Nicole Helm - Too Friendly to Date

“God, you and your blueprints.”

“You know I’m right.”

Ugh. He probably was. She’d been so worked up about asking him for the favor, she hadn’t fully planned out the how part. How was this going to work? What did she expect him to do?

She had to look away from him or that idiotic heat that had been stealing over her face a ridiculous amount lately would be blatantly obvious.

Yes, maybe a blueprint was the way to go. If they had a set way to deal with it, nothing could go...awry. “Okay, so, what do you suggest?”

“Well, we need to think about how this is effective. I come to dinner with you guys once or twice? They come see MC? And how do we handle Christmas? I don’t think getting my parents tangled in this is a good idea, so we need to make sure there’s no overlap there. Mainly, we need to start thinking like a couple.”

Leah snorted. She might have the hots for the guy, but them seeing eye to eye had never been a strong suit.

“Hey, you’re the one who told your parents you were in a yearlong relationship with me.”

“Yeah. Probably because I wanted to strangle you that day, so you were the first name that popped out of my mouth.”

He shook his head. “Anyway, stay for dinner. We’ll get Grace’s help. No reason not to get extra help to think through everything.”

Leah couldn’t decide if Grace’s help would be good or bad. But what other choice did she have? “Thanks. You’re...going above and beyond here. Thank you. Really.”

“I like you grateful. It’s a nice change of pace.”

Leah rolled her eyes, but because she was an idiot, him liking anything about her made her feel weird and jittery.

“What were you talking about today?”

“Huh?”

“You and Grace, when Kyle and I came in... What were you talking about that had you blushing?” He leaned against the door, studying her face intently as if looking for said blush.

“I don’t blush.” But the heat was stealing over her cheeks and with skin as fair as hers there was no hiding embarrassment.

“You’re doing it right now.”

“It was nothing.”

“I’m finding that harder and harder to believe.”

“She just thought we had a thing and I told her we didn’t.” Before she told her they did. “And I told her nothing would ever change that.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing.” In a fantasy world? Sure. But she didn’t live in a fantasy world. She lived in a sickly, shorter-life-expectancy, didn’t-handle-smothering kind of world. Jacob could only exist in that world as he was. No amount of pretend could allow her to forget that.

“So, I’ll stay for dinner. Can I get back to work now?”

He stood there staring at her for another minute and she purposely avoided his gaze. Whatever he was looking for, she wouldn’t let him find it.

“Yeah, sure,” he finally said and left her little work shed.

Leah let out a long breath and sat down on her bench. She’d known this wasn’t going to be easy, but she’d thought the hard stuff would start with her parents’ arrival, not before.

Well, she didn’t have a choice, did she? Time to gird her loins, or something less...loin-related, and handle the hard stuff. Because the result was going to be a relationship with her parents and brother, whom she’d missed. And that was worth a little hard and a little embarrassment.

She’d do good to remember that.

CHAPTER FIVE

JACOB SAT AT the kitchen table armed with a notebook, a calendar, a pen and a pencil. He wasn’t Kyle’s level of anal rigidness, but he liked to be organized. He loved a good plan. How could you ever get what you wanted if you didn’t have a plan?

Leah, though, looked at everything as if it might bite and poison her. She was a great electrician. He’d never had one complaint about her work or her work ethic, but he had no idea how she did it all in the constant state of disarray everything in her orbit seemed to be in.

“Isn’t this all a little much for one week of...whatever?”

“Consider it a business plan.”

“If you say so,” she muttered. “Where’s Grace with the chicken?”

“She should be back soon. Now, let’s start with arrival. Flying or driving? And when do they get here?”

Leah let out a gusty sigh. “Driving. Friday. Get here around three o’clock.”

“Should I be there?”

“Hell no.”

“Is that a Leah ‘hell no’ or a girlfriend ‘hell no’?”

She worked her fingers through her messy braid, making it even messier, so the light brown strands framed her face.

Not that he was noticing that. Nope.

“I don’t think they’d expect you to be with me. I haven’t seen them in years.”

“And why is that?”

When she only pursed her lips, he leaned forward on the table, trying to catch her eye. “Don’t you think they’d expect me to know what the source of the problems you guys had is?”

“I...” She shook her head and swallowed. “It’s really complicated and I don’t think it’ll come up. I... Jacob, we just don’t get along. And part of that is because I was a shit teenager, and I...I wasn’t a good person to them. Okay, so let’s just go with it’s my fault and that’s all you need to know.”

“I can’t see you being shit to anyone who didn’t deserve it.”

“They didn’t.” She was so emphatic. “I was... Things were different. I’m a different person and I owe them...so much. Probably the truth, but I’m not sure I can keep being this person if I give them that. So here we are.”

The whole conversation was so vague, but the obvious anguish and guilt in her words kept him from pressing further. After all, she was right. It wasn’t as if her family was going to sit around rehashing all the bad stuff between them with him around.

Of course, that didn’t stop him from being curious. Or concerned. Well, that wasn’t his place, either. He scrubbed his hands over his face, then focused on his calendar. “Okay, so you don’t need me Friday. What about Saturday? Sunday and Monday are Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, so I’ll want to spend the majority of those with my family. We should definitely do something Saturday. Dinner?”

Leah nodded. “Yeah. Mom will want to cook for you.”

“See? This isn’t so hard. Now, we need to cover some basics of our relationship.”

“Our fake relationship.”

“The key to fooling anyone is believing it. Trust me.”

“Why? You’ve pretended to be something you’re not so often in your life?”

He shrugged. Maybe he hadn’t pretended to be someone else, but he’d done plenty of pretending. Plenty of fooling people he loved. “I know a thing or two.”

“Please.”

Thankfully Grace chose that moment to walk in with the food. “All right. Sustenance. I see you’ve started without me.” She plopped the bags on the table and went to collect plates and silverware. “How’s it going so far?”

“Jacob is telling me all the tips and tricks of fooling people. Because apparently he’s an expert.”

“Jacob? Pretend?” Grace glanced at him, a screwed-up expression on her face. “What are you even talking about? I hate to give him a big head, but one of Jacob’s greatest assets is his honesty.”

“See? You’re no great pretender.” Leah helped herself to a drumstick and some green beans, apparently quite pleased with herself.

“Caught me.” He managed a laid-back grin, one he didn’t feel at all. “But I still think we need to cover all our bases.”

“Can’t hurt,” Grace agreed, biting into a biscuit as she looked at the calendar. “You sure your family won’t expect to see even a little of Jacob on Christmas? My parents expect to see Kyle.”