The Fake Date Agreement (Awkward Arrangements Book 1)

by Tanya Gallagher

  “I missed you, too,” I whisper, then correct myself. “Miss.”

  “I’m so sorry, Greer.” His jaw tightens, and pain clouds his eyes. “I got so scared at the idea of losing you that I pushed you away myself.”

  I draw in a shaky breath because it hurt, it hurt, it hurt, and I can’t reopen that wound unless I know it’ll heal. But Locke takes a step closer to me like he wants to hold me just as badly as I want to hold him, and the pain loosens its grip on my heart.

  “The last few days, I kept remembering these conversations I had with my best friend where we talked about how the only moment that matters is the one right here.” His brutally earnest gaze locks on mine and strips away my ability to breathe. “I’m sorry it took me so long to get here, Greer. But I want to fix us, and I’m prepared to grovel.” He slips into a smile. “I even practiced.”

  “What?” I laugh. “You practiced?”

  Locke nods and flashes a self-effacing grin that showcases his chiseled cheekbones. “Well, first, see, I had to fix the minor issue of taking a job across the country.”

  “You did, huh?”

  Locke spreads his hands. “Everything I want is right here, so I told Curt and David I couldn’t make the move. But there’s still the matter of the management-level opening on the Seattle team.”

  My heart skips as I start to understand. “Damien’s job?”

  Locke nods. “They asked if I wanted to fill the role since I’m no longer going to move.”

  My throat goes dry. “What did you tell them?”

  “I told them I’d have to get back to them.”

  I feel my forehead crease as I stare at him in disbelief. “Why wouldn’t you just say yes?”

  Locke closes the distance between us and takes my hands in his. My whole body lights up at his touch, and I feel myself shake at how much I want this. How much I want him.

  He trails a hand up to the side of my face and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “If I remember correctly, this whole thing between us started when your ex became your boss.”

  “And if you take the job, you’d run the department,” I fill in, the realization settling over me.

  “Yeah.” His hands linger on my skin, and I breathe in his familiar scent. “I can’t accept the position unless it’s going to work for you, too. You’re more important to me than any job or city, Greer. Those things aren’t my life. My life is with you.” He searches my eyes, hope and love and longing all mixed together. “I mean, if you still want me.”

  It’s not even a question. “Of course I want you.”

  Locke’s hands fall to my waist, and he pulls me against his chest so close that I can’t breathe, but who cares about breathing, anyway, when your heart is filled with this much love.

  Locke runs his hand down my cheek like he’s savoring this moment, then traces my lower lip with this thumb. By the time he brings his mouth to mine, I’m so aching and wet for him that I almost moan. And when his lips claim mine, everything raw inside me knits me back together, stronger than ever before.

  We kiss hello and I missed you and welcome back. We kiss please and thank you and you’re mine. And when we break apart, laughing and crying, Locke kisses away all my tears. His stubble rasps against my cheeks in the happiest, best kind of way.

  “Are you sure?” he asks.

  I nod and laugh and band my arms around his back. With my eyes locked on his, I whisper a poem that he read to me an hour ago in the tub and a week ago in his room, one that I’ve learned by heart. “I am choosing this life with two hands and an open heart and buckets of honey.”

  “Oh my god, Greer, I love you so fucking much.” Locke crushes his lips against mine again, and I kiss him back, my heart and his together, and everything else flying away. He tastes like mint and happiness. Like winter and spring and every holiday in between.

  “How’d you know what I wanted for Christmas?” I ask, grinning against him.

  “Oh!” he says, drawing back a bit. “Speaking of which.” He traces his footsteps back to the front door and bends to scoop a handful of Tupperware containers out of his backpack. “I brought you food.”

  I shake my head with a teasing smile. “Why didn’t you say something sooner?” I wave a hand between us. “We could have saved all this and gotten straight to the yes.”

  “Good to know for the future,” Locke says with a smile that catches fire in my chest. He saunters across the room and places the containers in my hands.

  “What’d you bring me?” I crack open the top lid to reveal a fragrant, fruity condiment spiced with cinnamon. I lift my eyebrows and grin. “Cranberry sauce?”

  “Cranberry sauce.”

  I start to laugh then, so hard my sides start to shake, and Locke looks alarmed and takes the containers out of my hands.

