by Emma Hart
I looked up at him.
“It’s not going to happen.” His voice was firm—tough, yet still weirdly gentle at the same time. “I have zero interest in her. So whatever she told you, it was a lie.”
“You didn’t do anything with her?”
“I barely had a conversation with her. The first time, I basically kicked her straight out. I humored her on Sunday by letting her spew her bullshit, then did the same thing again.” He put one hand on the island. “I’d bet she’d already found the ad, and she messaged you after she’d left. She’s probably thinking she can use it to manipulate me into dating her again.”
“I hate her.”
“Yeah, well, take a number and get in line.” His blue eyes sparkled with silent laughter. “Personally, I don’t give a crap if she tells my family it was fake. Kirsty set this up. Aunt Pru was complacent in the deception. We can totally blame it all on them.”
A small smile teased my lips. “You’re not fake breaking up with me.”
“Not today.” He tapped me on the nose. “Besides, we both know this isn’t all entirely fake anymore.”
My heart skipped. “What do you mean?”
“I can’t decide if you’re being deliberately dense or if I should just humor you.”
“Guess and find out.”
“There’s more than just attraction between us, Lauren. I think it’d be easier for us both if we just admit that we’re starting to feel something real.”
My tongue darted out to wet my lips. “I don’t—um.”
He raised one eyebrow. “Go ahead. Tell me I’m wrong. I’ll wait.”
“You’re wrong,” I said weakly.
“That was lame. Try again.”
I spun on the stool and got up, running my fingers through my hair. “Fine. What if you’re right? Neither of us wants a relationship, Mason. I don’t think that’s changed just because we get along as well as we do. Unless you’ve suddenly changed your mind overnight.”
“I didn’t say that, did I? There’s more between us than just a sexual attraction. We can lie about it all we like, but it’s not going to change anything.”
“I quite like lying to myself. I’m rather adept at living in denial. It’s why I don’t go to the gym anymore. I can convince myself the cake I ate last night didn’t contribute to my love handles.”
“What love handles?”
“Good response.”
“Thank you. Can you stop avoiding the point of the conversation now?”
“I’m not avoiding anything.”
“You’re avoiding everything.”
“I disagree.”
“Then we agree to disagree.” He stalked over to me and stopped right in front of me, one hand reaching out. His fingers brushed my skin as he pushed my hair behind my ear, and they traced a trail down the side of my neck. “Would it be that bad?” he asked in a low voice. “If this turned into something more?”
I didn’t reply.
“I have feelings for you, Lauren. Real feelings. I don’t care where they came from or the reason they’re able to exist in the first place. I don’t care that this relationship is fake—because nobody else ever doubted that it was anything other than real. Doesn’t that tell you something?”
I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out.
It did. It told me a lot of things. It told me that nobody has doubted us. Nobody has looked at us and thought, “Fucking hell, they’re awkward together.” That somehow we pulled this thing off, no matter how many physical boundaries we set.
Of course, we’d broken past them all in private, but whatever.
Even without being all over each other, without putting on a display of affection for everyone to see, we still convinced them that our relationship was real.
That was a job well done.
And one that told me more than I was willing to accept.
Like the fact that this fake relationship could potentially be a very successful real one if we’d let it. If I would let it.
I cleared my throat and turned my face away, but Mason captured my face in his hands. His grip was so steady and firm that I had no choice but to meet his eyes. They were a mass of emotion; determination and uncertainty and raw feelings that I wish I’d never seen.
He dipped his head and pressed his lips against mine. They were warm and soft, just like I remembered from two nights ago, except this time he smelled like sawdust and fresh air.
I leaned into him, squeezing my eyes shut tight.
“You feel that. I know you do,” he said in a low voice against my lips. “I’m not crazy, Lauren. There’s something about you that I don’t think I can give up.”
“That’ll be the sarcasm. It’s scintillating.”
“For the love of—”
“What?”
He dropped his hands and stepped back. “You’ll die before you admit the truth, won’t you?”
“No.” I took my own step back from him. “I can’t admit it, Mason. I can’t tell you how I really feel, because if I do, then I can’t walk away from this.”
“I’m not walking away from it. I’m not walking away from what I know is between us.”
“If I tell you how you make me feel it’ll give you the power to break my heart. I have no desire to give anyone that power.”
“And what if you don’t tell me? What if you keep it all to yourself, and in two weeks, when we put an end to the charade we began, you break your own heart because you were too fucking stubborn to admit the truth?”
“I—” Had not thought that far ahead. “All right, say I admit it. Say I tell you I have feelings for you that are way too real for my liking. What happens then? Your darling ex tells your family we’ve been faking it and now we have to convince them it’s real? Nobody is going to believe us!”
“Oh, fuck me—Lauren, it doesn’t matter!” Mason ran his hand through his hair. “I don’t owe anyone but you anything. I don’t owe my mother, my sister, my aunt, my grandpa—I don’t owe them a single fucking thing where my relationships are concerned. The only person I give a shit about is you. You are the only person I want to convince about us.”
