Nicole Helm - Too Friendly to Date

“But Kyle doesn’t have a family of his own or anywhere else to be.”

“Well, yeah, but if you had a boyfriend, wouldn’t you want to spend part of the day with him? I mean, especially if you’ve been dating an entire year.”

“I haven’t seen my family in many years. As far as they know, I’ve spent every Christmas with Jacob. Trust me, they won’t question it. And if they do, I’ll tell them I wanted to focus on them.”

“It makes sense,” Jacob said, even though Grace was frowning.

They ate their chicken and discussed the day after Christmas. Planned out a time for her family to come see MC with Jacob around but not too many other people. The fewer people they involved, the better. At least on that they agreed.

The back door opened and after a few seconds Kyle stepped into the kitchen.

“Hey, you’re back early,” Grace greeted, all way-too-wide smiles.

Kyle nodded, and Grace grinned at him and then he grinned back. Jacob grimaced, glanced at Leah, who had her nose wrinkled and mouth all screwed up.

“You guys need me for anything else?”

“I think we’ll manage without all your genius contributions,” Jacob muttered.

Grace grinned, popping out of her seat. “Great.” Her and Kyle exited, Grace’s laugh echoing down the staircase.

“How do you live with that lovey-dovey crap?”

“It’s a very big house and I hide a lot.”

She kind of half laughed, but her expression as she looked at where Kyle and Grace had disappeared wasn’t so much amused or disgusted. No, it looked a lot wistful. And it echoed his own feeling on the matter.

It’d been almost six months since he’d been in a relationship, and he missed that ease with someone. Sure, he’d never been in a relationship as long as Kyle and Grace, but it was nice to always have someone to call up and spend time with instead of hiding from his sister and best friend feeling each other up all the time.

“You want to go to a movie?”

“Huh?”

“It’s early. They’re...” He grimaced. “Doing whatever. Unless you have plans. Let’s go do something. That way if your mom asks what we did on our last date we can say, ‘Oh, we went and saw Boneheads. ’”

“I am not going to see Boneheads. ”

“It’s supposed to be funny.”

“It looks idiotic.” She pushed some hair out of her eyes. “What about Incoming? ”

“An alien movie? Are you crazy? Those things are creepy.”

“Oh, poor Jacob is afraid of a few little fictional creatures.” Leah pouted, clearly mocking him, and why that made him smile was completely beyond him.

“You better be careful. I’ll wrangle you into a chick flick.”

“Oh, please. Aliens over chick flick any day of the week.” But she stood from the table and went over to the mudroom, where her coat was hanging. “What about the one with the race-car driver? The main guy is hot and I hear he gets naked.”

Jacob shrugged into his coat. “Why do you have to say things like that?”

She laughed, an uninhibited rumble, and something cross wired in his brain, suddenly making him think about her naked. Nope. Nope. Nope. Not allowed.

He glanced at her as they stepped outside. It was not a date. It was a distraction. A precursor to their ruse at best. Definitely not a date.

But it kind of felt like one.

* * *

WHAT THE HELL was happening?

It seemed innocuous enough, and it was. A movie. Friends went to movies all the time. Even friends who were going to pretend to be a little more than friends for a few days. This was normal.

Leah stared at the seat in front of her while sex noises filled the movie theater. Friends might do this all the time, but it was so not normal.

Planning their fake relationship out over dinner had actually helped alleviate some of the weird. It seemed way more doable to say they’d pretend for two dinners and one afternoon at MC rather than pretend for a whole week. So, he’d been right and things had started to feel more manageable and less...freaky.

And then they’d sat down in a dark movie theater next to each other and watched a movie that seemed to have a whole hell of a lot of sex in it.

Luckily no one could see in the dark that her face was bright, bright red. It wasn’t as though she’d never seen a movie with sex in it; it was just...watching it with Jacob. Occasionally accidentally bumping arms. Oh, God, it was so weird.

When Jacob leaned over and whispered in her ear, she nearly jumped out of her chair.

“I have to go to the bathroom.”

“Oh. Right.” She awkwardly twisted sideways so he could get by. She glanced at the movie screen where the main couple was really going at it. Oh, Jesus. She couldn’t do another second of this. She really couldn’t.

She scurried out of the seat and down the aisle. The lobby was bright but lacking the grunting and “oh, baby” chorus, and she felt as if she could breathe again.

She situated herself near the exit of the men’s bathroom. When Jacob finally appeared after what felt like hours, he gave her a quizzical frown.

“I’m sorry. I can’t sit through any more of that movie with you.”

Relief washed over his features. “Oh, thank God. Let’s go home.”

“Yes. Please.”

The entire drive home was awkwardly silent. The stupid movie just kept playing over and over in Leah’s head. Boobs and groans and butts. She couldn’t erase it. It would be etched there for the remainder of time.

“Just FYI, we cannot tell my parents we saw that movie.”

Jacob’s laugh was a little rusty. “Noted.”

“And we should probably never go to a movie we don’t know much about without doing some research first.”

“Agreed.”

He pulled his truck into the back lot of MC. She didn’t dare look at him. Didn’t dare say anything else except a goodbye.

“I...should head home.”

“Right.”

“Right.” She pushed out of the truck, hopped onto the concrete. Her truck was parked up front, so she started along the walk in that direction.

“Leah?”

Oh, God. She didn’t know why him calling her name filled her with dread; she only knew the last thing she wanted to do was turn around and answer him. Face him. But what choice did she have?

“This is going to come out all wrong,” he said, walking toward her. He cleared his throat, stopping a couple feet away. In the dark, it was hard to see him, but the streetlamp gave her a general idea. “But that did get me thinking your parents are going to expect a certain level of...intimacy between us.”

What? What? “But—”

“I’m not talking about sex,” he was quick to say. Really quick. “I just mean, you’re not very demonstrative as a rule. You don’t even hug Grace, but they’re going to expect you to hug your boyfriend. Hold hands. Kiss on the cheek at the very least.”

Which was all true, but she didn’t know what that had to do with...intimacy. Between them. Ahh. “Okay, so what’s your point?”

He cleared his throat, took another step toward her. Made the throat-clearing sound again. “We need to be able to do that without you blushing and me clearing my throat like an eighty-year-old with a cold.”

“And how do we do that?” she squeaked.

“You also can’t squeak.”

“Jacob.”

“Maybe we should give it a go a few times with no one else looking or paying attention. Just so we can get those nerves and weirdness out of the way.” Again he took a step toward her. She wanted to bolt. Run for the safety of her truck.

“I don’t think that’s possible.” But it was sensible, and that was the only thing that kept her rooted to her spot as he advanced. Maybe she could at least get over the squeaking or the blushing. Or the insane urge to run in the opposite direction for fear of making a fool out of herself.