Mr. Man Candy: A Fake Boyfriend Romance

by Alessandra Hart

  The ferry docked on Saint Arnaud, and all fifty-seven guests headed onto a shuttle bus that Bobby had hired to take us to the restaurant. Rubbing my eyes, I leaned back in my seat, admiring the gorgeous scenery surrounding us. The sun was almost gone now, and everything was bathed in the soft glow of the island twilight. This was pure paradise.

  “Georgie. You okay?”

  I glanced up to see Nate staring at me, concern etched into his handsome features. I smiled. “Just admiring the scenery.”

  “Your face is bright red. Sure you’re feeling all right?” He pressed a hand to my forehead, and a jolt of electricity shot straight to my nether regions, making me giggle out loud. That only made Nate look more alarmed.

  “I’m fine,” I said. I leaned forward, lowering my voice to a whisper. “I’m just a little drunk already. I had three glasses of champagne earlier, and I’ve eaten almost nothing all day.”

  He nodded. “Right. Well, we’re here. Drink some water as soon as we get inside. You don’t want to get too drunk too quickly. You’ll miss all the action.”

  The impeccably-dressed restaurant staff seated the party at two long tables. Because I had the worst luck in the world, Nate and I were seated right near my mother and Libby’s bridal party. Not only would we be watched like a hawk all night by Mom, but we’d also have to put up with my sister’s salivating friends. One of them was already sneaking looks at Nate, then glancing at me with confusion, as if she couldn’t believe a famous hottie like him would actually lower himself to dating a nobody like me.

  I guess she wasn’t wrong to be confused, though. I wasn’t exactly a hot actress or model. Or a mayor’s wife…

  A friendly young waitress leaned down toward me after taking my dinner order. “Would you like ice in your water, ma’am?” she asked.

  “Thanks, you too,” I replied breezily.

  Mom raised her brows at me from across the table. “Have you developed some sort of hearing loss? She asked if you wanted ice.”

  I shook my head. Holy hell, I was buzzed. “Sorry,” I said. “I don’t need ice. Thank you.” Damn, get it together, Georgie, you freaking idiot, I added to myself silently. My mother’s anguished expression suggested that I may have actually said it out loud.

  The waitress nodded and left. I looked around the restaurant and spotted an enormous clock hanging up on one wall. I watched the seconds tick by on its ornate face, and I was suddenly struck by a horribly unsettling feeling.

  I genuinely felt as if I’d been staring at the clock for six hours, but surely that couldn’t be right. On the logical side of my mind, I knew it was absurd. The clock said only forty seconds had passed. But somehow, the rest of my brain had become untethered from the dimension of time. I was sitting here, staring and staring for what seemed like an eternity, and everyone else probably thought I was a lunatic.

  Were they even still here? Or did they all finish eating and leave? Was I even here, or was this all part of some strange, elaborate dream?

  I snapped my eyes back to the table. Everyone was still here, and this seemed like reality. I kept trying to act normal, hoping the champagne buzz would wear off soon. It was seriously messing me up.

  “Should we ask what’s taking so long with the entrees?” I asked, glancing around the restaurant so I could flag down a waiter.

  Mom narrowed her eyes. “We only ordered a minute ago. What’s wrong with you? Are you already drunk?”

  I gaped at her, unable to form a response. A minute ago? Surely we’d been here longer than that. Forty minutes at least. I shook my head and leaned down to pick up my purse. “I’m just really hungry,” I mumbled. “I’ve barely eaten all day.”

  I grabbed another one of the adorable mini cookies from my purse and nibbled on the side, teasing out a little choc chip. I was suddenly very aware of my teeth and inexplicably worried that I looked like a beaver as I chewed, so I clapped a hand over my mouth and stopped eating.

  Mom shot me a look of disdain and stood up. “I’m going to use the restroom. Try to sober up.”

  As she swept away, Bobby looked over at me from farther up the table. His mouth fell open with horror. “Georgie! Where did you get that?” he asked, gesturing to the remnants of my cookie in a frenetic jabbing motion.

