The Fake Out: Chapter 21

“Why do you hate roses?” Chris asked after five solid minutes of awkward silence on our drive into town. It should be noted I was mostly the awkward part.

The quiet had given me time to get used to my surroundings. New-ish truck, fancy satellite radio, a chain with a cross hanging from the rearview mirror. Otherwise, it was spotless. I guessed he had people who took care of that for him.

“I just do.”

Chris glanced my way. “You know, if we’re doing this, we mind as well have fun and get to know each other.”

I crossed my arms. “I don’t like lying to my mom.”

“Don’t think of it as lying. We are going on a date. There will be an engagement ring on your finger.”

“But none of that is real.”

He reached across and wrapped his fingers around on my leg. “I know. It’s a lot.” With a gentle squeeze, he took his hand back and put it on the steering wheel. “But if we’re doing it, we should get to know each other, smile, laugh, enjoy each other’s company.”

“Smile, laugh.” Apparently, I was a parrot now.

I turned to look at him. He had on a red polo shirt, the slim fit kind that curved over his relevant body parts nicely, and a pair of tastefully distressed jeans. So, in other words, he looked awesome without even trying. He could probably wear a onesie and a bonnet and still manage to look awesome though.

He flashed me a smile. “Exactly.”

I knew the stakes were high for him. Otherwise, why would he go through all this? But he seemed so laid-back about it. Maybe he was a good actor, better than I gave him credit for.

“Let’s start with dinner, okay?” I said.

The Taco Truck was aptly named because it was, well, a taco truck. It was a quiet night, being a Monday, and only a couple other tables were filled. But if our goal was to be seen, I’d make sure we were seen. We ordered and I made sure to introduce Chris to Ana Casarez, one half of the couple who owned the Taco Truck. Ana was known for two things: her taco plate and her quiet but thorough dissemination of information (AKA gossip). I didn’t miss the way she discreetly snapped a photo of us with her phone.

We found a seat at one of the picnic tables dotting the patch of dirt in front of the truck. Although it was early April, the air was heavy with humidity and the promise of summer heat. An umbrella protected us from the direct rays of the setting sun. String lights had been draped throughout the area, but it wasn’t yet quite dark enough to see them.

I stopped Chris the second before he was about to dig into his taco plate.

“You can’t come to the Taco Truck without trying the hot sauce. If you’re man enough to handle it.”

Chris set his taco down. “Excuse me? Did you just call me a wimp?”

“I think I implied you were a wimp.” I pulled the condiment basket on the table toward me. It contained three plastic bottles. “You have three choices.”

“Why don’t these have labels on them?” he asked, his eyes narrowed with suspicion.

“Because they’re homemade. For example, this green one is just regular old hot sauce.” I tapped the yellow bottle. “This one is the medium sauce, what we call ‘Not Your Mama’s’ sauce. And lastly, the red bottle is lovingly called the ‘Wish You Were Dead’ sauce.”

He leaned back and rubbed his bottom lip with his thumb. I caught myself following its path and jerked my eyes away. “This feels like a test.”

“Just having a little fun.”

“Alright.” He nodded slowly, a glint of mischief in his eyes. “How about this? Each of us tries them. For every sauce we taste, we get to ask the other person a question.”

I paused, considering the ramifications of this. “Any question?”

“Everything is fair game. In the spirit of getting to know one another, of course.”

“I’m assuming we have to answer honestly?”

He raised an eyebrow. “That was implied.”

“Just making sure.” The rational part of me pointed out that this was probably a bad idea. The other part of me, the curious part, had questions. “Fine. Let’s do this.”

We each grabbed a chip from the basket we were sharing and started with the green bottle, dripping out a few drops on our respective chip. With a count of three, we downed them at the same time. This sauce wasn’t much more than a typical, run-of-the-mill hot sauce. Sure, it had a bit of a kick, but it went down well enough.

“Pretty good,” Chris said. “Ladies first.”

I thought about it for a moment. “What do you want to do after football?”

“I want to go into medical research.”

“Really?”

“I know you only want me for my body, but I have a brain too.” Playfully, he batted his eyes until I cracked a smile. “My undergrad degree is in biology and my plan has always been med school, then a residency in research. I’d like to work somewhere I can study congenital heart defects.”

I was impressed and I realized it made his work with the Children’s Heart Fund even more important to him. “Do you know where you’d like to go to school?”

He held up a finger. “That’s another question.”

