Page 6 of Double Dared
“I didn’t think they were,” I said. It was odd how soothing it was to hear him say it anyway.
We each had a sip of our coffee in the silence that followed. Then, not moving his gaze from my face, Taylor narrowed his eyes. “Why did you say yes if you knew?”
“I was intrigued,” I said.
“By me?” he asked.
I laughed.
“Oof,” he said, cringing. “That stings. What intrigued you, then?”
I glanced at my wristwatch. It was half past twelve. And right on cue, she passed by the front door, turned right at the corner, and made my pulse spike. She wasin a hurry because of the rain. I kept my gaze fast on Taylor’s face, leaning in with interest, as Emma passed by our window. She remained in my peripheral vision, though I couldn’t tell if she’d glanced at us or not.
Had it been a sunny day, she might have come in for a coffee to take with her. She wouldn’t have hurried past the café, at least.
“What just happened?” Taylor asked.
I laughed again, at myself this time. “Time for some truth. What are the terms of your dare?”
“Pretty much this,” Taylor admitted. “I think I won.”
“What did you win?”
“Bragging rights,” he said, but his words lacked heart. “To be honest, we wanted new stories to tell. This is nice, don’t get me wrong, but if a zebra doesn’t break out of the zoo and storm this café in the next forty-five minutes, I’ll go home empty-handed.”
“Let me sweeten the deal for you,” I said. “I have a reason why I’d want to be seen on a date with you. If you can help me with that, there might be a way to prank your friends, too.”
The same roguish spark glimmered in his eyes again. He leaned in, touching his chin and nodding for me to tell him more.
“I, uh…my ex and I split a couple of months ago,” I said like it was nothing. “She’s bounced back a little sooner than I’d like. I’m wondering if I could make her a little jealous.”
“By dating someone she can’t compete with,”Taylor said with a conspiratorial smile. “And I pretended that their little dare backfired so hard that I’m not out and proud and building a life with a gorgeous intellectual who reads poetry in bars and takes me to the cutest cafés in town.”
I didn’t think he heard his own words. Or he didn’t understand what it would feel like to call me a gorgeous intellectual. Or how sobering a reminder it was to hear the word “pretend.”
“Something like that,” I said. “I’ll help you make it convincing for them if you do the same.”
“Is it a dare?” he asked.
“Does it matter?” I echoed.
There was a small smile of acknowledgment on his lips. “Lay out the terms if you want.”
“It’s as simple as this. For a minimum of three weeks, you’ll accompany me to any and all events we can find the time for and where I think she might show up. And I’ll do the same for you.”
Taylor nodded, thinking, then leaned a little closer, our heads above the table, almost touching. “How about this. When we’re around my friends, we can pretend to be a secret couple pretending to be friends only. It’ll give them something to speculate about.”
“And then it turns out that I’m your long-lost lover who traveled to Spain and had a sex change,” I suggested.
Taylor lifted a hold-on-a-hot-minute finger. “Let’s put that on the maybe pile.”
“Just saying, you’re complicating it,” I pointed out.
“The way I see it, I’m doing you a big favor. It’s only fair to give my friends a ride they won’t forget. And I will be the most loving boyfriend you can imagine,” he said. “How’s this?” He picked up my hands from the table, same as the moony pair with wet feet in the corner behind him—they were very soft—looking at me with big, wide eyes with dark, dilated pupils like he had never been this in love before and never would again.
It was good acting, if overdone, and it tricked my heart into a stupid flutter.
I yanked my hands back. “That’s good. It’ll work.”