  “Back at your suite. They’re really good. Who brought them?”

  “Put it down. Now.” He turned to Toby and narrowed his eyes. “I thought I told you not to put those things out where everyone could see them. I didn’t even want you bringing that stuff! Are you ever going to grow up?”

  Toby shrugged and grinned lazily. “Sorry, man.”

  Nate jumped in. “What’s going on?” he asked, his eyes flickering back and forth from me to his brother.

  Bobby looked back at us, his eyes wide. “Nate, I swear, I didn’t do this on purpose. I told Toby not to put them out.”

  “Put what out?”

  He pointed to my cookie again. “Those. They’re edibles.”

  “No shit, they’re edible. They’re amazing!” I said. What was the problem?

  Comprehension dawned on Nate’s face, quickly followed by fury. He snatched up the rest of my cookie and crumbled it into a napkin. “No more. They’re laced.”

  “Laced?” Before he could even answer, I realized what he meant. No wonder I felt so messed up. It wasn’t just the champagne—I’d eaten almost three potent weed cookies. “Oh….”

  Everyone stared at me, some people with horror, others with glee. I heard the bridal party snickering, and then my sister telling them to be quiet. After that, the silence seemed to go on forever.

  I couldn’t understand how I didn’t notice there was something off about the cookies. Weren’t they supposed to taste a bit funny if they were laced? They tasted normal to me. Great, in fact. The only noticeable difference to regular cookies was their tiny size.

  Toby held up a hand. “It’s fine. As long as she only ate half of that one, it’ll wear off in an hour or two at the most. More than that would fuck you up, though. Lucky you noticed she had it, man.”

  “Uhh… I ate three,” I said.

  The heavy silence returned. Crickets chirped. Outside, a tumbleweed was probably rolling past.

  Shit.

  This was going to be a very long night.

  16

  Nate

  “You fucking dipshits. What the hell were you thinking?” I narrowed my eyes and glared down the table at my brother and his dumbass friends.

  Toby held his hands up. “I didn’t mean for her to eat them, okay?”

  All I could manage in response was a derisive grunt. I turned back to Georgie and put a hand on her back. “How are you doing? Should we go back to the hotel and see if you can sleep this off?”

  She looked up at my face, but I had a feeling she barely noticed it was me. “I’m fine,” she murmured. “I don’t want to miss the party.”

  “She won’t be able to sleep for a while anyway,” Toby piped up.

  I shot another glance at him. “Oh? Why’s that?”

  “They aren’t the mellow kind of edibles.”

  “Meaning?”

  “The particular strain used to make those cookies is… uh… well, let’s just say it’s for parties. It’s designed to get you all wild and fucked up. I took one myself, if I’m being honest.”

  “Yeah, man, me too!” chimed in Sully, one of my brother’s other idiotic friends from college.

  Oh, for the love of Christ.

  “Fantastic.” I rolled my eyes and rubbed my hand in a slow circle on Georgie’s back. “What if I take her to a hospital?”

  “Naw, man. Nothing they can really do once it’s kicked in. You can’t really overdose on the things anyway. You just act goofy as fuck, then eventually fall asleep,” Toby said.

  Libby looked over at me, her forehead knitted with concern. “What should we do?”

  “We’ll have to keep an eye on her. Don’t worry, I’ll do most of the heavy lifting,” I said. “You enjoy your
night.”

  Her face fell with relief. Georgie coughed. “I’m fine, guys,” she said. “Seriously, I only feel a little bit weird. I can handle it.”

  “Watch her try and say that again in two hours,” someone snickered from down the table. I glared in their direction. It was Libby’s maid of honor, that bitchy little harpy. She’d been making eyes at me all night, even though she knew I was taken.

  To Georgie’s credit, she managed to hold it together decently for the next forty-five minutes. Upon her mother’s return from the bathroom, she didn’t even notice anything was up, and we tried our best to keep it that way throughout the three course meal.

  Everything seemed to be going quite well until a waiter leaned down to collect Georgie’s plate to make room for dessert. Georgie went in for a hug, and the poor confused waiter jumped back, his eyes wide. “Ma’am…”

  “Sorry. You leaned down, so I thought that’s what we were doing,” Georgie mumbled, her cheeks flushing pink.

