by Brooks, Abby
He pulled into the parking lot at the gym and walked inside, his helmet tucked under one arm as he nodded a greeting to the guy at the front desk. As he put his stuff into a locker in the locker room, his phone pinged to let him know about an incoming text. James checked the screen and saw that it was a message from his older brother, Ian, the guy who had everything come together just as James’s whole life fell apart. The text was sure to be some shit about Ian’s wedding. Ian wanted James to be his best man, but James just wasn’t interested. Not now.
The whole marriage thing was doomed anyway. Ian and his fiancée only dated a few months before they got engaged and sure, they were happy now, but true love doesn’t exist. Not the kind that can survive year after year of being with the same person day after day. How could Ian not see that?
James tossed his phone back in the locker without responding and headed out to the gym. Any response he sent would just lead to a slew of questions about how he was doing and then Ian would just get all bossy big brother on him and give him a bunch of advice he didn’t need. He had a long day ahead of him and it was going to be made all the longer because he was so fucking hungover. The last thing he wanted was a lecture from Ian.
After the gym, he had a several hour session with his MMA trainer scheduled—another one of those bad decisions Ian was always going on about. And those MMA sessions hurt on a normal day, leaving him bruised and sore and hurting in ways he didn’t know he could hurt. He was really going to feel it today after what he’d done last night.
But, he had another night planned with Ethan and Oliver once he’d had some dinner and a shower and that was always something to look forward to. Sure, they were terrible influences, but that was a huge part of the fun. He’d spent a decade with the same girl, making safe decisions, doing the so-called right thing. He had a lot of wasted time to make up for. And that meant a day focused on the gym and learning how to take some hardass hits to the body and still deliver his fair share back, followed by a night at the bar, laughing with a bunch of assholes and picking up women. As long as he was too drunk to miss Erin by the time he got back to the house that wasn’t a home anymore and crawled into the bed they used to share, he was good to go. As long as his body hurt more than his soul, he could cope waking up alone in the room she designed.
Besides, everyone deserved to make a few bad decisions in their life, didn’t they?
* * *
“What about that one, right there, with the legs?” Oliver pointed across the bar at a waifish brunette who kept hitting James with that look he had learned meant she was more than a little open to him coming over for a visit.
“Nah. Too skinny. I want something to really grab hold of.” James flashed back to a very blurred memory of having Ellie Charles’s breasts in his hand.
“What about her friend? That blonde isn’t bad.” Ethan waited for James to respond and finally put his drink down. “What’s with you, man? A chick is just a place to put your dick. Why are you suddenly so picky?”
James took a long drink of his beer and inwardly cringed at how sore his arms and back were already. His knuckles throbbed from where he had pummeled the body bag today. “Just been a long day.”
“Nah, nah, nah.” Ethan waved his hands and shook his head, a look of disgust igniting a flare of anger in James’s belly. “You’re not gonna go get all mopey again. I can’t handle another round of so sad James.”
“Your brother getting on you again? About the wedding?” Oliver took a drink.
James just nodded.
“Fuck him,” said Ethan. “He’s being a dumb shit and you know it.”
James did know it. Love sucked. “Yeah, he is. But you don’t get to talk about my brother that way.” He leveled a finger at Ethan and then emptied his glass before signaling to the bartender that he was ready for another beer. He had a ways to go before the alcohol numbed him enough to matter.
“You’re family still on you about being worried about you and shit?” Oliver asked.
James nodded while the bartender put another bottle down in front of him and then took a huge swig of beer. “All the time. I think they’re afraid I’m gonna self-destruct.”
“Well, here’s what you do.” Ethan sat back and folded his arms over his chest. “You get one of these girls…” He gestured around the bar. “Any of them, and you just pretend to settle down with her. Take her to your brother’s wedding. Make her feel good. String her along until your family stops being all over you and then just dump her and move on.”
James didn’t necessarily feel like breaking anyone’s heart. If he just strung some poor girl along, who knew? She might end up with feelings for him and everything would get all messy and hard to deal with. That wasn’t something James was interested in at all. But, what if he found someone who’d be interested in pretending to be his girlfriend? Go into it with her eyes open. Then there’d be no mess when it was over. No broken hearts. No messy pieces to pick up. Just a nice, simple, business-like relationship coming to an end. He could handle that.
He scanned the bar, suddenly on the hunt for anyone he might want to spend more than just a night with.
“There you go,” said Oliver, noticing the change in him. “Our boy’s back.”
“Eh,” said James, sitting back in his booth and running his hands through his hair. “I just don’t think there’s anyone here who could hold my interest tonight.”
“What? You could have any girl here. Just pick one and work your magic.”
James scanned the crowd again. For some reason, he didn’t want to just pick one and work his magic. For some reason, his mind kept wandering right on back to Ellie Charles.
4
Ellie stared at the clock on the wall over the counter at Good Beginnings. It was nearly ten o’clock in the morning and the day had been slow as hell. So slow that she’d called her friend Tessa and begged her to come keep her company.
“Is it always like this on a Tuesday?” Tessa asked, picking the blueberries out of her muffin and popping them into her mouth.
