That hadn’t been what I meant. I met Xavi’s eyes. There was a deep pain in them, a pain he hid immediately by looking away. In fact, he looked disgusted with himself for allowing me to see it even for that moment. “I don’t know you well enough to judge you, Xavier. Trust me. I don’t think that way about you at all, and if they’re really your friends out there, I bet they don’t, either.”
“Whatever,” he muttered. He slung my suitcase onto the bed like it was something disgusting he’d picked up off the street and he wanted it off his hands. “And it’s Xavi. Not Xavier. Not Xav.”
“Okay. Xavi. Do you think I should change?” I asked, going for a different topic. I didn’t think we were going to get out of the other thing without a fight, and I couldn’t afford that. “I just came here from work.”
Xavi frowned. “From the hospital, you mean?”
Shit. “Yeah, I mean – I didn’t go home, is all I meant,” I stammered, managing to save myself. “I brought a suit.”
“Okay, yeah, get changed,” Xavi shrugged. He was wearing a suit himself – and this close up, I could see it looked expensive and well-made. Much better than mine. But this wasn’t the time to be self-conscious. There was a reason I was accepting money to pretend to be his boyfriend, after all, and it wasn’t because I was well-off. “I don’t care.”
The atmosphere between us was still off. I had to do something. We couldn’t carry on like this and go back in front of his friends. They’d sniff us out in an instant.
“You look nice,” I said. It was a peace offering. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you dressed up like this before.”
“Here’s your money,” he said as if he hadn’t heard me, moving to his own suitcase and yanking out a brown paper envelope folded over itself. It was thick with the bills. “The first half, like we agreed.”
I expected him to hand it to me, but he threw it over onto the bed. I took a breath and picked it up. It could go into the hotel safe. I wasn’t going to just leave it lying around where anyone could take it. I slid open the wardrobe and found what I was looking for, quickly kneeling to hide the envelope away.
A thousand dollars. The weight of it in my hands felt incredible. In my head, I was already siphoning it away.Thirty dollars for groceries if I don’t pick up too much stuff and I can eat leftovers at the restaurant during my shift. Three hundred for bills. Two -
Xavi made a huffing noise that made me look around at him. When he spoke, he couldn’t meet my eyes. “Look, I’m… I’m sorry I embarrassed you out there.”
I blinked at him. “I wasn’t embarrassed,” I said.
Xavi wasn’t looking at me – anywhere but at me – and his cheeks heated slightly under my gaze. “By telling you to sit down, I mean. I just… I thought you might need it. Really. That’s all.”
“I understand,” I said, sighing for a moment. There was probably some truth in the fact that I had reacted a little too strongly. I was used to people underestimating me and trying to take ownership of my choices – telling me what I needed and when as if having a disability meant I couldn’t think for myself. Sometimes, it was just an honest mistake. Even if Xavi should have known better after working with me for so long – but then, I should have known he hadn’t been paying attention until now. “It’s okay. I don’t really care what your friends think of me, anyway. It’s not like I’ll ever see them again after this weekend.”
“You might,” Xavi said. I zipped into my suitcase quickly, propping my cane against the bed to grab my suit. I felt a momentary flare of hope that he was about to offer me more money to do this again for another event. “Most of them live around Crowhill Cove, so you could easily bump into them somewhere.”
“Oh,” I said, a little crestfallen. “Well, I still don’t mind. I won’t have that chance for long. I’m leaving town soon, anyway.”Twenty-seven days, two hours, forty-six minutes until D-day,the voice in my head reminded me, the calculation quick and automatic.
Xavi gave me a startled look as I lifted my suit carefully out of the case. I’d had to spend a lot of time I didn’t have this morning to make sure it laid flat, so there wouldn’t be any wrinkles. I glanced up at Xavi’s face when I had it in my hands. He hadn’t said a word for a few moments. I didn’t even know why I’d told him that. It wasn’t like I’d advertised it at work. If it got out, there was a chance Janice would let me go early, and I didn’t want to lose the paycheck.
“Well, I guess we’ll just have to break up when you leave,” he said and forced a laugh.
Because he’d been planning to hire me for the same agreement again? I stored that away inside my head. For a couple of thousand bucks, I would happily drive back out here. Maybe I could bring that up later.
But right now, I was taking my suit and disappearing into the bathroom fast before we could get into another quasi-argument. His friends were waiting for us, and I didn’t want to make them wait for long. The later we were, the more reason they would have to talk about us.
I didn’t want this fake relationship to come under any scrutiny, because I honestly wasn’t sure how well it would stand up given that we’d done absolutely no preparation whatsoever.
And the truth was, I didn’t want to suggest doing this again until I saw how the first time turned out. With Xavi, I had a feeling it was possible it could go either way. This could be a surprisingly pleasant way to make a lot of money – or it could be the worst, most awkward, and most humiliating weekend of my life.
I met my own eyes in the mirror above the sink as I started to undress.
Two nights sharing a bed with a colleague. Two days – and one extra meal – pretending to be someone I wasn’t. In the grand scheme of my life, it wasn’t a lot of time. Even if he decided to turn that sharp tongue of his on me for not playing the part well enough, I could take it. All I had to do was picture the weight of that thousand dollars in my head. And Xavi really was cute. In another life, if I had less on my plate and he was nicer, maybe it could have happened for real.
I could do this.
For the money Xavi was offering…
I could handle just about anything.
“Let’s do this,” I whispered to my reflection as I fastened the last button on my jacket, giving myself a sharp nod.
I walked out of the bathroom and looked right at Xavi.