“Fine,” I grumbled. “Your turn.”

“So, Peter? How did that happen?”

“Wow. You came out swinging.” I picked out a tortilla chip and began breaking it into tiny little pieces. “We started dating my third year in college. He’d already graduated. Granny was going through cancer treatment, I was commuting to school and working as many hours as I could between helping out with Iris.”

I paused and nibbled on my bottom lip, trying to decide how much of this story I wanted to tell. When we started dating, I’d been twenty and had never been in a serious relationship. More than that, I’d felt so very alone, longing for someone I could lean on a little. But I chose wrong. Really, really wrong.

“Anyway”—I brushed the chip crumbs off the table—“I thought he was a good guy, but he seemed to be confused by the definition of monogamous. I caught him in the act of cheating the day of my granny’s funeral. So now, I hate his guts and sincerely hope one day he is attacked by killer bees and that it’s all caught on video so I can replay it when I need a pick-me-up.”

“Ouch.” His eyes were kind, which I sort of hated. I didn’t want his pity. “He really did a number on you.”

“It’s over now. It could be much worse—I could still be dating him.” I shuddered at even the thought. “Ready for round two?”

He picked up the yellow bottle. “Let’s do this.”

We popped our respective chips in our mouths at the same time. The initial taste was sweet, almost fruity. And then…

“What. Is. This?” Chris coughed, his eyes widening. After chugging half his water bottle, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Why are you not reacting? I can feel it burning my stomach lining.”

It was hot, that was no lie. But one, I liked spicy. Two, I’d done the Taco Truck challenge before, several times. Probably, most of my taste buds had been burned off at this point.

I smiled sweetly. “It wasn’t too bad.”

“Wasn’t too bad? Are you a witch?” He held up his hand. “Don’t answer that. I don’t want to know. Go on, ask your question.”

“Do you have any pets?”

His eyes lit up, a boyish smile exposing his dimple. That dimple. That smile. It did something to my cold, irritated heart. Which I ignored.

“Yep. Three dogs and a tortoise.” He pulled his phone out. “Wanna see?”

“Sure.” For the next ten minutes, he scrolled through his phone showing me photos of three rascally-looking dogs (all rescues) and his Russian tortoise posing in front of a Barbie-sized kitchen with a tiny chef’s hat on its head that made me laugh.

“Now, my question. Why do you hate roses?”

I glared at him. His questions were far more personal than the ones I’d asked. I opened my mouth to say something vague and vaguely untrue, but Chris interrupted me.

“Remember, we said we’d be honest.”

My mouth snapped shut. How had he known?

“Fine. Roses are supposed to be a symbol of love, but mostly they get used for insincere apologies. Give someone roses and all is forgiven. Roses heal all wounds, blah, blah, blah.” I was stabbing the table with my finger now. “Anyone can buy roses. Just like anyone can say the words ‘I’m sorry’ and not really mean them. Roses and apologies, both aren’t worth much as far as I’m concerned. People might believe what you say, but they always believe what you do.”

Every time my father had come home, it had been with a bouquet of roses and apologies, only for him to repeat the process over and over like the worst kind of déjà vu.

“Sorry,” I muttered, my cheeks flushing.

“No roses. Got it.”

I cleared my throat and changed the subject. “Ready for round three?”

With a grunt, he eyed the red bottle. “I think this might kill me. If it does, make sure to delete the history on my laptop before my parents see it, okay? For no real reason.”

“Searching up baby animal pictures again?”

He nodded sadly. “I knew you’d understand.”

Both of us loaded up a chip with three careful drops of hot sauce. Chris counted us down and then there was no turning back. I swallowed quickly and then schooled my face, so it showed as little reaction as possible. Was this mean? Eh, maybe. But I was still going to enjoy every minute.

Chris took his time chewing, which was a real mistake. His expression moved from hesitant and thoughtful to alarmed and pained in under fifteen seconds. His eyes widened and he made the mistake of sucking in a deep breath. The heat was always worse on an inhalation. He beat a hand against the picnic table.

“Why is your face like that?” he demanded, and then poured the rest of his water down his throat with shaky hands. I almost felt bad. But it wasn’t permanent. Eventually, it would pass. Eventually.

“Why is my face like what?” I asked, holding back a cough, and calmly taking a sip of water. The heat had bypassed my mouth and gone directly for my throat. My eyes began to water, and I blinked to staunch that.