  The waiter shuffled off like a startled penguin, and peals of laughter echoed from down the table. I picked up Georgie’s water glass and held it out to her. “Keep drinking, doll.”

  “I will. Thank god Mom is in the bathroom, or she would’ve seen that and realized how freaking stoned I am,” she replied. “God, it’s hitting me like a freight train.”

  I groaned. “Your mother is two feet away from you on the other side of the table. She got back from the bathroom almost an hour ago.”

  Georgie squinted across the table with bleary eyes. “Oh…. Hi, Mom!”

  Margaret looked horrified. The jig was up. I quickly filled her in on the cookie incident. She pursed her lips as I spoke, then folded her arms. “I understand people getting drunk at these bachelorette parties. I planned on getting a bit merry myself. But drugs, darling? Really?”

  Georgie held her hands up. “It was an accident, I swear. How did no one else see the cookies?”

  “I saw them, but some of us have a little something called restraint,” Margaret said sharply. “You really couldn’t wait for dinner?”

  Georgie leaned forward, balancing unsteadily on one elbow. The look in her eyes was demonic. “Oh, Mommy dearest. You have no idea how much restraint I have.”

  Things were going downhill fast.

  “Georgie,” I said loudly, trying to distract her. “What was that joke you said you were going to tell me earlier?”

  She stared at me blankly. At no point this evening had she mentioned anything about a joke, but I figured my bluff could work. The edibles had kicked in so hard that she might just believe me.

  I was right.

  “Oh, yeah,” she finally said. “Here it is. Knock, knock.”

  “Who’s there?”

  “A croissant.”

  “A croissant who?”

  She didn’t respond. She simply stared at me, then burst into hoots and cackles of laughter before burying her head in her arms on the table, body shaking with now-silent giggles.

  Margaret groaned. “Are you sure she’s going to be okay?” she asked, peering at me.

  I nodded. “Don’t worry. I’m on babysitting duty while she’s in this stage of the high. As soon as she starts to fade, I’ll get her on a ferry back to Saint Clare.”

  She gave me a half smile. “I’m glad you’re here to care for her.” She briskly stood up, smoothing down her blouse. “I’m going to give that nasty little Toberman a piece of my mind while Bobby settles up the bill. How dare he drug my daughter?”

  I chuckled. Now that this was happening, I could see that the older woman wasn’t all that bad. Clearly, as much as she liked to give Georgie shit for nearly everything, she also cared for her deeply. “Good for you, Margaret. You tell him.”

  Georgie made it through the hysterical laughing stage of her non-mellow high, and an hour later, she arrived at a new singing and dancing stage. Luckily that coincided with the arrival of a hired party boat which the happy couple had procured to carry us across to the next island for the casino visit. The ferry was lit with colorful lights and music blasted from one end of the main deck, providing Georgie with a perfect dance floor.

  “I think she’s enjoying the party more than I am,” Libby said with a giggle as we stood near the railing. Georgie was currently copying Toby’s earlier fist-pumping actions as she danced with Sully, a bridesmaid, and one of her cousins.

  “She sure is,” I replied, watching with fascination as she belted out ‘Come On Eileen’ while she danced. Her singing voice wasn’t the greatest, but her enthusiasm made up for it. No inhibitions whatsoever.

  I was glad to watch her let her hair down and have this much fun, even if it was the result of an overabundance of edibles. She seemed so happy. Free. So different to her usual buttoned-up persona. But I liked her like that, too. Both personas were simply different sides of the same fascinating woman.

  No matter how she acted, I liked every goddamned inch of her.

  Libby’s gaggle of friends called her over to them, and I was left alone, watching Georgie sing and dance. She spotted me and waved, attempting an awkward moonwalk over to me which resulted in her nearly slipping off the boat entirely. I caught her before she could go over the railing.

  “This is the second time you’ve caught me,” she slurred, looking up at me with a hazy gaze.