  “What’s so funny?” he asks.

  I wipe tears of laughter from my face and lead him to the kitchen. Then I hand him my bag from the grocery store.

  Locke reaches in and pulls out a package of cranberries and a single can of cranberry sauce. His eyes light up as he studies the label on the can.

  “Jellied,” I say. I twist a strand of hair around my finger. “I had this great plan to crash your mom’s party and tell you how wrong it felt for you to leave. I was going to win you back.” I wrinkle my nose. “Your plan was better.”

  “I don’t know.” He lifts the cranberry sauce with an amused smile. “I would have liked to see that very much.”

  I roll my eyes at him and smile. “So about the food,” I start. “You hungry?”

  Locke’s eyes drop to my lips, and my clit starts to throb, and my heart kicks up so hard I’m sure he can see it banging through my clothes. He sets down the can on my kitchen counter and takes my hand, and together we walk toward my room. “I’m starved.”

  30

  Locke

  I wake up on Greer’s couch with her arms wrapped tight around me and her head on my chest. Light from the Christmas tree glows faintly on her naked legs, and her sweet-scented hair tickles my nose.

  Perfect. Everything’s absolutely, exactly perfect.

  Greer stirs in my arms, and her eyes flutter open, the blue so familiar and so achingly mine.

  “Hey,” I whisper in the hushed, reverent tone of mornings. “Merry Christmas.”

  Greer wiggles closer against me and presses a kiss to my lips. “Merry Christmas. Babe.”

  I grin and tickle her sides, her soft skin under my hands.

  “Mercy,” she begs, and with a laugh, she slides off the couch. She bends toward the floor in a move that makes all the blood rush straight to my cock, then scoops my button-down shirt from the floor.

  “What are you doing there?” I ask as she slides her arms inside and buttons the shirt from bottom to top over her mesmerizing curves.

  “Holding this hostage. I can’t risk having you put it back on and covering up those sexy arms.”

  I groan, but I’ll take it. “You should take it off again,” I protest. “I’m going to get cold.”

  Greer leaves the top few buttons unbuttoned to showcase the enticing dip of her cleavage, then swings into the kitchen with her bare legs flashing like temptation, like salvation. “I know what will keep you warm,” she calls over the counter.

  “Skin-to-skin contact?”

  She grins. “And coffee.” She starts a pot brewing, then pads back into the living room. Instead of walking toward the couch, she takes a detour to the Christmas tree. She stands before the Douglas fir and runs one finger over the ice cream cone ornament we hung together last night. “It’s beautiful,” she whispers.

  “It is,” I say, but I only have eyes for her.

  Greer turns back to me, then says, “Hey, I was thinking. When you take the new job, will we have to move desks?”

  “Why?” I walk toward Greer and reach for her waist. “You like the view?”

  She rolls her eyes and then gives me a little smirk. “Obviously. Plus, I’m still working on
my spitball aim. How else am I going to improve?”

  “Practice makes perfect,” I agree. I pull her close to me, then drop a hand to the curve of her naked ass.

  Greer squeals but leans into me, and her eyes close as she lets out an appreciative hum.

  “You know what love is?” I whisper, my voice so thick it’s hard to talk.

  She opens her eyes and smiles. “This?”

  I kiss her gently and nod. “This. But it’s also your heart recognizing something in mine. Getting closer to the knowledge that we’re all connected. Finding a slice of that truth in another person’s smile.”

  Greer leans back and really looks at me, and her smile slides under my skin so my whole body resonates with the vibration of her love. That warm, melting feeling of belonging and being seen. “I mean, all I did was talk about spitballs,” she teases. “All that poetry’s rubbing off on you, Lachlan Mills.” She clears her throat. “Speaking of which. I have a present for you.”

  “You got me a present?”

  She puffs her bangs off her forehead. “I mean, yeah. Before you had to go being all dramatic about it.”

  “Sorry, babe.”

  Her eyes brighten the way they do every time I use that word. “Apology accepted. You want your present now or later?”

  “Is it time-sensitive?” I ask.

  The briefest hint of hesitation flashes in her eyes, and she sinks her teeth into the curve of her lower lip. “Are you going anywhere?”

