Nicole Helm - Too Friendly to Date

“So, what’s so important?” Jacob focused on the ornate wood trim in the room. Trim it had taken him months to bring back to its former glory. If he focused on that, he wouldn’t have to think about how the makeup Leah was wearing made her blue-green eyes even more noticeable than usual.

“My, um, family. They’re coming to visit for a week over Christmas.”

Jacob let out a breath of relief. He didn’t know why he was relieved, but whatever this was was about her family. So innocuous. No big deal. “That’s great. I know you’ve had your problems. That’s really great. You need time off? You didn’t need the buildup and the nerves. Of course you can—”

“That’s not why I wanted to talk to you.”

“Oh.” The relief disappeared. He leaned against his desk, tapping his fingers on the smooth, glossy wood.

“Um, so, this is going to sound crazy, but hear me out. Actually, it doesn’t just sound crazy. It is crazy. Nuts. Totally cuckoo.”

She paced the bright patterned rug in front of his desk, in front of him. Jacob focused on the pattern of black and gray. Anything was better than red.

“But...I have to ask. Only choice.” Her voice was low enough he wondered if she was talking to herself more than to him.

She stopped pacing, took a deep breath, which caused his eyes to wander to her chest until he mentally reprimanded himself.

“My parents are old-fashioned. Really old-fashioned. You know, think a woman needs a man to be safe and happy and all that.”

Jacob snorted. No wonder she didn’t get along with her family. That was about the opposite of everything essentially Leah. She was fiercely independent and took shit from no one.

She was not someone he worried about being safe. Or at all in need of a man.

“So, you know, I haven’t always been on speaking terms with them, but we’ve been trying. Trying to get back to being a family and the past year has been good. Really good.”

She started pacing again, her heels faint thuds against the rug. “So, to keep that going, to keep them from annoying the hell out of me by insinuating I can’t take care of myself, I...told them I had a boyfriend.”

Jacob was trying hard to follow what this had to do with him. Maybe she wanted him to corroborate her story if she brought her parents around. But why the secrecy and the uncharacteristic nerves?

“The thing is... Okay.” She stopped pacing, took a deep breath and let it out. “I kind of told them you...were my boyfriend.”

“Uh, say what?” He’d heard wrong. Or something.

“I know. I know. It’s totally insane, and please don’t read anything into it. It’s just...I’m around you every day. I know everything about you. I couldn’t get caught up in a lie because it’d all be the truth. Except for the us-being-together part.”

“You don’t know everything about me.”

She waved the sentence away as if it was an inconsequential bug. “Please. You’re an open book.”

He frowned, not at all liking the assessment. Besides, if she knew everything about him she’d know he was attracted to her. She obviously didn’t or she wouldn’t be walking around his office in a short dress and heels. So, there.

“The thing is, I can’t tell them it was a lie, because then things will go to shit again. They’ll be mad about the lying and I’ll lose it with my mom about the man thing and...” She shook her head, looked at the ceiling as if she couldn’t believe what was happening.

He couldn’t believe what was happening, either, but he wasn’t the one pretending she was his girlfriend.

“I know it probably doesn’t make sense to you, but if you, as my friend, could do me this one favor and pretend, just for a few meals, that we’re more than friends...I would owe you so big. So big. Anything. Anything.”

He couldn’t think of a time when Leah had ever seemed this vulnerable. Usually she was guns blazing, no one was getting in her way. She was tough as nails and didn’t ask for help unless it was absolutely necessary.

He’d always admired that about her.

The fact that she was asking, almost pleading, must mean it was absolutely necessary. “Okay.”

“I— Okay? Just like that? Okay?” Her voice was all baffled edginess.

Jacob shrugged. When it came to favors for friends, he’d never been any good at saying no. Besides, he excelled at charming parents. What was a few dinners with Leah and her family? She’d had plenty of dinners with his. All he had to do was pretend to be a boyfriend.

How hard could it be? Long as he kept his hands to himself, easy.

“Not up to anything kinky, are you?”

She scowled, all hints of vulnerability disappearing into that I’m-gonna-kick-your-ass glint in her eye. “No.”

“Then sure. Why not?”

“What are you going to make me do to make it up to you?” she asked skeptically.

He grinned and rubbed his hands together. “Hmm. I will have to think about that one. So many options.”

The scowl deepened until her eyebrows all but touched each other. “Damn it, Jacob.”

“Hey, now, I’m doing you a big favor. So, there are going to be a few rules.”

“Yeah, like what?” She crossed her arms over her chest. Jacob found himself wishing her dress had a lower neckline.

He shook that thought away. “Like, for starters, you can’t be all prickly and pissed off with me. If I’m your boyfriend, you’re in love with me, right? Women in love aren’t prickly.”

“I’m always prickly. And you like to bring it out in me.” She dropped her arms at her sides. “You’re really going to do this?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

He couldn’t read her expression. Not even a little bit.

“Thank you.” The words were heartfelt and it knocked some of the teasing out of him. The Leah he knew didn’t do heartfelt.

“You’re welcome. Just let me know when. Don’t have to kiss you, do I?”

She screwed up her face. “God, I hope not.”

He didn’t care for her answer, but kept the easy smile on his face. “Good. Probably be like kissing my sister.” Yeah, not by a long shot.

* * *

LEAH KICKED HER heels off the second her door was open. They landed with a thud in a pile of other shoes and clothes in her entryway. Some magazines and junk mail littered the floor, too. She was really going to need to clean up before her family arrived.

She could have had them stay in a hotel, but she knew how much Mom and Dad hated hotels. Or, more accurately, the expense of them.

The fact they had to pinch their pennies was one in a long list of things that were Leah’s fault, so she owed them.

Maybe Grace could help clean up. Maybe Kelly and Susan, too, if they were surviving their first month as new parents. MC’s interior designer and administrative assistant hadn’t been around much since they’d adopted their baby, taking maternity leave and switching off days when they did work. Leah had missed having them around as she was almost as close to them as Grace.

But Leah’s place was definitely not suited for a baby, so they’d probably have to pass. At least for a little while longer.

Leah dropped her keys on the cluttered kitchen table, then remembered how she’d been late to a job last week because she hadn’t been able to find them. She retraced her steps, found the bag she took to work every day and tossed them in there.

The house itself was a work in progress. A falling-down English cottage–style one-story built in the ’20s, it had been abandoned for ten years before she’d bought it, and the price had been right for a handy woman making a modest living. The past five years she’d put a lot of work into it, but she cringed at the thought of Mom and Dad seeing it. Her salary and Jacob’s help only went so far.