‘No, no.’ I waved my hand. ‘You don’t have to bring anything. Just yourself and your charm.’ A smile danced on my lips.
‘Oh, don’t worry about that, Jeffries. I take my charm with me everywhere I go.’
‘I don’t doubt it,’ I said. ‘Actually, maybe you should try and get out of the habit of calling me Jeffries.’
‘What would you prefer? Munchkin? Sweetie pie? Sugar? Or just the standard, baby or darling?’
‘Definitely not Munchkin or anything to do with sugar or sweets!’ I winced. ‘And not baby, because my ex used to call me that and I hated it.’
‘Okay, darling,’ Ben said, and my eyes widened. ‘Just trying to see how it sounds. I’ll figure it out. So, we’ve covered your family and terms of endearment—how did we meet?’
‘I think we should just keep it simple and as close as possible to the truth.’
‘What, that as soon as you saw my photo, you begged Jess to introduce us because I was the hottest guy you’d ever seen?’
‘Sounds like Benjamin Buttface is back!’ I rolled my eyes.
‘I never left!’ He smiled.
Annoyingly, what Ben had said was true. I had begged Jess for his number. I was never going to admit that to him, though.
‘No, what I meant was, we could just say that Jess and Theo had been trying to get us together for ages because they knewwe’d be perfect for each other, but we never got the chance to meet. Until one day we were on the same train and…’
‘It was hate at first sight?’
‘We can leave that part out.’ I stifled a laugh. ‘I was going to say we were on the same train and our eyes locked and the rest is history.’
‘That could work.’ Ben nodded. ‘And what about showing affection? What are you comfortable with?’
‘Er…’ My brain scrambled. ‘I haven’t really thought about it.’ I dropped my gaze to the contents of a box and busied my hands by unpacking some travel guides.
‘It’s important that I know your boundaries. The last thing we want is for me to touch your shoulder and you flinch or something. It has to seem natural, like we’ve done it a million times.’
‘Shoulder touching is fine.’
‘That was just an example. Shoulder touching doesn’t exactly screamwe’re a couple who can’t keep our hands off each other.’
‘Yeah… I see what you’re saying.’
I couldn’t even believe that we were actually having this conversation. I’d read so many fake-dating romances where the characters talked about this stuff, so it felt weird to be doing it for real.
In those stories, this was also usually the point where the characters would discuss practising a fake kiss.
Oh God. We definitely couldn’t dothat.
‘No snogging!’ I blurted out in a panic.
‘Shame,’ Ben sighed. ‘I was thinking about doing full-on French kissing immediately after you introduced me to your parents.’
‘Seriously?’ I frowned.
‘No, of course not!’ He rolled his eyes. ‘There’s plenty we can do to show affection without kissing.’
‘Like what?’
‘Subtle touches, eye contact, that kind of thing. You’ll see,’ he said confidently, and I instantly wanted him to do it just so I could fully understand what he meant. Just for research purposes, of course. ‘But you should think of some kind of safe word so if you feel uncomfortable, you can use it and I’ll know to stop.’
‘Okay.’ I nodded before dipping my hand into another box. When I saw what was inside, my eyes popped. ‘Erm, I’m not sure if I should be going throughthisstuff…’ I held up a pair of black leather handcuffs.
