by Emma Hart
I made two mugs and left hers on the counter for when she was ready. My phone was on the kitchen island where I’d put it last night, so I grabbed it. The battery blinked at only four percent.
“Shit.” I glanced around the kitchen and saw a charging cable plugged in next to the fridge. Thankfully it was the same cable I needed, so I put it into the charge port and leaned against the counter as I checked my messages.
I had a couple from my mom, one from Aunt Pru, and a missed call from my building manager. I decided he was a good place to start, so I dialed his number and waited for him to pick up the phone.
“Mason,” came his deep, booming voice. “Sorry to bother you.”
“No worries. Is there a problem with my apartment?”
“Mrs. Allerton lodged a complaint this morning. She said she’s warned you about noise numerous times, but I knocked on your door and you weren’t there.”
I frowned. “I’m not home. Haven’t been all night. What kind of noise?”
“She said there was a lot of banging and she’s fed up of it.”
“Was someone knocking at my door? That’s her usual complaint. If I don’t get there in a second, she gets up my ass about it.”
“I think that’s what she said. Were you expecting anyone?”
“I wasn’t. Sorry. I have no idea who it could have been.”
“All right. Well, other people knocking on your door isn’t a crime. I’ll tell her we talked and ask her to calm down a little. Thanks, Mason, and sorry I bothered you.”
“Don’t worry about it, Dan. Thanks.” I hung up and shook my head. That fucking woman would be the death of me—if Lauren didn’t kill me first.
“Are you okay?” Lauren walked in with a towel twisted on her head.
“Fine. Just my building manager. My neighbor is a pain in the ass. I made you a coffee.” I nodded to the steaming mug.
“Thanks.” She picked it up and took a sip. “Is that the old lady? The one you told me about before?”
“Yep. Any bit of noise and she complains. It’s fine. It’s always nothing.” I shrugged. “What time do you need to be at the doctor with your sister?”
“About an hour.” She put two slices of toast into the toaster. “You want some?”
“Sure. Thanks.” I put my phone down and turned. Lauren didn’t say anything else. She was intent on keeping her back to me as she busied herself straightening things that didn’t need straightening and wiping down countertops that were already perfectly clean.
I tried to hide my grin. For someone who was so ballsy last night about dragging me into her room, she was real shy right now.
She was desperately trying to avoid eye contact with me. I was desperately trying to make it. It was like a new, weird game that was kinda fun—like a staring contest, but backward.
“Stop staring at me,” Lauren said without looking over her shoulder. She grabbed the toast as it popped. “What do you want on your toast?”
“No, and do you have peanut butter?”
“No. I hate peanut butter.”
“How can you hate peanut butter?”
“Because I have tastebuds. It’s Nutella, strawberry jelly, or butter.”
I sighed. “Nutella is fine.”
“No.” She turned and pointed a knife at me. “Nutella is not fine. Nutella is the nectar of the gods.”
“Oh no, are you one of those people who eat it from the jar with a spoon?”
“Only when Mother Nature sends me my monthly love letter.” She spread the chocolate onto my toast with a flourish, plated it, and handed it over. “Otherwise, I try to control the urge.”
I looked at the toast. “I don’t think I’m hungry anymore.”
“Was it the monthly love letter thing?”
“Little bit.”
“What else should I call it? Shark week? The red river? The hormone war?”
“Just referring to it as your period would suffice.” I sat on one of the stools. “And please don’t ever say ‘the red river’ again.”
She watched as I bit into my toast. “I thought you said you weren’t hungry anymore.”
“I wasn’t. But I’m a man. I had a moment, but it passed.” I tore another piece off with my teeth.
Lauren rolled her eyes as she tugged a stool around slightly and sat down. “Of course it did.”
My phone buzzed on the counter, and I leaned over. It was a message from Trevor asking if I wanted to grab a beer tonight. I replied that I did before sitting back down.
