”
“I...” She shook her head and swallowed. “It’s really complicated and I don’t think it’ll come up. I... Jacob, we just don’t get along. And part of that is because I was a shit teenager, and I...I wasn’t a good person to them. Okay, so let’s just go with it’s my fault and that’s all you need to know.”
“I can’t see you being shit to anyone who didn’t deserve it.”
“They didn’t.” She was so emphatic. “I was... Things were different. I’m a different person and I owe them...so much. Probably the truth, but I’m not sure I can keep being this person if I give them that. So here we are.”
The whole conversation was so vague, but the obvious anguish and guilt in her words kept him from pressing further. After all, she was right. It wasn’t as if her family was going to sit around rehashing all the bad stuff between them with him around.
Of course, that didn’t stop him from being curious. Or concerned. Well, that wasn’t his place, either. He scrubbed his hands over his face, then focused on his calendar. “Okay, so you don’t need me Friday. What about Saturday? Sunday and Monday are Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, so I’ll want to spend the majority of those with my family. We should definitely do something Saturday. Dinner?”
Leah nodded. “Yeah. Mom will want to cook for you.”
“See? This isn’t so hard. Now, we need to cover some basics of our relationship.”
“Our fake relationship.”
“The key to fooling anyone is believing it. Trust me.”
“Why? You’ve pretended to be something you’re not so often in your life?”
He shrugged. Maybe he hadn’t pretended to be someone else, but he’d done plenty of pretending. Plenty of fooling people he loved. “I know a thing or two.”
“Please.”
Thankfully Grace chose that moment to walk in with the food. “All right. Sustenance. I see you’ve started without me.” She plopped the bags on the table and went to collect plates and silverware. “How’s it going so far?”
“Jacob is telling me all the tips and tricks of fooling people. Because apparently he’s an expert.”
“Jacob? Pretend?” Grace glanced at him, a screwed-up expression on her face. “What are you even talking about? I hate to give him a big head, but one of Jacob’s greatest assets is his honesty.”
“See? You’re no great pretender.” Leah helped herself to a drumstick and some green beans, apparently quite pleased with herself.
“Caught me.” He managed a laid-back grin, one he didn’t feel at all. “But I still think we need to cover all our bases.”
“Can’t hurt,” Grace agreed, biting into a biscuit as she looked at the calendar. “You sure your family won’t expect to see even a little of Jacob on Christmas? My parents expect to see Kyle.”
“But Kyle doesn’t have a family of his own or anywhere else to be.”
“Well, yeah, but if you had a boyfriend, wouldn’t you want to spend part of the day with him? I mean, especially if you’ve been dating an entire year.”
“I haven’t seen my family in many years. As far as they know, I’ve spent every Christmas with Jacob. Trust me, they won’t question it. And if they do, I’ll tell them I wanted to focus on them.”
“It makes sense,” Jacob said, even though Grace was frowning.
They ate their chicken and discussed the day after Christmas. Planned out a time for her family to come see MC with Jacob around but not too many other people. The fewer people they involved, the better. At least on that they agreed.
The back door opened and after a few seconds Kyle stepped into the kitchen.
“Hey, you’re back early,” Grace greeted, all way-too-wide smiles.
Kyle nodded, and Grace grinned at him and then he grinned back. Jacob grimaced, glanced at Leah, who had her nose wrinkled and mouth all screwed up.
“You guys need me for anything else?”
“I think we’ll manage without all your genius contributions,” Jacob muttered.
Grace grinned, popping out of her seat. “Great.” Her and Kyle exited, Grace’s laugh echoing down the staircase.
“How do you live with that lovey-dovey crap?”
“It’s a very big house and I hide a lot.”
She kind of half laughed, but her expression as she looked at where Kyle and Grace had disappeared wasn’t so much amused or disgusted. No, it looked a lot wistful. And it echoed his own feeling on the matter.
It’d been almost six months since he’d been in a relationship, and he missed that ease with someone. Sure, he’d never been in a relationship as long as Kyle and Grace, but it was nice to always have someone to call up and spend time with instead of hiding from his sister and best friend feeling each other up all the time.
“You want to go to a movie?”
“Huh?”
“It’s early. They’re...” He grimaced. “Doing whatever. Unless you have plans. Let’s go do something. That way if your mom asks what we did on our last date we can say, ‘Oh, we went and saw Boneheads.’”
