Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 85608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
I slammed the door closed. “How drunk are you?”
“Drunk? Me?” He shot me that same smile. “Just a little bit.”
“You’re falling all over yourself.”
“Yeah. True.” He lay back and stared up at the ceiling. “I blame Locke, Blake, and Mal.”
“Who?”
“Fuck. I forgot you weren’t here when they moved here. Mal is my cousin. Malcolm King. Well, he doesn’t live here. He lives in Midland, but he was here for the bachelor party.”
“Bachelor party?” I asked, my voice rising.
“Yeah. Locke—Merritt Locke—is marrying my cousin Margaret next weekend. Blake Holliday is his best friend and his best man. Mal and Blake have known each other since childhood. Mal’s a groomsman. I showed them a good time.”
“Lord, I can only imagine what that means.” I headed to the kitchen and poured him a tall glass of water. “Here. Drink this.”
He sat up and downed it in one long drag. “Crisp.”
“Okay. So, you were out for the bachelor party tonight. Why are you here exactly?”
“I need your help.”
I stared at him in confusion. My help. That … that wasn’t what I’d been expecting. I’d been—I didn’t know—expecting some kind of drunk confession. We’d been hanging out every morning. It was what friends did. That was what he’d said. Our flirting meant nothing. I needed to get over myself.
“How can I help you?” I sank into a seat across from him.
I was in nothing but a tiny tank top and shorts. Gavin’s eyes roamed my body. I could see the snide comment he’d throw out flirtatiously at the way I’d phrased that.
“Keep it together, King.”
He laughed. “Right. Okay. So, I have a dilemma.”
“What sort of dilemma?”
“I kind of told everyone that I had a girlfriend.”
“Why would you tell anyone that?” I asked with a chuckle. “You are as likely to settle down as I am. I mean, have you ever had a girlfriend?”
“I had a girlfriend,” he growled. “Once.”
I snorted. “Okay.”
“Anyway, the problem is that I said that I was bringing said girlfriend to the wedding.”
“That is a problem. Just tell them you don’t have a girlfriend.”
“No, no, no,” he said, standing and walking aimlessly around my living room. “You don’t understand my family. They’re … a lot. Like a lot, a lot.”
“I can understand that,” I said softly, thinking about how over the top my own family was.
“No way. I have a million cousins and aunts and uncles. It’s so much, and I’ve never brought a girl home to meet them all. I couldn’t even imagine doing something like that. I should have never told them I had a girlfriend, but once I did, it spread like wildfire. Everyone is so excited to meet her. Especially because I’m so secretive about her. Do you see my dilemma?”
“Your lie turned into a wildfire.”
“Yes,” he said, pointing at me as if I understood.
“Just tell them the truth.”
He laughed. “Or you could go with me.”
I stared at him, waiting for the punch line. But he was just standing there, staring at me, judging my reaction. “I’m not your girlfriend.”
“No, I know. Of course not. But you could pretend to be my girlfriend for the wedding.”
“What?” I gasped. “I couldn’t do that. Everyone would know we weren’t dating.”
“No, no. See, we could act like we always do. We’re already flirty and ridiculous together. You would act like that and tell everyone you were my girlfriend.”
I cringed at that word. “I’m a terrible girlfriend, King.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is,” I told him vehemently. “I’d never pull it off. Plus, I have appointments all week. I can’t take the time off.”
“You’re the boss,” he reminded me in the way that I always reminded him.
“Not fair.”
“Come on. Please, do this for me. I’ll do something for you. Whatever you want,” he urged with that heart-melting smile again. “It’s a few days in Midland, where you smile and laugh and pretend we’re a happy couple. We can plan a huge breakup afterward, if you want, so everyone will know it didn’t work out. Please. Come on. This is what friends do.”
What friends do.
Because he didn’t want me there as his real girlfriend. Something I’d honestly be terrible at. But a fake girlfriend.
No, fuck, I hated the idea of being a girlfriend. I didn’t like that at all. I was the sort of girl who ruined relationships as soon as they touched me. I was never quite what anyone needed. And I didn’t know how to stop it or how to escape the spiral of it all.
“I’m a bad girlfriend,” I repeated. “Even if I could get away, I’d ruin it.”
“Explain this bad girlfriend thing to me again, Bowen. All I remember is that people treated you like shit, and so you left them. I’ve heard all the stories of you being cheated on and all that.”
I blushed. Yeah, I had been cheated on a lot, but it was more than that. It had always been more than that. It had started in high school. My parents were worried after I was asked to my first dance. I was the rebel, the heartbreaker, even before I’d broken my first heart. I went to that dance and danced on tables and not given a single fuck. Apparently, not caring about your date meant that date was probably going to abandon you halfway through the night. Whatever. I’d ended up having a good time without him.