She laughed, an uninhibited rumble, and something cross wired in his brain, suddenly making him think about her naked. Nope. Nope. Nope. Not allowed.
He glanced at her as they stepped outside. It was not a date. It was a distraction. A precursor to their ruse at best. Definitely not a date.
But it kind of felt like one.
* * *
WHAT THE HELL was happening?
It seemed innocuous enough, and it was. A movie. Friends went to movies all the time. Even friends who were going to pretend to be a little more than friends for a few days. This was normal.
Leah stared at the seat in front of her while sex noises filled the movie theater. Friends might do this all the time, but it was so not normal.
Planning their fake relationship out over dinner had actually helped alleviate some of the weird. It seemed way more doable to say they’d pretend for two dinners and one afternoon at MC rather than pretend for a whole week. So, he’d been right and things had started to feel more manageable and less...freaky.
And then they’d sat down in a dark movie theater next to each other and watched a movie that seemed to have a whole hell of a lot of sex in it.
Luckily no one could see in the dark that her face was bright, bright red. It wasn’t as though she’d never seen a movie with sex in it; it was just...watching it with Jacob. Occasionally accidentally bumping arms. Oh, God, it was so weird.
When Jacob leaned over and whispered in her ear, she nearly jumped out of her chair.
“I have to go to the bathroom.”
“Oh. Right.” She awkwardly twisted sideways so he could get by. She glanced at the movie screen where the main couple was really going at it. Oh, Jesus. She couldn’t do another second of this. She really couldn’t.
She scurried out of the seat and down the aisle. The lobby was bright but lacking the grunting and “oh, baby” chorus, and she felt as if she could breathe again.
She situated herself near the exit of the men’s bathroom. When Jacob finally appeared after what felt like hours, he gave her a quizzical frown.
“I’m sorry. I can’t sit through any more of that movie with you.”
Relief washed over his features. “Oh, thank God. Let’s go home.”
“Yes. Please.”
The entire drive home was awkwardly silent. The stupid movie just kept playing over and over in Leah’s head. Boobs and groans and butts. She couldn’t erase it. It would be etched there for the remainder of time.
“Just FYI, we cannot tell my parents we saw that movie.”
Jacob’s laugh was a little rusty. “Noted.”
“And we should probably never go to a movie we don’t know much about without doing some research first.”
“Agreed.”
He pulled his truck into the back lot of MC. She didn’t dare look at him. Didn’t dare say anything else except a goodbye.
“I...should head home.”
“Right.”
“Right.” She pushed out of the truck, hopped onto the concrete. Her truck was parked up front, so she started along the walk in that direction.
“Leah?”
Oh, God. She didn’t know why him calling her name filled her with dread; she only knew the last thing she wanted to do was turn around and answer him. Face him. But what choice did she have?
“This is going to come out all wrong,” he said, walking toward her. He cleared his throat, stopping a couple feet away. In the dark, it was hard to see him, but the streetlamp gave her a general idea. “But that did get me thinking your parents are going to expect a certain level of...intimacy between us.”
What? What? “But—”
“I’m not talking about sex,” he was quick to say. Really quick. “I just mean, you’re not very demonstrative as a rule. You don’t even hug Grace, but they’re going to expect you to hug your boyfriend. Hold hands. Kiss on the cheek at the very least.”
Which was all true, but she didn’t know what that had to do with...intimacy. Between them. Ahh. “Okay, so what’s your point?”
He cleared his throat, took another step toward her. Made the throat-clearing sound again. “We need to be able to do that without you blushing and me clearing my throat like an eighty-year-old with a cold.”
“And how do we do that?” she squeaked.
“You also can’t squeak.”
“Jacob.”
“Maybe we should give it a go a few times with no one else looking or paying attention. Just so we can get those nerves and weirdness out of the way.” Again he took a step toward her. She wanted to bolt. Run for the safety of her truck.
“I don’t think that’s possible.” But it was sensible, and that was the only thing that kept her rooted to her spot as he advanced. Maybe she could at least get over the squeaking or the blushing. Or the insane urge to run in the opposite direction for fear of making a fool out of herself.
But once he was close. Really close. Like she could reach out and touch him and vice versa close, giving it a go seemed like the worst possible idea ever thought up.
His hand rested on her shoulder and she jumped.
“Oh, come on. It’s not like I’ve never touched your shoulder.”
“Well, not with, like...intimacy intentions!”
He chuckled at that. “Fake intimacy intentions.”
“Right. Well, they may be fake, but it’s still weird.”
“Suck it up because it’s about to get weirder.”
And it did, but probably not in the way he thought she meant. He merely brushed a kiss across her cheek. His arm never strayed from her shoulder; he didn’t linger. It was nothing, really, but her body did not seem to understand that at all. It heated from the inside out. It wanted to lean in. It wanted to press her mouth to his to see what that would be like.
Luckily she’d spent a lot of time making sure her mind ruled her body and not the other way around.
“Maybe we should try that again and this time you don’t act like I gave you an electric shock.”
Oh, God, again? She might spontaneously combust. “Maybe it’d be easier if I did it.” She’d be in control, of the cheek kiss and herself, so it wouldn’t be so...stupidly amazing.
“Okay.”
Jacob wasn’t that much taller than her, but she still had to kind of go on her toes to lean in while keeping herself far enough away so that their bodies weren’t touching. Because that might kill her.
He smelled like sawdust and popcorn, which shouldn’t be appealing but somehow was. How was this happening?
“I can’t.”
“Oh, just do it. I did it. You can do it.”
Well, true enough. If she thought about it like a competition. If he could do it, so could she. She certainly wouldn’t give Jacob any kind of upper hand.
No matter what kind of warped upper hand this was.
She leaned forward, balancing her hand on his shoulder as lightly as she could possibly manage, and quickly brushed her lips across his cheek. Enough to feel the stubble. Enough to feel and that was so bad. So very, very bad.
She swallowed, still kind of half standing on her tiptoes. Too close. Her mind told her she was