Here’s the deal. I could have any girl I want. I know this. Yes, I’m an arrogant ass to think like this, but it’s true. I look all right, I’m smart, and I play decent football. The girls want me even more because I don’t pay them any attention.
They all want something. Something I can’t give. At least with Fable, I was up-front with what I needed from her from the start and I compensated her right away. She won’t want anything else from me.
It’s easier that way. Safer.
“Can I ask you a question?” She knocks me from my thoughts with her sweet voice. She looks all tough, with the heavy eye makeup and the dark clothes, and that platinum-blond hair. But she has the most lyrical voice I’ve ever heard.
“Sure.” I’m opening this discussion up for potential disaster. I can sense it.
“Why me?”
“Huh?” I play dumb. I know what she means.
“Why did you choose me to be your pretend girlfriend? I know I’m not the ideal choice. Let’s be real here.”
She must be a mind reader. “I knew you wouldn’t give me a lot of trouble.”
“What do you mean?”
I’m going to fuck this up—I can feel it in my bones. “Any other girl wouldn’t want to just pretend to be my girlfriend. She would really want to be in a relationship with me, you know? And I knew you wouldn’t.”
“How? You don’t know me.”
“I’ve seen you at La Salle’s.” Weak reasoning.
“Big deal. Lots of guys come into La Salle’s. Lots of guys you play football and hang out with go there all the time. I’ve hooked up with a few of them.” She crosses her arms in front of her, plumping up her boobs so I catch a glimpse of creamy skin ready to spill out over her low-cut top. I don’t usually slobber over girls, but there’s something about this one that makes me want to see her naked. “I’m not going to have sex with you.”
She’s being defiant and I kind of like it. What the hell is wrong with me? “I don’t want to have sex with you. That’s not why I hired you.”
“Hired me.” She snorts, and she doesn’t seem to care what she sounds or looks like when she does it, and I can’t help but admire that. “You make it sound like a proper job when really I’m your paid girlfriend-slash-whore. Where did you get that sort of money anyway?”
“It’s mine, don’t worry.” I have money saved. My dad’s in finance and has made a lot of money throughout his career. He’s generous with it, especially now that I’m his only child. “And don’t call yourself a whore. You’re not.” I don’t want her to feel like one. Even though whatever she’s done with other guys might qualify her as a whore, sex is the farthest thing from my mind when it comes to her.
Or at least, it was. Now, though…fuck. I don’t know.
She confuses me. What I think, what I feel when she’saround, confuses me. And I don’t even know her. I’m totally getting ahead of myself and I don’t know how to stop it.
“There’s going to be no sex,” she says again. Almost like she’s trying to convince herself as well as me. “No blow jobs, either.”
“I don’t want any of that.” It’s the truth—at least, that’s what I tell myself. She’s hot, there’s no denying it, but sex brings nothing but trouble. I’m not about to fool around with a girl who has an easy reputation and who’s literally at my beck and call for the next week. It’s pointless.
Right?
“But we’re going to have to pretend we like each other,” I remind her. “That we’re supposed to be…in love.” The last word was hard for me to say. I don’t really use it. My dad never tells me he loves me. Adele has. But her love is tainted with shitty conditions and stuff I don’t want to think about.
I fucking can’t think about her, or I’ll explode.
“I can do that,” Fable says easily.
Realization dawns. I’m such an idiot. “I’ll have to hold your hand and put my arm around you. Hug you.” I didn’t consider that.
“No big deal.” She shrugs.
“I’ll have to kiss you, too.” Yeah, I didn’t consider that either.
She blatantly stares at me, her gaze dropping to my mouth. Is she thinking about kissing me? “I don’t think that will be a hardship. Can you handle it?”
“Hell yeah, I can.” I sound way more confident than I feel.