  My heart squeezes for a second at the idea of losing her again. I thought, after everything, I would have left her with no doubts, but I’ll be happy to cross this one last hurdle.

  “No, Greer.” I trace my fingers up her sides and hold her eyes. “I’m not going anywhere.” And then I put everything out there in the open, my heart and my future on the line. “I’d like to spend the rest of my life proving that to you.”

  “Oh.” The air puffs out of her, and her face is so damn delighted that I feel like I might never need to leave this room again. Everything I need is here—me and Greer and a love that we’re finally allowing to bloom. “My permanent plus one for parties?”

  My chest fucking swells. “Nothing would make me prouder.”

  “Well, in that case.” Greer plants an achingly perfect kiss on my lips and then dances out of my reach. “Take a seat on the couch.”

  I follow her instructions, and Greer disappears into her bedroom, humming All I Want for Christmas Is You under her breath. She emerges wearing her stupid ugly Christmas sweatshirt and a grin so wide she could build a bridge with it. In her hand, she clutches a dogeared copy of The Feeling of Falling.

  My eyebrows lift as Greer bursts into a mini tap dance routine, the jingle bells on her shirt filling the air with song.

  “What’s this?” I laugh.

  “A preview.” She winks and sashays toward the couch, pausing just out of reach. “It’s an exclusive, one-time-only performance.” She twirls and executes a graceful fall onto the couch.

  I drop my hand to her legs and pull them over my lap, and Greer nestles her cheek against my chest. Then she cracks open the book and starts reading.

  “Locke,” she says, “Loving you was a gift I gave to myself.”

  My breath catches, and my heart thumps against hers. “That poem’s not in the book.”

  She tilts her chin up to me, and her eyes dance. “No, I guess not.” Then she licks her lips and starts again.

  “I told you I was travel starved

  a need like a hunger

  my eyes and my mind

  craving more and

  more and

  more.

  You whispered against me—

  your lips on my skin,

  your hand on my heart—

  isn’t this discovery?

  The continent of your body.

  The ocean of your soul.”

  She reads until the coffee finishes brewing, then fixes us drinks and starts again. She reads while the Christmas lights twinkle on her skin, while her heart beats in a steady rhythm, while I fall more and more in love with her.

  I hold her close and listen to her tell me just how much she loves me, and I savor each moment as we approach the final poems in the collection.

  “I want to be the light shining out of your eyes,” she reads from the second to last page.

  Greer pauses, then, with a single page trembling in her fingertips, and turns to me. “I love you, you know.”

  “I know,” I whisper. When you allow yourself to truly be seen, to let go of all your fear, it’s the truest kind of connection. The life-changing kind. The kind you let carry you no matter where it leads because the journey’s as sweet as the destination. “I love you back.”

  Greer gives a happy little hum, a contented smile on her gorgeous lips. Then my girl, who knows that I hate reading the last page of good stories because I never want them to end, slides the bookmark between the last two pages and closes the book.

  The End

  Thank you so much for reading THE FAKE DATE AGREEMENT! I hope you loved the story, and there’s more to the Awkward Arrangements series!

  If you’re wondering what happens to Molly, pick up RENTING WITH THE RIVAL.

  And don’t miss out on Eden’s story, PICKUP LESSONS!

  Bonus alert: Grab a free copy of THE FEELING OF FALLING poetry collection. Just click here to start reading.

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  Also by Tanya Gallagher

  Standalones

  A Slippery Slope

  Step Summer

  The X Enterprises Series

  His Distraction (X Enterprises Book One)

  His Inspiration (X Enterprises Book Two)

  His Invitation (X Enterprises Book Three)

  His Temptation (X Enterprises Book Four)

  The Awkward Arrangements Series

  The Fake Date Agreement

  Renting with the Rival

  Pickup Lessons

  About the Author

  Tanya Gallagher is the Seattle-based author of contemporary New Adult and Adult romances about smart, strong women and the sexy men who love them. She traded pencil skirts in the boardroom for stories in the bedroom and hasn't looked back since. You can find her traveling the world in search of beautiful scenery and delicious cake, and at penchantforpleasure.com, where she happens to sell one of the most popular brands of personal lubricant for your naughty bits. True story.

  Let’s hang out!

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