“Tuesdays are slow, but not usually this slow. I cleaned…” Ellie looked around the cafe. “Like, everything before I called you. Twice. I cleaned it twice.”
Tessa studied the blue smears left on her fingers. “You’re lucky I love you so much. I worked late last night and I still really want to be in bed.” She sucked her fingers one at a time, pulling them out of her mouth with little smacking sounds.
“No you don’t.” Ellie poured Tessa another cup of coffee. “You want to be here getting free food from your best friend.”
“I guess this is better than laying around in my pajamas for another couple hours.”
Ellie poured herself a cup of coffee and picked a bite off Tessa’s muffin. “I’m gonna get as fat as Steve always told me I was if I don’t stop.”
“What you need to stop is talking like that. Steve’s an asshole and you’re better off without him.”
“I really am,” Ellie agreed and picked another bite off Tessa’s muffin. Steve had been Ellie’s long-term boyfriend. Or, as she like to think of him, her long-term parasite. She’d never really loved him, had only even gone out on a date with him because he’d been an old friend who was down on his luck and she didn’t want to be one more thing wrong in his day when she turned him down. And then somehow, he just stuck around and ended up living with her, without a job of his own to help out and she supported him while he charged up loads of debt on her credit cards.
“I still don’t understand what you saw in him.”
“I didn’t see anything in him. I didn’t even like him. We’ve been over this and over this.”
Tessa crammed a bite into her mouth. “Sure,” she said around a mouthful of food. “But you gotta admit that it doesn’t make any sense when you say that. He lived with you for three years and you didn’t even like him. Show me the sense in that.”
Maybe it had been a bad idea to invite Tessa to help her kill some time. “There’s
no sense to show you. Never has been. Never will be. I just got caught up trying to help him and couldn’t figure out how to get myself out. Now. Shut the hell up about it because I’m tired of trying to explain it to you.”
“No need to get all defensive. You were just doing that thing where you put other people’s needs in front of your own. I get it. But that doesn’t mean I’m not gonna tease you about it whenever I get a chance. Maybe make you think twice before you let some guy take advantage of you again. You’re better than that.”
“I know. Believe me. Lesson learned. Hell, I’m still learning that lesson every month when I can’t figure out how to pay all the bills.”
“He should be helping you with those.”
“I know. You’re welcome to try and tell him that yourself. Maybe he’ll listen to you more than he listened to me.”
Ellie went in for another bite of the muffin and Tessa slapped her hand away. “Get your own. I was lured here with the promise of good food and hot coffee and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna let you eat it all right off my plate. Oh!” Tessa sat up as Ellie reached into the display to grab something for herself. “How was your date the other night?”
Ellie made a face. “He didn’t show.”
“That sucks.”
Ellie shrugged. “I guess. I think the online dating thing is just gonna be a bust. This guy lived like forty-five minutes away. I wouldn’t want to drive that far to hook up with someone I met online. And I think most people are gonna feel the same way.”
“That’s not true, though!” Tessa hopped up on the counter. “Your guy is out there, I just know it.”
“Maybe. Or, maybe I just need to stop looking so hard and be good with being alone for awhile.” Ellie considered telling Tess about what happened with James the other night. Tess knew how long she’d had the hots for him and would just about die to know that she’d been making out with him in his bed. But, considering the circumstances that led up to her being in his bed, she didn’t really feel right about talking about it. Didn’t feel like gossiping about poor James Moore, drinking away his broken heart.
The front doors swung open and Tessa jumped off the counter. Ellie sighed in relief. Even if Tuesdays were typically slow, it made her all kinds of nervous when there wasn’t a single customer in the cafe. She could just hear dollar bills bleeding away with every tick of the clock.
Tessa turned around, eyes wide, face happy. “You’re never gonna believe who it is,” she whispered. “It’s fate, Ellie. Fate.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Ellie asked. Tessa just bit her lip and raised her eyebrows, excitement showing up in a cute little shrug of her shoulders.
Confused, Ellie leaned around her to see who had just come in and her heart did a funny little stutter step when she saw James Moore taking off his sunglasses and hanging them from the collar of his T-shirt. He was clean-shaven today, but that only made his dark eyes stand out all the more. “Hey, Ellie.”
She tried to cover up her surprise with a joke. “Wow. It’s not even Saturday and you’re here again. You keep this up and I’m gonna keep thinking it’s the weekend.”
“Who says a man can’t break old habits?”
Ellie thought of James throwing back shot after shot at Fantastic Sam’s, staggering out of her car and curling up on the steps inside his filthy house. Clearly, James had been breaking all kinds of old habits. And not completely for the better. “Next you’re gonna tell me that you want tea instead of coffee.”
Tessa giggled and carried her plate over to a table near the window while James held up his hands. “Now you just hold on a minute,” he said. “Let’s not take this too far.”
“Well, then, one large house blend coming right up.”
James sauntered up the counter and leaned forward, crossing his arms so that Ellie could see the tattoos spiraling up his forearms and disappearing into his T-shirt. They really were beautiful, just patterns and colors tracing their away across his skin. “Actually,” he said. “I’d hoped to talk to you about something. I’m kind of glad that you’re not as busy as you usually are.”
