Granted, I’ve never given a table before. I should have known better. Emily looks at me like it should be obvious. “Because! I have no one to help me put it together. It’s in like ten thousand pieces, still right where the delivery guys dropped it off.”
“Oh.”
“Oh?”
“I didn’t think of that. Really, I thought it would come assembled.”
“That would have been nice.”
“I didn’t realize, or I would have ordered it as such. Or paid for someone to come do it.”
“I have brothers, but they don’t live here. My parents do, but, uh, they’re…my dad is…okay, this is really embarrassing, and he’d kill me if he heard me say it, but he’s not very um…”
“I understand.” She’s trying to say that her dad isn’t very handy, which is obviously hard for her. She clearly loves her parents a lot and doesn’t want to embarrass them even though they’re not here and will never know.
Emily saws at her bottom lip until it turns a dark, alluring shade of red. My dick notices and offers his help as a hard tool of persuasion to help put the table together. Evidently, the bastard influences my brain.
“I could do it if you’ll help me. It most probably needs a second set of hands.”
She looks me up and down and barely manages not to snort. “Uhmmm…I have like, no tools. I just have this token box my parents assembled and gave to me as a gift when I bought the house.”
“That should do it. Anything else it needs should have come in the box.”
“Oh. I…well…”
I arch a brow. “Is it that you don’t want my help, or after hacking the last one to bits and setting it on fire, you didn’t want a replacement? I’m sorry if I’ve overstepped here or was presumptuous.”
“Presumptuous?” Emily gapes. “You use that word?”
“I do.”
“Do you…do you read classics?”
“Happily or unhappily? Have I or would I in the future when not pressed to do it for some sort of class?”
“The latter.”
“I suppose I do.” I can practically feel my cock trying to reach through my pants and cock me right in the jaw because admitting that sounds a little bit, eh, less than macho. Instead, I should have said, “No, I only like to read about sports and business, and then watch sports, play sports, and do things sports-related, especially violent, rough, manly sports like football or rugby. Or like strong man competitions.”
But maybe I’m wrong because Emily breaks into a grin and looks at me with newfound respect. And maybe there’s even a touch of admiration in there too.
“Really?”
“I suppose.”
“You suppose? Well…I guess we’ll have one thing in common other than that we work together, at the very least.” She hesitates but then turns and motions over her shoulder. “Come on. We’ll look at the table. Maybe we’ll even get it assembled.”
I hope it’s the kind that stands up to being used and doesn’t just look pretty but falls apart with one hard breath in its direction. I desperately hope I’m not going to embarrass myself and fail at this because I haven’t put together a damn thing since shop class in high school. My mom didn’t give a rat’s bottom end where I went to school, and Granny wanted me to go somewhere as normal as possible, so yes, I did shop class. I did woodworking, motors, and welding, thank you very much. That was a long time ago, though. Men also tend to be directionally challenged, but in our defense, most of those directions are written out like pure confusing trash.
When I get to the kitchen and see Emily standing in front of a massive box which has been opened, the lid lifted, and a piece of furniture that’s in more pieces than the last one which met its end by ax and fiery doom, I have to tamp down my rising sigh. Emily’s eyes are all large and shining with hope. My balls tighten up furiously as I realize I don’t want to let her down.
I can’t let her down. For her. And for me.
This is quite possibly, technically, maybe my first task as a fake boyfriend, and I will not fail at it, even if it takes me three days to put it together, working round the clock.
“Rules,” Emily blurts as I kneel down before the box of parts. “We need rules.”
I reach for the instruction sheet. How the heck is this thing ever going to turn into a table? And where’s the instruction sheet that’s supposed to come with my new girlfriend? My fake girlfriend.
“I agree.”
Emily kneels beside me, eyeing the box, and a sudden sweet rush of delightful and soft feminine scent follows in her wake. This is something I haven’t had the pleasure of inhaling before. Something unique—in a world where everyone dress and look the same—that makes my balls stir again. I drag in another deep breath, filling my lungs with it while my brain works overtime, trying to determine what exactly it is.