“Y-you’re not…” His accusation hung there as he began to sweat. “I need more water.”

He lifted the bottom of his shirt to swipe at his forehead. My gaze snagged on the swatch of abs it revealed. His face was covered so I could look and not feel (too much) like a perv. I had to imagine it took hours and hours of hard work, training, and dedication to have abs like that. Hours in the gym, running, doing crunches, lifting weights getting all sweaty and…

Okay, now I sounded like a perv.

I averted my eyes and uncapped my water bottle. Chris snatched it from my hand.

“Hey!” I tried to grab it back, but he was much faster.

He emptied it in two gulps. With narrowed eyes, he swiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “How many times have you done this?”

I crossed my arms, but it was hard to keep the smile in check. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

With a grunt, he got up and stalked to the Taco Truck window. When he returned, it was with four more bottles of water which he clutched to his chest like they were bags of gold. Instead of sitting across from me, he pulled out the chair next to me and sat. He was close, close enough that his leg brushed mine. Close enough his arm, warm from the sun (and probably the hot sauce), nudged my shoulder as he ripped the cap off the first bottle and downed it in seconds.

The look he gave me was so disgruntled and grumpy, so unlike the Chris I knew, I couldn’t stop the laughter. He pressed his lips together and glared at me for a couple of beats. His lips began to twitch, and a hint of a smile touched the corners. Slowly, he leaned closer until his mouth was next to my ear, his breath warm on the side of my face.

“You have made a grave mistake,” he said in a low voice.

“Oh, yeah?”

“I have a motto.”

“What’s that? Smile and the world falls at your feet? Or no, wait! Don’t drop the sportsball?”

His chuckle was evil. “I don’t get mad, I get even. Now it’s on.”

This time I winked at him. “Bring it.”

I think for a first date, it went pretty well.

By the time Chris drove me back home, a half-moon was nestled in the bruised purple sky. Suddenly, he banged his palm on the steering wheel. “I didn’t ask my third question.”

“Why was that again?” I asked, grinning.

He shot me a dirty look. “You got a mean streak, book lady.”

“Ask your question then.”

The driveway to the house was dark and the tires crunched on the gravel. He parked near my car. “What do you want to do when you grow up?”

I unbuckled my seatbelt and turned in my seat, curling one leg under me. “I’m already grown up. But I always thought I’d leave Two Harts and live somewhere big. Don’t get me wrong, there are good parts about living here. But I’ve always felt a little like an outsider. We didn’t move here until I was ten and I guess I never quite felt like I fit in.”

“It seems like you fit in just fine.”

“I’m not going anywhere for a while. Got to get Iris through college and, with Mama needing help, I’ll be in Two Harts for the foreseeable future.” I tapped my chin with a finger. “I guess I have one more question, don’t I? I am reserving the right to ask this question at a later date.”

“Bold move. I like it.”

I grabbed the door handle. “I guess I’ll see you later this week?”

“Hold on.” He jumped out of the truck and pulled my door open. “A gentleman would walk a lady to her door at the end of a date.”

“Even a fake date?”

“Especially a fake date when someone is spying on us from the window.”

“Again?” I glanced behind me just in time to see the curtain flutter. “I’m going to kill whoever that is.”

“Don’t do it on my account.”

At the front door, he turned so his back faced the window, his body effectively protecting me from prying eyes.

“So. Thanks for dinner,” I said, trying to ignore the relationship between my stampeding heart rate and his proximity.

“I’ll send you the bill for the case of Pepto-Bismol I’m going to pick up on the way home.”

I laughed. “That’s fair.”

“You ready?” His arm wrapped around my waist, heavy but not unpleasant. “Gotta make this look good.”

“Maybe I don’t kiss on the first date,” I pointed out, feeling myself tense.

The porchlight illuminated his twisty little grin of mischief. “I promise not to kiss and tell.”

“Just do it.”

“Such sweet words.” His head dipped and stopped close my ear, his breath warm and, even though I didn’t want to, I shivered a little. “You smell like cookies.”

“Vanilla extract behind the ears. Nothing fancy,” I said, irritated my voice sounded breathless.

“I like it. It suits you.” He pressed a soft kiss to the corner of my forehead. It was a nothing kiss, more a press of lips than anything, feather light, and yet it felt oddly intimate.

He straightened. I frowned; he grinned.

“See you later, book lady.”

“Yeah, sure.” Then, without moving an inch, I watched him walk back to his truck and drive off.