Just Pretend (Love Comes To Town)

“Really?” I say.

His eyebrows crinkle at my tone.

“I don’t know,” I say. “You haven’t thought of…”

“Just marrying someone for the hell of it, making sure I get a pre-nup down, then divorcing the hell out of her?” He scowls, making a face. “Of course I have.” He shakes his head. “But hell, the hassle of it all, and the ethics of just messing with the system when there isn’t anyone I can stand to be around for more than a few…” He trails off as his gaze lands on me.

He smiles his first smile of the hour. “You know, you just might be a genius.”

Despite the circumstances, I’m still able to laugh. “Sure?”

“No.” He grabs both my hands. “I mean—we could do it. You and I. I’d give you a cut, of course, but… yeah.” He grins. “We could do this.”

Suddenly, my hands feel limp in his, like they could drop to the floor, through the floor, even.

Did he just seize them in the spur of the moment, or to try and convince me of what he just said?

And hell, his handsome, irresistible smile, that eager light in his eyes—everything about him is convincing. So, why aren’t I convinced?

“Sierra?” he says. “I know it’s sudden, but…”

I rip my hands away from his. It seems like the top of my head has opened up and everything I was going to say has walked right on out of it.

I pause. There’s one weird hope left—one hope that’s reasonable, too. “You’re serious?”

His face lights up—and in that quarter-second, my heart does a happy hop because I can almost hear it: “Gotcha! Kidding!”

Only he never says it. Suddenly, his expression goes flat.

“If you don’t want to, you can just say so,” he says.

Somehow the napkin got into my hand, and now I’m balling it in there, squishing it into the smallest, tiniest ball I can.

So. This is how it is for him. This is what I am to him.

“Listen,” he says, reaching out a hand. “I like spending time with you. I think we could both use the money. It’s a no-brainer—so why not?”

That hand of his, that hand that’s held my hand, stroked my body, cupped my face, I want to take it. I do.

But I can’t.

Not yet, anyway.

I rise. “I…” Where to even begin? “I’ll need some time. To think about this.”

Nolan nods, head down like a dog that’s been scolded. “So… tonight, if I came over?”

My hand on the cool metal of the chair, I look at him sadly. “You don’t get it?”

He grabs his water, before remembering there’s nothing left to drink. He frowns at me, like I’m to blame for it. “Get what?”

I could laugh out of sheer exasperation. “That this changes things. Didn’t you consider that? That what we had was real—to me, at least—and now…”

“Now… what?” He rises too, although he leans over the table so that we’d be eye to eye if he wasn’t a good foot taller than me. “Why can’t it be like before, except we’re fake engaged and we make a killing out of it? What’s wrong with that?”

Now I do laugh, and the laugh that comes out of me is exasperated, frustrated, sad. “Other than lying to our family and friends? Other than me going out with a guy like I’m some paid… I don’t know, escort? Other than…”

“OK, OK,” Nolan says wearily. “You got me at the lying part. But that last bit—I thought, you don’t have fun with me?”

“Yes.” I shrug. “So?”

“So, it wouldn’t like you were a…” He scowls, unwilling to even say the word. “I mean, if you’d want to go out with me normally, now, it’s practically the same, except we’ll get an even bigger benefit than most couples.”

I stand there.

His words twist in me like a fishing hook I willingly swallowed: A bigger benefit than most couples.

All around us is pleasant conversation, ugly abstract bleh-colored paintings. Someone’s ordered a stinky fish dish, someone else is wearing perfume that smells like a perfume store exploded.

I stand there and wait for Nolan to get it, until it dawns on me that he doesn’t, won’t ever.

No, he won’t ever get it, because it hasn’t been the same for him.

Maybe it just hasn’t been real for him the same way it has been for me.

“You really don’t get it,” I finally say, like an idiot.

“So, that’s a no?” he asks. His arms are two impotent hulks at his side. “Jesus, Sierra. You could’ve just said no. I never wanted to pressure you into anything. I just didn’t think it was a big deal.”

Suddenly, I’m sick to death of myself. Of this whole situation. Of me waiting around here for him to catch on in a way he clearly isn’t going to.

“I’ve got to go,” I say.

He catches me by the arm. “Don’t be like that. Let’s just talk this over, and—”