Lauren finished her toast before I did. I was about to speak when Henry bounded up onto the counter out of absolutely fucking nowhere and sat on my plate.
“That’s okay, Henry. I was finished.”
Lauren jolted around. “Oh, my God! Is he sitting on your toast?”
“Yep.”
“Henry!” She darted over and grabbed the cat, then lifted him up. “Now you have a Nutella butt!”
“Does that cat ever sit anywhere appropriate?”
“Yes, the window, but only when the sun hits it right. Ugh, now I have to bath him.”
“Better you than me.”
“Wait, you aren’t going to help me?” Her eyes widened.
I finished my coffee and laughed. “No. He’s not my cat.”
“He sat on your toast!”
“It’s not my fault your cat has issues. It’s not even an “If I fits, I sits” situation, Lauren. He just…sits. Whether he fits or not.”
She jutted out her lower lip. “Please. Have you ever bathed a cat?”
“No, and I don’t ever intend to. I don’t even think I like cats.”
“How can you not like cats?”
“Easily. I’ve met yours twice, and he’s sat on my head and now, my toast. He’s not really trying to endear himself to me.”
“Mason, please. Just five minutes. I need to shower off his butt.”
“No.”
“Please.”
“No.”
“Pleeeease.”
“No. That’s the end of it. No.”
***
“You held her cat while she showered him off?” Trev chuckled. “You’re whipped, man.”
I sighed and rubbed at my arm where Henry had left me with a four-inch-long present. “I’m not whipped. She was just… fucking looking at me with big doe eyes. I couldn’t say no.”
“You could have, you just chose not to.”
“Actually, I did say no. About eight times. She just wore me down.”
“Jesus. She’s persistent.”
I laughed. “You have no idea. It’s one of her better traits. Right up there with a never-ending supply of sarcasm and eye-rolls that would start an earthquake.”
“She’s something else. I don’t think I’ve ever met another woman like her.” Trev finished his beer. “Is there anything about her that’s simple?”
“No. She’s like a little labyrinth. Just when I think I’m breaking her down and finding something out about her, a fucking hedge pops up, and I can’t go any further.”
He leaned back and motioned for another beer. “I knew this would happen.”
“What would?”
“This. You like her.”
“Course I like her. She’s a great girl.”
“Nah. You like her, Mason. You can tell me that you don’t, but it’s obvious.”
I sighed and switched my empty beer for the full one that the server placed in front of me. “All right—yeah, shit. I do. Can you blame me, though? She’s fucking gorgeous, she’s hilarious, and she can handle being around my family. It’s like the holy trinity of women.”
“Hot, funny, and tolerant of old people’s bullshit?”
“Exactly. Who wouldn’t want to date that?”
He leaned forward on the table. “Here’s the thing though, buddy, you don’t want to date anyone. Isn’t that the tune you’ve waxed fuckin’ lyrical for the last few months?”
He wasn’t wrong. I had. It was the one
thing I’d insisted on—I didn’t want to date. I wasn’t ready to date.
But I hadn’t been ready for Lauren, either.
Yet here she was, in my life, working her way into my heart bit by bit.
I hadn’t been ready for any of this. I hadn’t wanted any of this. But I didn’t have a say in any of it. It’d just been thrown on me, and I had to go with it.
The biggest problem would be getting Lauren on board with it, too.
“Yeah, it is,” I admitted. “I don’t want to date, Trev, but I don’t think I want to walk away from her either.”
“What the fuck do you do, though? You’re not in a real relationship. You’ve both made it clear it’ll never be anything more.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ll think of something. There’s a little time. I have her number. I know where she lives. And she owes me for helping her bath her demon cat.”
He snorted. “What are you gonna do? Show up at her door with placards like that dick from that stupid movie?”
“Love Actually?”
“Whatever it’s called.”
“No. I’m not gonna do that. I’m gonna play it by ear at this point. She’s tough to read.”
