Chapter Twelve
Alessandra
He was going to be here any minute.
I looked around my house and hoped it looked okay to him. He said he lived in La Jolla, so I’m sure his kitchen was bigger than my whole apartment, but it was the best I could do. So if he wanted to date me, then he would see me as I was, including my small, two-bedroom, one-bath apartment.
Which was quiet, thanks to Jenson being over at his friend’s house.
When I told him that Joel wanted to go on a date with me, he literally all but tossed me at the actor, saying I better not mess this up for him. He walked back to his room with stars in his eyes, probably hoping we would get married, and Joel would be his new dad. I swear he already told all his friends that his mom was going on a date with THE Joel Kline. The infamous, the hero, a friend to all the children in the land.
What was I thinking?
A knock on my door gave me no chance to come up with a reason to back out of my decision. He was already here, and there was no stopping him once he was in my space.
I opened the door and let him in.
“Welcome to mi casa,” I said, arms spread wide.
Which he took as an invitation to hug me.
“Uhh.” I felt sort of weird. Like I was ambushed by his arms, and I hadn’t mentally prepared for it.
“You aren’t Spanish,” he commented as he pulled back and looked around.
“Bem-vindo à minha casa,”I said, rolling my eyes.
“It’s so sexy when you let the Brazilian out of you,” he purred and I felt the tingles in my stomach. Okay, kids, time to move this along.
“All right, let’s work on your awesome disguise so we can go to this mystery date you’ve planned.” I held out my hand for the little storage case he had in his.
I gestured for him to follow me into the bathroom and sit down. He knew the drill.
“Nice place,” he commented, but kept it short so I could put the adhesive on his chin and jaw. His jaw was really something. Very lick-worthy, if I let myself admit it.
“Thanks, it’s close to the beach, which is important to us. We don’t need a lot of space.” But then a thought came to my head, and I changed that last bit.
“Well, another bathroom would be nice. Sharing with a teenage boy has gotten interesting.” My poor eyes.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah, I caught him choking the chicken the other day. We were both mortified. I knew it was going to happen, but I didn’t want tosee it.I scrubbed the whole bathroom because all I could mentally seee was jizz everywhere.” As I talked, I held out the fake beard and gently placed it in its proper positioning, patting gently to adhere it.
“Oh, the good old days. Shower time was my fun time. Used to piss my sisters off, how long I’d be in the bathroom doing my business.” He smiled, and I just shook my head.
“Boys are gross.” I started touching up around the edges of the beard to make it look authentic.
“Girls aren’t any better.” He shrugged and kept still for me.
“There. All done.” I took a step back, and looked him over. A beard suited him well. He could pull it off, for sure. Kind of made me want to sit on his face, but I knew it wasn’t real. And I would definitely not be doing that.
He stood up and looked in the mirror, running his fingers through the fake hair.
“Much better. At least with this and my hat, people won’t realize it’s me, and we can enjoy ourselves more.” He looked at me, and I patted his back in support. We would see if people noticed him or not. The whole idea of a disguise was fun, in an undercover sort of way.
“I’m gonna go change real quick. Make yourself at home.” I ushered him out of the bathroom and towards the sofa. When I turned to walk into my bedroom to change, I felt his presence behind me. My head moved back to see what he was doing.
“You said make yourself at home. If this was my home, I’d be following you to the bedroom. I would be more comfortable in there.” I swear. This guy was something else.