Silence passed between us for a minute. The longest minute ever. Until I dipped my head to look at the floor and said, “I’m not unconvinced, okay? I’m reluctant. There’s a difference.”
He rolled his eyes. “That’s basically the same thing in this context.”
“How is it?”
“Because you’re unwilling to open your eyes to reality and admit the truth,” he said firmly.
“I’m not unwilling. Why is being hesitant such a bad thing? It’s all fun and games when we’re pretending, but what if this screws up when it’s real? We get along just fine when we’re nothing more than friends.”
“You won’t know unless you give it a chance.”
“Giving it a chance scares me.”
“I know. It scares me, too.” He came back to me. “Remember how my last relationship ended? Claudia made me never want to be with anyone ever again, but then I met you. And, Lauren? I don’t want to be in a relationship with just anyone. I want to try and make things work with you.”
I peered up at him through my eyelashes. “What if it doesn’t?”
“Then it doesn’t. But I think it’s worth giving it a shot.” He half-smiled at you. “You’re beautiful. You’re funny. And I already know you’re a huge pain in the ass, so it’s not like that’s going to scare me off.”
I covered my face with my hands and laughed.
He pulled me into a bear hug and pressed his lips to the top of my head. “Come on. It’ll be fun.”
“What will be?”
“A date. Let’s go on one date, and if it’s really weird, we’ll amicably break up or admit the ruse. If it goes well, we’ll officially try being in a relationship.”
“Okay, while I appreciate your logic, there’s a fundamental flaw in it all.”
“What’s that?”
“We
’ve technically already been on the dates. We’ve already done the getting to know each other part of dating.”
He raised an eyebrow. “How so?”
“Well, there was the reunion where we got a burger right after. Technically the lunch meeting to discuss our fake relationship could be classed as a date, and so could the time you came over here and showed me the crazy videos from your family. The two family events we went to together are dates, and Saturday night was definitely an extension of a date.”
“Ah, Saturday night, when you told me complete strangers sleep together and it doesn’t mean a thing.”
“Total strangers do sleep together without it meaning a thing.” I shuffled my feet. “But sometimes it can mean something.”
“You dragged me into your bedroom.”
“Oh, my God. I dragged you in because I was hoping you’d screw my brains out. Stop making a big deal out of it.”
“Did I?”
“What?”
“Did I screw your brains out?”
“If I admit that you did, do I still have to admit that I have feelings for you?”
I froze.
A grin spread across Masons’ face. “Well, well, well,” he said slowly. “Where did that come from?”
I took a deep breath in through my nose and stared him down. “You should probably go now.”
“No.” He pulled me in and kissed me before I could protest. Any half-hearted attempt I had left died when he wrapped his arm around my waist and held me flush against his body.
I gave in to him. It wasn’t the worst feeling in the world, to be kissed by him. In fact, it was one I could get used to.
“So what happens now?” Mason murmured. “If we’ve determined that we’ve already done the first dates things and that we both like each other, now what?”
I opened my mouth to tell him that I didn’t know, but I was saved by the bell.
The bell being a ten-pound human being with lungs the size of a grown adult.
I grimaced and patted his chest. “Well, I need to return Cara to my sister and go to work. I’d say you could stay, but Henry’s been looking for a head to sit on for hours, and he’s out for revenge since I kicked him out of Cara’s bed.”
Mason shuddered as he let me go. “I’ll pass. I’ll bring him tuna next time I come over and that should endear him to me.”
“Good luck with that!” I called over my shoulder.
CHAPTER NINETEEN – LAUREN
MASON: She told my mom.
I blinked at the message on my screen.
Oh, shit.
LAUREN: When???
MASON: Today. She stopped in at her work specifically to tell her, then showed her screenshots.
LAUREN: Fuck a duck.
MASON: I’ve been summoned for a chat.
LAUREN: I have to work. Oh no. What a shame.
MASON: Don’t worry, I’ve got it. I’ll handle her.
LAUREN: What are you going to tell her?
MASON: The truth. And I’m going to drop Kirsty right in the middle of it.
LAUREN: Well, it is her fault. If you look past my terrible decision regarding the ad.
MASON: I don’t think it was that much of a bad idea.
LAUREN: You hated the entire thing at first.
MASON: Yeah, but I didn’t know how annoyingly delightful you are then. A few hours in your company would make a monk give up the church, never mind a grouchy builder.
LAUREN: A monk couldn’t handle me. He’d run back to his hut before the bill was delivered.
MASON: Monks don’t live in huts.
LAUREN: Do I look like an encyclopedia?
MASON: You usually have an answer for everything.
LAUREN: Why are you such a fucking smartass?
MASON: I’ve been taking tips from you. Picking things up here and there. It looks like it’s paying off.