He nodded slowly. “Makes sense. Heard anything else from Claudia?”
“No, but I get the feeling she isn’t done with me. She’s like a fly around shit.”
“She always has been. Your shit, her boss’s shit…”
I choked on my beer. “Yeah, yeah. She’s just the kind of person who doesn’t want you but doesn’t want anyone else to have you, either.”
“That’s called an asshole.”
“Well, yeah, but the point stands. She doesn’t want me; she just doesn’t want Lauren to have me.”
“Technically, she doesn’t have you.”
“I know that. You know that. Claudia doesn’t know that.”
He leaned forward. “Yeah, but why don’t you just not be with Lauren? Claudia would leave you alone then.”
I shook my head. “She won’t. She’s trying to get me back, but that will stop the second she thinks I’m single. It’s all games to try to make me do what she wants. She hasn’t said a fuckin’ word to me since we broke up. Now she’s all over me? Nah, she’s full of shit.”
Trev nodded slowly. “She is. She always has been, though. Lauren is nothing like her.” He coughed and rubbed his chin. “Honestly, she’s not gonna make it easy for you. It doesn’t matter now because you and Lauren aren’t really together, but if you go for it with her, it’s gonna be a problem.”
I sighed. He was right, but I wasn’t going to sit here and let my ex control the rest of my life.
I had very fucking real feelings for Lauren. They weren’t going to go anywhere anytime soon, not as long as she was in my life. The problem was that I wanted her to stay in my life.
The more time we spent together, the more I fell for her. The more I wanted to fall for her—even if her cat was a total fucking jerk.
I finished my beer. Trev did the same, setting his glass down on the table. We both threw some money down on the table and headed for the exit.
“See you tomorrow at work?” Trev checked his watch.
“Same as every Monday,” I replied, pulling my phone from my pocket. There was a missed call from an unknown number but no message, so I cleared the notification and put it back in my pocket.
I waved him goodbye and turned toward my apartment. It was only a couple of blocks, and it didn’t take me long to get from the bar to my place. I dug my keys out and let myself in, then took the stairs up to my apartment.
And froze.
“What the hell are you doing here again?”
The blonde woman outside my apartment turned, and Claudia looked back at me. “Can we talk?”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN – LAUREN
“So, I like him.” I poured wine into my glass. “Obviously, this is a problem.”
Tina took the bottle when I was done with it. “I don’t see the problem. He’s hot. He’s a nice guy. He makes you laugh. Why would pursuing something real with him be bad?”
“Because she’s a grumpy bitch,” Madi said, taking the bottle and finishing it off in her glass. “She banged the guy last night, but today is the problem?”
I rolled my eyes. “Look, it was a lapse in judgment.”
“No, it wasn’t. It was an excellent idea. If you get the opportunity to sleep with such a fine specimen, you should damn well do it.”
“Put your vagina away,” Tina said. “Lauren, it wasn’t a bad choice. You had sex with him. So what? What is the worst that could happen? He says no? He obviously likes you.”
Madi grinned. “One part of him does, anyway.”
I threw a cushion at her. “Shut your face.”
“Just do it,” Madi continued. “You’re not fake breaking up yet anyway. It might naturally become something. If you get along that well, it’s not out of the realm of possibility.”
“She’s right,” Tina said, hugging a cushion to her chest. “Let it happen as it happens. It’s not going to be the end of the world, and don’t you dare tell me you don’t want a relationship.”
“I don’t want a relationship!” I protested. “I’m happy being single. Really, I am. I’m not going to go and look for a relationship.”
“You’re not looking for one! It found you, idiot.”
“I don’t care. I don’t want the hassle of having a man around.” Never mind that he was helpful when Henry had a Nutella ass. “They require attention. I already have a cat for that. And a sister. And my mother.”
Madi snorted. “Okay, look—you have, what? Two weeks-ish left of this fake-relationship stuff?”
“Pretty much.”
