“What’s up?” I ask, matching his stance, hip cocked and brows drawn together.
He narrows his eyes, although I’m not sure if it’s because he’s judging the phrase printed on my shirt—I bake because punching people is frowned upon—or the flour covering said shirt that makes me look like a Pablo Escobar groupie.
I stare back, daring him to comment.
After a beat, he sighs and roughs a hand through his hair. “Can I come in?”
I should just say no. Or yes. Or anything that doesn’t involve poking the bear, but, alas, my brain isn’t wired that way. So I give him an exaggerated once-over. “Are you secretly a vampire? If I say no, does that mean you can’t physically walk through the doorway?”
His eyes may be hard, but the corner of his lips twitches, giving him away.Success.
Sighing, I take a step back and wave my arm. “Welcome to my humble abode.”
Which, sure, looks a bit more like a war zone, with a cookbook leaning precariously on top of the toaster, a frosting-covered knife on a cutting board, and a spiral-bound notebook open to a page labeledtest #3 – better, still ugly???in smeared ink.
The chaos doesn’t stop there. Nope. It flows into the living room, too. Random knickknacks decorate nearly every available surface, sharing space with recipe cards, one Ugg slipper (because I can’t find the other one), and a dog-eared copy of a book with a shirtless boxer on the front (a recommendation from Maya).
Cameron takes the space in with quiet curiosity. He may look aloof, but his eyes—an annoyingly gorgeous shade of forest green—scan the room like he’s cataloging every detail, and there isn’t an ounce of judgment there. I’d recognize it if there was, considering I get a glimpse every time one of my sisters visits. Even if I clean and organize, they still think my space is too much—too messy, too small, too cluttered, too colorful.
Since he’s clearly in no rush to explainwhyhe’s here, I walk into the kitchen and lift the lid of a nearby container. I pick up one of the reject cookies for tomorrow’s order (the one that looks more like a uterus than a purse, the pink frosting onlymaking it worse) and take a bite. The delicious combination of sugar, butter, and vanilla floods my mouth in perfect harmony, but the moment of satisfaction is cut short by the giant man still standing in the entryway.
“We should date,” he says, his attention still drifting around the apartment.
The cookie goes down the wrong pipe, and I cough like I’m a middle-aged man who chain-smoked his way through life.
Cameron rushes forward, head whipping from side to side. “Shit. Are you okay? I can do the Heimlich, but it’d probably break your ribs. Do?—”
“I’m fine,” I cough, smacking my chest with the heel of my hand. “I just—swallowed wrong.”
“Oh.” His expression shifts, confusion giving way to a flat look. “So the dramatic choking was because I said we should date.”
I give him a slow nod, becauseno shit, Sherlock. “I thought you didn’t do girlfriends.”
His lips tighten into a grimace. “I don’t.”
When he doesn’t expand on that answer, I shake my head and walk over to the sink. I need a glass of water to wash down the cookie, but also to buy myself time because what the actual fuck is going on? A few days ago, I invited this man up here to do the horizontal tango, and he turned me down. Yet now he wants to date? But doesn’t do girlfriends?
“I don’t actually want you to be my girlfriend,” he finally admits.
And they say women are confusing? This man is giving me whiplash. “Oh. Well, thanks for clarifying. That helps a lot.”
“I want us to be in afakerelationship.” Rubbing the back of his neck, he continues, “My ex isn’t going to leave me alone unless she thinks I’m with someone else. And I need my friendsto stop worrying that I’m a ticking time bomb, ready to implode at any goddamn second. If we date, that’ll get them off my back.”
For a long moment, I simply stare at him, at a loss for words. At a fucking loss in general.
Then something inside me snaps. Maybe it’s Patricia from the bank crushing my dream with a single conversation. Or maybe it’s the sheer panic that comes with being close to landing a career-defining opportunity that could elevate my business, except I have no idea how I’ll pull it off because I have one oven, no mixer, and zero emotional bandwidth left to figure it out. Or maybe it’s him. The guy who no less than a week agopolitelyturned me down, yet is now back, though not because he wants to renege on his previous rejection and save a portion of my ego.
No, no, no. He wants topretendto date me.
I’m too tired to hold every fraying piece of my life together any longer.
With a little too much force, I set my glass down, causing water to slosh over the rim. “Cameron,” I practically growl, “I’ve had a really bad week. And not like ‘oh no, a pigeon shit on me’ kind of week. Like a ‘someone dropped me in a pig pen after a thunderstorm’ kind of week.
“I was up all night long making a hundred tiny fucking shoes out of sugar and royal icing because I’m desperately trying to build a business that’s held together with hope and credit card debt. Sir Mix-a-Lot is dead.” My nose stings as I admit that out loud. “I’m running on zero sleep and pure spite. You made it very clear you weren’t interested last week, and that’s fine. I’m a big girl. I own a vibrator. No huge loss on my end. But now you want me towhat? Gaze adoringly at you in public? Hold your hand? Laugh at your jokes that probably aren’t funny because I’ve never heard you tell one?”
Cameron opens his mouth to reply, but I’m not done.
“And the best part?” I throw out an arm. “The absolute cherry on top of this disaster sundae? You’re asking me to do thisnow. You want me to add ‘fake girlfriend to the human equivalent of a thundercloud’ to my to-do list when I’m already drowning as I try desperately to make this all work. Should I put that before or after I work enough to pay off my credit card debt so I don’t once again get rejected when I apply for a loan in eighteen months? Hmm?”