“I am not going to see Boneheads.”
“It’s supposed to be funny.”
“It looks idiotic.” She pushed some hair out of her eyes. “What about Incoming?”
“An alien movie? Are you crazy? Those things are creepy.”
“Oh, poor Jacob is afraid of a few little fictional creatures.” Leah pouted,
clearly mocking him, and why that made him smile was completely beyond him.
“You better be careful. I’ll wrangle you into a chick flick.”
“Oh, please. Aliens over chick flick any day of the week.” But she stood from the table and went over to the mudroom, where her coat was hanging. “What about the one with the race-car driver? The main guy is hot and I hear he gets naked.”
Jacob shrugged into his coat. “Why do you have to say things like that?”
She laughed, an uninhibited rumble, and something cross wired in his brain, suddenly making him think about her naked. Nope. Nope. Nope. Not allowed.
He glanced at her as they stepped outside. It was not a date. It was a distraction. A precursor to their ruse at best. Definitely not a date.
But it kind of felt like one.
* * *
WHAT THE HELL was happening?
It seemed innocuous enough, and it was. A movie. Friends went to movies all the time. Even friends who were going to pretend to be a little more than friends for a few days. This was normal.
Leah stared at the seat in front of her while sex noises filled the movie theater. Friends might do this all the time, but it was so not normal.
Planning their fake relationship out over dinner had actually helped alleviate some of the weird. It seemed way more doable to say they’d pretend for two dinners and one afternoon at MC rather than pretend for a whole week. So, he’d been right and things had started to feel more manageable and less...freaky.
And then they’d sat down in a dark movie theater next to each other and watched a movie that seemed to have a whole hell of a lot of sex in it.
Luckily no one could see in the dark that her face was bright, bright red. It wasn’t as though she’d never seen a movie with sex in it; it was just...watching it with Jacob. Occasionally accidentally bumping arms. Oh, God, it was so weird.
When Jacob leaned over and whispered in her ear, she nearly jumped out of her chair.
“I have to go to the bathroom.”
“Oh. Right.” She awkwardly twisted sideways so he could get by. She glanced at the movie screen where the main couple was really going at it. Oh, Jesus. She couldn’t do another second of this. She really couldn’t.
She scurried out of the seat and down the aisle. The lobby was bright but lacking the grunting and “oh, baby” chorus, and she felt as if she could breathe again.
She situated herself near the exit of the men’s bathroom. When Jacob finally appeared after what felt like hours, he gave her a quizzical frown.
“I’m sorry. I can’t sit through any more of that movie with you.”
Relief washed over his features. “Oh, thank God. Let’s go home.”
“Yes. Please.”
The entire drive home was awkwardly silent. The stupid movie just kept playing over and over in Leah’s head. Boobs and groans and butts. She couldn’t erase it. It would be etched there for the remainder of time.
“Just FYI, we cannot tell my parents we saw that movie.”
Jacob’s laugh was a little rusty. “Noted.”
“And we should probably never go to a movie we don’t know much about without doing some research first.”
“Agreed.”
He pulled his truck into the back lot of MC. She didn’t dare look at him. Didn’t dare say anything else except a goodbye.
“I...should head home.”
“Right.”
“Right.” She pushed out of the truck, hopped onto the concrete. Her truck was parked up front, so she started along the walk in that direction.
“Leah?”
Oh, God. She didn’t know why him calling her name filled her with dread; she only knew the last thing she wanted to do was turn around and answer him. Face him. But what choice did she have?
“This is going to come out all wrong,” he said, walking toward her. He cleared his throat, stopping a couple feet away. In the dark, it was hard to see him, but the streetlamp gave her a general idea. “But that did get me thinking your parents are going to expect a certain level of...intimacy between us.”
What? What? “But—”
“I’m not talking about sex,” he was quick to say. Really quick. “I just mean, you’re not very demonstrative as a rule. You don’t even hug Grace, but they’re going to expect you to hug your boyfriend. Hold hands. Kiss on the cheek at the very least.”
Which was all true, but she didn’t know what that had to do with...intimacy. Between them. Ahh. “Okay, so what’s your point?”
He cleared his throat, took another step toward her. Made the throat-clearing sound again. “We need to be able to do that without you blushing and me clearing my throat like an eighty-year-old with a cold.”
“And how do we do that?” she squeaked.
