“I told her we were new—”
“Jacob, I don’t even know what your penis looks like.”
“Well, I’m not showing it to you—”
“I’m not asking! I’m making a point!”
I put a hand to my chest. “I thought I was gonna get here and your dad was going to call me Brenda or Bianca the whole time and they’d make small talk with me and then I’d go home and we’d have three more weeks before the engagement party to perfect our act. And instead we’re in a two-hour couples-counseling consultation with a bestselling sex expert. She’s going to take one look at me and know I’ve never seen you naked. She’s gonna see it all over my face!” I looked at him bleakly.
He seemed to mull this over. “Maybe we haven’t had sex yet. Maybe we’re taking it slow.”
I shook my head. “No. No way. We’ve definitely had sex. You supposedly moved to Royaume to be closer to me and we haven’t even slept together yet? How is that in any way believable? The whole point is to make them think we’re super into each other. How are you going to be over Amy if you’re not having hot, kinky sex with your new girlfriend?!”
He started smiling.
“This isn’t funny!”
“It’s a little funny.”
“No! And what is this room?!” I asked, throwing my arms out.
A thousand marble eyes stared out at me. It was full of taxidermy. FULL. And it was weird.
A squirrel in a cowboy hat and chaps riding a turtle. A white mouse dressed in a wizard robe and glasses reading a book, a rabbit with antlers, a ferret in a little bathtub scrubbing his back with a loofa. A dead coyote dressed like Flo from the Progressive commercials. She had the bouffant haircut and red lipstick and everything. It was pretty hilarious, but still.
“This is my old room. This is Dad’s stuff,” Jacob said. “It’s where he keeps his novelty pieces.”
I bounced back to the problem at hand. “This is a catastrophe, Jacob,” I whispered. “What if your mom sends me a friend request on Instagram? There’s not one picture of us together. It literally looks like I didn’t exist until today.” I shook my head. “We just walked in here like renegades. I don’t know enough about you to pull this off. I don’t even know how old you are. Do you sleep with the fan on? How do you take your coffee? Do you snore?”
“I’m thirty-five. I sleep with the fan,” he said calmly. “Decaf when my anxiety is high, cream and sugar, and not that I am aware.”
I shook my head at the gorgeous, oblivious man standing in front of me, who was totally not getting the gravity of this situation. “You said your mom knows Jessica?” I asked.
“Yes. And Zander and Gibson.”
“We’re going to have to be together in front of everyone. We’re going to have to maintain that we’re dating at work. I’ll have to tell Benny. We’ll need to disclose the relationship to HR.”
His face fell.
“It’s fine, I’m okay with it,” I said. “It’s just bigger than I thought.”
Hopefully Jessica didn’t talk to Joy too much and the jump from I Hate Him to I’m in Love with Him didn’t come up.
“We’re going to have to step up our game, Jacob. Big time. In your mom’s book she said intimacy is in the small things,” I whispered. “It’s putting a hand on my lower back when we walk into a room or facing in my direction when we’re together. You’re going to have to touch me. You have to do it on purpose, but it has to look like you’re not even thinking about it, like touching me is just natural for you because you like it. And I’m going to have to do the same thing.”
He put his hands in his pockets. “Okay…”
“We’re going to need to spend a lot more time together,” I whispered. “If your mom doesn’t call bullshit by the end of the night, Amy will in three weeks if we don’t get good at this. I’m going to need to see your house. You’re going to need to see…mine.” I gulped on the last word. “You have to have lunch with me every day.”
I thought I saw the corner of his lip twitch.
“Maybe you should come up to the cabin,” he suggested.
“YES. All the things.”
I let out a slow breath. “God. No wonder you warned me about sex toys.” Though I might actually want to talk to her about that…
I’d read Joy’s book. Twice. It was good. She knew her stuff. It was also the book that made me realize how little I’d been getting from Nick. How wrong things had been for so long. I’d thought it was me. I was trying to fix something when I didn’t know where the break was.
And then I’d found out.
“We should go back out there,” I said, chewing on my lip.
Great. Now I was nervous. We both were. Perfect.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it,” he said forlornly.
I waved him off, trying not to freak out over the fact that I was in Dr. J. Maddox’s house. Leave it to a man to completely miss the broad strokes.
He stood there for an awkward moment like he didn’t know what to do now. Then he put out a hand, offering it to me like he felt sorry that I had to take it.
I breathed a sigh through my nose at his apologetic expression. I didn’t want him to feel bad about this situation. I would have agreed to help him even if I’d known about his mom. Telling everyone I knew that I had a boyfriend was just an unexpected pivot. I hadn’t been ready for how far this performance needed to stretch. And I’d meant what I’d said outside: I didn’t mind the touching part, that wasn’t an issue for me at all.
I gave him a reassuring smile. “It’s going to be fine, Jacob. We’ll work it out.”
I slipped my hand into his waiting one and was surprised when I got the slightest flutter in my stomach at the contact.
It wasn’t the first time I’d touched him. I’d hugged him earlier in the supply closet, but this felt intimate, even though it was just for show. I felt a tiny blush creep up my neck.
I cleared my throat. “No kissing on the lips,” I whispered.
“No kissing,” he agreed.
Then my “boyfriend” led me out.
Chapter 19
Jacob
We were in the kitchen. Jill, Jane, Jewel, and Gwen sat at the counter drinking wine and cutting pasta from scratch and hanging it on a drying rack. Walter was washing dishes, and Mom was stirring a pot. Dad had come back in from his workshop and was making garlic bread. Grandpa sat in his chair staring at the yard through the window. There were appetizers set out. A penis-shaped charcuterie board that Mom got for Christmas from her best friend, and an Edible Arrangement.
When we came into the kitchen, Briana had immediately started drying dishes.
The second she did, I relaxed a little. She seemed to inherently understand the communal effort that was the family dinner.
She seemed to understand a lot of things.
My anxiety had careened back in full force over the last few hours. A snowball gathering momentum at each unexpected development that was this day.