LAUREN: Hardy har-har-har, aren’t you the funny man?
MASON: Given how much you laugh around me, yes, I am the funny man.
LAUREN: We’re going to need to break up. I don’t think I can cope with another smartass in my life. I’m enough work as it is.
MASON: You’ll get used to it. This smartass comes equipped with the ability to provide orgasms.
LAUREN: Oh, honey, did nobody teach you about masturbation when you were younger?
MASON: One day, you’re going to get yourself off, and then I’m going to get you off, and we’ll compare notes.
LAUREN: I am not taking notes on an orgasm.
LAUREN: Also, we’ve gotten off track.
MASON: At least you can hide when you’ve gotten off track.
MASON: But yes, you’re right. Let’s get back to it.
LAUREN: What are you going to tell your mom when you’re done blaming everything on your sister?
MASON: The truth. I’ll tell her that we’ve talked about it and we’re going to date for real, but she’s going to back off because we’re going to do it in our own time.
LAUREN: Aunt Pru will be delighted.
MASON: No. We aren’t telling Aunt Pru or she’ll start buying those wedding books.
LAUREN: It’s okay. I have a plan.
MASON: Oh, yeah? What’s what?
LAUREN: I’ll tell her she needs to set Kirsty up with someone, then we’ll make her an online dating account and find her someone.
MASON: That’s mean.
MASON: I like it. Seems like the kind of thing my future wife should do.
LAUREN: Wash out your mouth, buster. I haven’t tasted your cooking yet. I already told you that’s the dealbreaker, especially now you won over Henry with your fancy fucking tuna.
MASON: Henry’s misunderstood, that’s all.
LAUREN: He’s misunderstood where he’s supposed to sit. I don’t need the two of you conspiring against me. My life is stressful enough.
MASON: Why now? Is your mom calling you again?
LAUREN: No, my sister is texting me daily updates on her hemorrhoids. I know more about her anal region than I do my own.
MASON: I don’t really know what to say to that.
LAUREN: Nobody is.
LAUREN: What time do you want me to come over tonight?
MASON: When do you finish work?
LAUREN: Eight-thirty.
MASON: Why don’t you come over then?
LAUREN: All right, but I’m wearing yoga pants to work tonight. You’ve been warned.
MASON: It’s fine. I bet your ass looks great in yoga pants.
LAUREN: You are not wrong.
CHAPTER TWENTY – MASON
“I just don’t understand why you’d fake a relationship, Mason.” My mother looked at me disapprovingly over the rim of her martini glass. “Look—you’re driving me to drink early!”
Yeah, I was the reason for that.
“Okay—this isn’t on me.” I leaned back on the sofa and crossed my legs at my ankles. “Let me tell you what actually happened, from the beginning.
“Please do.”
“Lauren put an ad up online. It was a joke with her friends after girls’ night, and Kirsty responded to her post. We texted after that—I was going to shut it down, but it was the reunion. She was happy to go and get under Claudia’s skin, and I didn’t really care either way.” I ran my hand through my hair. “It was only supposed to be one date, then Kirsty dropped us in the shit at dinner.”
“Watch your language,” Mom said firmly. “The dinner—oh! She was lying then?”
“Yeah. You were so excited I didn’t have the heart to tell you she was being a pain, so I texted Lauren after and asked her to go along with it for a few weeks.”
Mom sighed. “Sweetheart, you didn’t have to do that. I was excited that you might have found someone, but I wish you’d been honest.”
“I don’t. I’m glad I lied. If I hadn’t, we wouldn’t have spent any time together.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “What do you mean?”
“We get along really, really
well. We have the same sense of humor, we like the same things, and we just enjoy spending time together.” I shrugged. “We’re going to see where things go.”
“Would you have told me if Claudia didn’t?”
“No,” I said honestly. “You wouldn’t have needed to know, and neither would anyone else. I love you, Mom, and I respect you more than you know, but I told Lauren that the only person I need to justify my feelings to is her, and I stand by that.”
“I can respect that,” Mom replied, putting her martini glass on the side table. “I know that who you date is none of my business, Mase, but I just want you to be happy. Sometimes that can come across as me meddling, but it’s not what I’m trying to do.”
“I know. And hey, this time it’s all worked out. Even if me and Lauren don’t work out, I won’t regret it. I forgot what it was like to have fun with someone else.”
“Good. I’m glad. It sounds like Claudia’s attempt at breaking you up backfired.”
“It was never going to be successful, Mom. I’m not interested in her anymore. Nothing she says or does is going to make me ever want her again.” I sat up straighter and shrugged. “Sorry we lied to you.”
“Sweetheart, I told you; don’t worry about it. It’s all good. As long as you were happy with what you were doing… Well, you didn’t cause any harm, did you? And on the bright side, you know Lauren can handle our crazy family. There won’t be any surprises at the next big party.”