“So deal with it. Just roll with it. He’s not high maintenance, is he?”
I shrugged one shoulder. “Not really.”
“There you go. He’s not needy. He makes you laugh. He’s good in bed. That’s all you need in a man.”
“A stable job and loyalty are also up there,” Tina added. “Nobody wants an unfaithful, broke bastard.”
“Fair point.” Madi nodded.
I sighed and sipped my wine. “Yes, yes, Mason is perfect. Can we move on now?”
They both squealed.
“I’ve never heard you call a guy perfect!” Tina clapped her hands, startling Henry, who was sleeping on the windowsill.
He jerked his head up and, with a lazy blink, bounded over to the sofa where she was sitting and promptly sat on her head.
“I asked for this, didn’t I?” Her eyes flicked between us both.
“Yep.” Madi leaned forward and passed her her wine glass. “At least you can drink now.”
I laughed, only just avoiding snorting wine up my nose. “You totally asked for it. You know better than to wake him up.”
Henry meowed.
“So what are you going to do?” Tina pushed her hair out of her face, only for Henry to move his leg and push it all back over her eye again.
“Nothing,” I said honestly. My phone buzzed, and I reached for it on the coffee table. “I don’t see that I have to actively do anything. I mean, if something is meant to happen, then it’ll happen, right?”
“You’re spending too much time on Pinterest with that philosophical shit,” Madi said.
“Whatever. Look, I’m not going to actively pursue anything. I don’t even know if he actually likes me. I mean, I offered myself to him like he was an old English king, and I was a pig with an apple in my mouth. And he hesitated.”
Tina tapped her chin. “Maybe he didn’t want to make it awkward.”
“He’d just had his tongue halfway down my throat. It was awkward.”
“So awkward,” Madi agreed. “Okay. So you’re just going to let the chips fall where they may?”
“Yeah. That’s what people do, isn’t it? When they date? They let everything fall into place.” I shrugged and opened the new message on my phone.
UNKNOWN: I saw
your ad online. Are your services still available?
Huh.
I looked at Madi and Tina. “Guys, did I ever take down that ad? Offering my dating services?”
They shared a glance. “I don’t think so,” Tina answered. “Why?”
“Because I just got this text.” I read out the message. “I can’t have taken it down.”
Madi bit her lip. “I guess you didn’t. Ask and see if that’s what they mean. For all you know, someone with your number put up a sex ad or something.”
“If anyone was going to do that, it would be you,” I pointed out before I replied.
LAUREN: Do you mean the fake date ad?
UNKNOWN: Yes. Are you still available? I need a date for tomorrow night. It’s my dad’s engagement party.
I read out that text then said, “What do I do?”
Tina moved so quickly she actually dislodged the hefty lump of feline on top of her head. Henry mewled his displeasure as he headed toward my bedroom.
“What do you mean, what do you do? You say no!” She waved her hands. “Lauren!”
“Eh.” Madi leaned back and dangled her wine glass between her fingers.
“Eh? What is eh?” Tina’s eyes bugged out of her head.
Madi tucked her red hair behind her ear. “I don’t know that it’s a bad thing. She’s clearly torn about how she feels about Mason and, more to the point, there’s nothing that says she can’t do it. They’re not actually seeing each other. She can do what she wants.”
I glanced down at my phone. She had a point, but… “It feels weird. Like, not the actual fake date thing, but the situation. Kirsty saw my ad for the joke it was—kind of—and messaged me on behalf of Mason. Why would any sane guy think that was serious?”
“Guys are weird,” Madi said. “If you don’t feel comfortable, Lauren, don’t do it. Say you’re busy.”
“She’s right.” Tina set her empty glass on the coffee table. “Or, if you want, we’ll go with you. It’s Monday tomorrow, right? You have the early shift.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. She was right—I did. I’d be off by eight, and if I took them both with me… “You’d go with me?”
“Of course,” they said simultaneously.
