He stopped squinting at her and snorted. “Let me guess—this is some joke my cousins thought would be a funny way to welcome me home? Okay, so…ha ha. I’ve got stuff to do now.”
He started to close the door, but she slapped her hand against it. “I’m a friend of Lisa’s. Your cousin-in-law, I guess she’d be.”
“Mikey’s wife?” He pulled the door open when she nodded. “Maybe we should start this conversation in a different place. Like the beginning.”
She took a deep breath, then blew it out. “My grandmother’s raised me since I was four.”
“Maybe not that far back.”
“She retired to Florida a couple years ago with some friends and I take care of the house I grew up in. But all she was doing was worrying about me and when she started talking about moving back so I wouldn’t be alone, I told her I had a boyfriend. Then I told her he’d moved in with me. And, because I would only date a super great guy, after a while he proposed and naturally I accepted.”
“And I got dragged into this how?”
“I had just gotten home from having lunch with Lisa and she’d mentioned sending you a care package. Your name just popped into my head when Gram asked what my boyfriend’s name was.”
He shook his head. “Let me get this straight. You told your grandmother that a guy you’ve never met is your boyfriend?”
“I just wanted her to worry less.”
“Maybe she’s right to worry about you.”
Ouch. “I’m not crazy, you know.”
He folded his arms across his chest and looked down at her. “You made up an imaginary boyfriend.”
“You’re not imaginary. Just uninformed.”
He didn’t even crack a smile. “What do you want from me?”
And here came the crazy part—the more crazy part, anyway. “Gram’s coming home. She wants to check on the house and…she wants to meet you.”
As she spoke, Emma made sure none of her body parts were breaking the plane of the doorway, just in case he slammed the door in her face. It was something she might do, if some strange guy showed up on her doorstep and told her they were in a deep, meaningful relationship.
“So…what? You want me to have dinner with you guys? Pretend I’m your fiancé for a few hours?”
“She’ll be here a month.”
He laughed at her then. A deep, infectious laugh that made her want to join in even though he was laughing at her. Not that she could blame him. Even her best friend had laughed, although that might have been because Lisa thought she was joking. And she had been at the time. But as Gram’s arrival grew closer and she still couldn’t work up the nerve to tell her she didn’t really have a fiancé, the idea didn’t seem as funny.
Sean obviously disagreed, since he laughed long enough so she shifted her weight from one foot to the other before clearing his throat. “Since I know you didn’t come here thinking I’d move in with you and pretend to be your fiancé for a month, what is it you want?”
“Actually, I did come here to ask you if you’d move in with me and pretend to be my fiancé for a month.” And no, it didn’t sound a whole lot more sane than when she’d practiced saying it in the mirror.
“Why would I do that?”
Good question. “Because you’re not really doing anything else. I’d pay you. And you’re a nice guy?”
“Lady, you don’t know anything about me.”
“I know you just got out of the army, so you don’t have a permanent home. I know you don’t have a job yet. And I know you’re a really good guy.”
“I know somebody in my family has a big mouth.”
“Lisa’s proud of you. She talks about you a lot.”
He sighed and ran a hand over his hair. “Look, I’m not an actor for hire. I think, if you’re not willing to tell her the truth, you should just tell your grandmother you broke up with your…me.”
She wanted to argue with him—to make him understand she just wanted her grandmother to be happy—but it had been such a long shot anyway, she didn’t have the heart to keep at it.
“Well,” she said in a voice that only trembled a little, “thanks for your time. And welcome home, too.”
“Thanks. Take care of yourself.”
Even after he’d disappeared back into the apartment and closed the door, Emma managed not to cry.
It wasn’t the end of the world. She’d have to tell Gram they’d broken up and that would be the end of it.
It wouldn’t be the end of the worrying, though. If anything, it would be worse. Now Gram would not only worry about Emma being alone and taking care of the house and a business, but she’d think her granddaughter was nursing the heartbreaking loss of a broken engagement, too. Even if Gram could bring herself to return to Florida, she’d do nothing but fret again—the very thing Emma was trying to put a stop to.