Well that makes one of us, she thought as her belly twisted into knots at the thought of all the money she wasn’t making today. “What’s up?” she asked, putting the coffee cup down in front of him and joining him at the counter.
James smiled and part of Ellie melted. Okay, all of Ellie melted. Who could keep their cool in the presence of such a gorgeous man? “I have a proposition for you.”
“A proposition, huh?”
“Yep.” He took a big breath and while he kept the smile on his face, the look in his eyes made Ellie think he was nervous. And seeing him look nervous made her feel nervous. “I was wondering if we could make a deal. An arrangement, really. A business deal.” James swallowed hard and Ellie braced herself. “See, my family is all kinds of worried about me ever since Erin and I called it quits. They think I’m falling to pieces.”
“And you think you’re not falling to pieces? Because, from what I saw this weekend, they might be right.” James’s eyes darkened with anger and Ellie immediately regretted opening her mouth. When would she learn not to say everything she was thinking?
“I think it’s none of your business what I do with my life.” James’s voice was cold and his smile disappeared into a hard, thin line.
She held up her head and nodded vigorously. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I have a big mouth. Go on.”
James let a long sigh out through his nose and pursed his lips, studying her for a few of the longest seconds of Ellie’s life before he continued. “I’d like to … hire you. To pretend to be my girlfriend for a couple months so my family calms down. I wouldn't necessarily pay you, but I’d pay for all of our dates. Clothes if you need them. We’d have to kiss and hold hands in public, but nothing more physical than that. And, of course, you’d have to come to my brother’s wedding with me. And all the festivities surrounding the wedding.”
Ellie just stared at James, mouth open, until he got uncomfortable enough to straighten up from where he was leaning on the counter.
“You want me to pretend to be your girlfriend?” she hissed. “Let me tell you something, friend, I’m worth way more than a pretend relationship. Way more.”
Surprise lifted James’s eyebrows. “I didn’t say anything about your worth. Just thought I’d make an offer that was mutually beneficial.”
“Mutually beneficial, huh? As in you get to lie to your family and I get, what? The pleasure of being seen with you? No, thank you.”
James dug in his pocket and pulled out his wallet. Plunked some money down for the coffee and turned around without another word and walked right out of the restaurant. Ellie swallowed hard and put both hands on the counter and shook her head.
“What the hell was that about?” Tessa asked as she practically sprinted from her table near the window.
“He wanted me to pretend to be his girlfriend.”
“What?”
“Yeah, you know. Go out with him. Hold his hand in public. Go to his brother’s wedding. Basically date him without dating him.”
“What? Why? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“I guess his family is really worried about him after his breakup with his fiancée.”
“I can see that. I hear he’s been drinking a whole lot. And hanging out with these guys that are into amateur MMA stuff. Like Fight Club or some shit.” Tessa chewed on her thumbnail. “What did you say? You told him you'd do it, didn't you?”
Ellie laughed. “I told him to get bent.”
“You did?” Tessa’s eyes went wide. “But he’s your dream guy!”
“Yeah. But come on. When you think dream guy, is that what you think? A fake relationship that only exists when we’re in front of other people?” Ellie thought about James’s lips on hers, his hands on her chest, his hard body pressed against hers as she stretched out on top of him in his bed. That’s what she wanted. Lots more of that.
“I’m worth more than that,” she whispered and looked down at her hands.
“Hell yeah, you are.” Tessa reached over the counter and took Ellie’s hands. “You're worth the real deal. And you’re gonna find some guy who falls head over heels in love with you while you fall head over heels in love with him and it’s going to be magical.”
Ellie shrugged. “Maybe.” She wasn't so sure she believed in the whole head over heels magical love thing. Relationships were complicated. Messy and only slightly better than being lonely.
The front door swung open and for a split second, Ellie hoped it was James. She couldn’t tell if she was excited or disappointed to discover it wasn’t him.
“Hey,” Tessa said after a few more people came in through the door. “Looks like you’re going to get busy here. I’m gonna scram. Meet me at Fantastic Sam’s for margaritas tonight?”
Ellie looked dubious and started to protest.
“I’m taking your option away.” Tessa made her favorite bossy face. “If you don’t meet me for margaritas tonight, then I rescind your best friend status.”
“You can’t do that.”
“You don’t get to tell me what I can and can’t do.”
The doors opened and closed again and a line started to form behind Tessa. “Fine.” Ellie smiled and flared her hands. “Fine. I’ll meet you tonight.”
“Awesome! Seven o’clock on the nose. I’ll start docking friend points for every minute you’re late.”
5
James had expected to spend the evening with Ellie, buying her drinks and discussing the best ways to make their relationship look as believable as possible. The last thing he’d expected was to end up with her offended and mad at him. He picked up his drink—just whiskey, neat, tonight—and swirled the liquid in the glass before bringing it to his lips. Oliver and Ethan were at The Pit watching a couple fights before Ethan’s first match this weekend. James was supposed to be there, too, since he intended to make his first appearance in the ring soon, but he’d turned down the invite when he decided to ask Ellie to be his fake girlfriend.