  I winked. “I’ll always catch you. I told you—I’ve got your back.”

  A burst of energy seemed to jolt through her as an Elton John song came on, and she waved her hands and started to sing again. “Hold me close, young Tony Danza!”

  “Those aren’t the right words, and the song isn’t even at that part yet,” I said with a chuckle, wrapping my arms around her from behind to keep her from flailing right over the edge. She was perilously close again.

  “You just don’t understand the genius of Elvis John,” she said, looking over her shoulder at me. Her eyes were narrowed with concentration, and I couldn’t help but laugh.

  “Elvis John, huh? Sounds accurate.”

  She lost track of the subject as Saint Australind came into view. “Look! There’s the casino!” she screeched. If I wasn’t holding onto her, she would’ve likely leapt right into the ocean and swam the rest of the way. “We should pretend to be James Bond. He always hangs around casinos in all those movies, right?”

  “Er…I think so? But he also spies and kills people for a living.”

  She shrugged and licked her lips. “I bet I could be more dangerous than him.”

  I smiled. She wasn’t wrong. Women like Georgie were the most dangerous creatures in the animal kingdom. They ensnared you and took your heart and soul forever, with zero awareness of what they were doing. Especially when they wore slinky red dresses that skimmed every curve to perfection.

  The party boat docked a moment later, and we all filed onto the jetty and headed toward the casino, which was a short three minute walk from the marina. Like so many other places on the Bunbury Islands, it was a luxurious Italianate building with extravagant sculptures outside and a lavishly-decorated interior. The carpet on the main gambling floor was garnet-red with gold patterns threaded through it. Georgie was immediately fascinated by the design.

  “Look,” she mumbled. “I can see a whale in the carpet.”

  “Where?”

  “There. It’s beautiful.” She waved a finger in the air, tracing a pattern only she could see. “I guess you could say this carpet was… money whale spent?”

  I groaned at the terrible pun. “At least that was better than your croissant joke,” I said, patting her on the back.

  I watched as most of our party picked up casino chips and headed off to various tables and slot machines, giddy with excitement. Libby was hanging back with a couple of her bridesmaids, and I flagged her down. “Could you keep an eye on Georgie for five minutes? I need to use the bathroom, and something tells me they won’t let me take her in there with me.”

  Libby nodded and linked her left arm with Georgie’s right.
“Of course! Come on, Georgie, let’s go check out the Blackjack table.”

  I’d never located a bathroom and taken a piss so fast in my entire life. The whole time I was gone, I worried about Georgie, wondering if she was okay without me. The edibles might’ve made her cheery earlier, but from what I’d heard, a paranoid stage could kick in eventually, and I didn’t want her to be alone and frightened anywhere. Libby had promised to watch her, but now that I thought about it, she might not be the best guardian. She’d probably had at least five glasses of champagne tonight. It was her party, after all.

  Shit.

  I washed my hands and dashed back out to the main floor, hoping nothing had happened. No such luck. Libby was standing near a cards table, wringing her hands and frantically looking around. “Nate!” she called out as I approached. “I’m so sorry. I lost her!”

  “How?”

  “I turned around for literally one second to ask the dealer something. When I turned back around, Georgie was gone. I don’t know how she did it!”

  I sighed and patted Libby’s shoulder. “I’ll find her. She can’t have gone too far,” I said. Then I forced a smile, pretending I was far less worried than I was. “Stop stressing. This is your night of fun, okay?”

  Libby didn’t buy my act. “We should probably find her,” she said, eyes flickering with determination. “I’ll help you look.”

  We wandered around the expansive gambling floor for the next fifteen minutes, searching for Georgie everywhere. She was nowhere to be seen. We even checked inside a giant terracotta plant pot in a last-ditch effort to find her, but she wasn’t there either.

  Finally, I spotted two security guards running across the room. They were obviously chasing someone or something. I glanced at Libby. “Should we follow them?”

  Her shoulders slumped. “Yeah,” she said with a sigh.

  We headed across the room, and I heard a familiar whisper a moment later. “Psst. Nate. Libby.”