“Your… plants… have names?” My words come out slowly because I’m trying hard not to laugh. I’ve heard about people whoname their plants. They talk to them and spray them with delicate mists of water. My new fake boyfriend is a plant nerd, and I have the world’s blackest thumb.
I can’t tell if this is a match made in heaven or hell, but over the next twelve weeks, we’redefinitelygoing to find out which it is.
CHAPTER 19
Robert
“Where would you like to sit?” the maître d’ gestures at Rhiannon to pick a seat. She quietly assesses the space. What she’s looking for, I’m not exactly sure, but she surveys the available tables with a shrewd stare.
After a couple of seconds, she nods. “That one, please.” She points at an out of the way table. It’s close to where we are but has room for me to comfortably manspread my prosthesis. Did she do that on purpose? Did she search the internet for ways to make my life easier? I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
For someone who’s supposed to hate my very guts, she’s surprisingly thoughtful, whether she means to be or not.
She steps aside to let me go first, something else I appreciate. I hate being left in the dust while my date powers ahead to sit without giving me a second thought. When we get to the table, she picks the non-prosthetic side, giving me the space to spread out as much as I need to on the other side.
This time, her choice was definitely on purpose: she hadpursed her lips, making little ridges appear across her nose as she evaluated which side of the table to sit at.
“Thank you.” She accepts the menu, requests a jug of water for the table, and waits for me to get comfortable. Her eyes widen. “I should have checked this was okay before I sat down. If it isn’t, we can move when he gets back.”
The pink blush in her cheeks is adorable as fuck, even more so because she’s worried that she made a mistake selecting this table for us. I get it. It can be an unusually uncomfortable situation. Sometimes I get hit with a weird mix of appreciation, remorse, and awkwardness. Meanwhile right now, I’m over here with gooey insides at how considerate she’s being, even though, underneath her concern, she wants to pull my head off my shoulders and stick it on a spike.
I reach across to touch her hand. It’s a ghost of a touch, barely contact, but she sucks in a breath through her teeth. “It’s okay. Thank you for being so thoughtful.”
Her guilty eyes flick to the table, confirming my assumption, and her cheeks get darker. “I know you said not to make a big deal of it.” She looks over her shoulder before dropping her voice. “And that you don’t like talking about it in public, so this is the last I’ll say about it. But I didn’t want to accidentally do something stupid, so I did some reading earlier.”
She blows her hair out of her sun-kissed face. “I had no idea how much the world is biased against people who are disabled.” Her eyes darken with something dangerously close to sympathy. Thankfully, the waiter arrives with our water.
After we order our food, we sit in silence. She seems to be in a world of her own, and part of me wants to leave her there, but there’s turmoil bleeding into her strong features. “Want to share what’s on your mind?” I take a drink of my pint, meeting her gaze with a mix of concern and curiosity.
I hold my breath, waiting for her to pull the shutters down, to tell me to fuck off. We’re not here tobe friends or to share our innermost thoughts; we’re here to maintain a façade. She doesn’t look convinced. Her brows pinch, her eyes are wary, so I hold up a hand.
“Can I propose something?”
Her nostrils flare, but she nods.
“How about a level reset? We pretend we know nothing about each other and start from zero without preconceived notions? I know it’s hard. I know I have assumptions about you based on what I know of your father, just like you have assumptions about me due to the story. But if this is going to work, I think we might need to try to set that baggage aside and figure out a fragile peace.”
Her nose twitches. “Like the Good Friday Agreement?”
The Good Friday Agreement—basically Northern Ireland’s peace treaty that said, “Right, lads, enough killing each other, let’s try talking for a bit instead.” It’s as though everyone agreed to stop blowing each other up and pretend to get along over tea—unless of course, someone brings up flags, Brexit, or sport.
It’s a document that keeps the fragile peace. Mostly. On good days.
Instead of arguing or pushing back, she rolls her lips, her finger circling the rim of her gin glass. Irish gin, just like at the Anchor when we met. Seems my fake girlfriend has a type. “The girls onRuck Offhave asked me to come on for an interview.”
Ruck Off, Northern Ireland’s biggest rugby podcast, had exploded over the past year—first all-women rugby podcast on the island, with a fan base big enough to fill a stadium every week. They did everything from match breakdowns to player gossip. Normally, Rhiannon landing an interview there would’ve been gold. Just… not right now.
But these aren’t normal circumstances. She’s right to be a little cautious.
“They want to kick season three off with a bang?”
She nods, nibbling at her lip. “I’m torn.”
As our appetizers arrive, I give her a firm nod. “Pros and cons, let’s go.” I point my beer at her before I take a sip.
She cocks a brow before blowing out a heavy breath. “Pros are that I’d get to control the narrative.” She touches the tip of her index finger, her voice sounding firmer. “Second, I could refocus public attention on my career and love of the game. Reinforce that I’m still a professional athlete, not just a scandal headline.”
She touches her ring finger. “I could soften the ground for us, didn’t expect it yadda, yadda, yadda, you know. And fourth”—she grins at me—“it’s women-run, women-loved. I might gain public goodwill from appearing on a platform that advocates for female athletes. The show’s followers may rally behind me for walking away from a toxic situation, and it could empower other women to do the same.”