“You also can’t squeak.”
“Jacob.”
“Maybe we should give it a go a few times with no one else looking or paying attention. Just so we can get those nerves and weirdness out of the way.” Again he took a step toward her. She wanted to bolt. Run for the safety of her truck.
“I don’t think that’s possible.” But it was sensible, and that was the only thing that kept her rooted to her spot as he advanced. Maybe she could at least get over the squeaking or the blushing. Or the insane urge to run in the opposite direction for fear of making a fool out of herself.
But once he was close. Really close. Like she could reach out and touch him and vice versa close, giving it a go seemed like the worst possible idea ever thought up.
His hand rested on her shoulder and she jumped.
“Oh, come on. It’s not like I’ve never touched your shoulder.”
“Well, not with, like...intimacy intentions!”
He chuckled at that. “Fake intimacy intentions.”
“Right. Well, they may be fake, but it’s still weird.”
“Suck it up because it’s about to get weirder.”
And it did, but probably not in the way he thought she meant. He merely brushed a kiss across her cheek. His arm never strayed from her shoulder; he didn’t linger. It was nothing, really, but her body did not seem to understand that at all. It heated from the inside out. It wanted to lean in. It wanted to press her mouth to his to see what that would be like.
Luckily she’d spent a lot of time making sure her mind ruled her body and not the other way around.
“Maybe we should try that again and this time you don’t act like I gave you an electric shock.”
Oh, God, again? She might spontaneously combust. “Maybe it’d be easier if I did it.” She’d be in control, of the cheek kiss and herself, so it wouldn’t be so...stupidly amazing.
“Okay.”
Jacob wasn’t that much taller than her, but she still had to kind of go on her toes to lean in while keeping herself far enough away so that their bodies weren’t touching. Because that might kill her.
He smelled like sawdust and popcorn, which shouldn’t be appealing but somehow was. How was this happening?
“I can’t.”
“Oh, just do it. I did it. You can do it.”
Well, true enough. If she thought about it like a competition. If he could do it, so could she. She certainly wouldn’t give Jacob any kind of upper hand.
No matter what kind of warped upper hand this was.
She leaned forward, balancing her hand on his shoulder as lightly as she could possibly manage, and quickly brushed her lips across his cheek. Enough to feel the stubble. Enough to feel and that was so bad. So very, very bad.
She swallowed, still kind of half standing on her tiptoes. Too close. Her mind told her she was way too close and it was time to step away, but for the first time in years, her body simply wasn’t listening.
Even in the dark she could
make out his eyes on her face. Maybe even her mouth. No, he would not be looking there because—
With no warning, no preamble, he dipped his head and pressed his mouth to hers. A kiss. A real on-the-mouth kiss. Brief. Brief enough she couldn’t even react or reciprocate, and, oh, thank God for that.
He pulled away. “There. Now that’s out of the way. Good night.” And he stalked to the back door of the house.
And she...she was pretty sure she died.
* * *
JACOB STOOD IN the mudroom and scrubbed a hand over his face. He kept thinking if he scrubbed hard enough he could make some sense out of what had happened.
But he couldn’t. He rubbed a little harder, then gave his hair a quick tug. Nope. He’d still kissed Leah. On the mouth. He’d done that.
And he could pretend it had been to get over the jumpy nerves between them. He could maybe even, after a few hours, convince himself it was completely platonic. It was all about the fake relationship.
And nothing about the way her lips had felt on his skin, the gentle pressure of her hand on his shoulder, the smell of old house that lingered in her coat.
But he’d need a few hours to get there and to get the images from that damn movie out of his mind. Out of his imagination somehow tied up with Leah.
“Are you okay?”
Jacob laughed. He couldn’t help it. Just the weirdest damn night of his life. He looked up at Grace standing at the top of the stairs and knew he had to manage a way to not seem guilty. She might think he couldn’t lie, but she really didn’t have a clue.
“What were you two doing?”
“What?”
“I heard your truck pull up at least fifteen minutes ago. What were you doing?”
If she was teasing him, maybe it wouldn’t bother him, but she had that concerned big-sister look on her face and it blanketed all the uncertainty and weirdness and even the kind of giddy confusion.
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what? I’m worried.”
“We were talking. That’s it. Don’t make this into something I’m doing to hurt Leah. Because I’m helping her.”
Right. Because kissing her was a real big help.