Rosalie’s eyes found mine across the table, apology written across her beautiful face. “I feel like I say this to you a lot, but I’m sorry.” She ate another bite of enchilada, then set her fork down as if she’d lost all interest in the meal.
“It’s fine,” I said. “I’ve lived next door to your mom for months now. I know what she’s like.” I picked up my empty plate and held out my hand. She put her plate into it and I took both to the sink.
She snorted and shook her head. “I know she means well, but it’s just …” Her eyes darted away, and she rose and began moving around the room, studying the knick-knacks and photos I’d set out when I first moved in. Absently, she picked up a scuffed baseball in a glass display cube signed by Roger Clemens and then put it back down.
“Just what?” I asked.
With a sigh, she dropped down onto my sofa and curled up in the far corner, pulling a wool throw blanket up over her knees.
Looping the dishtowel over the handle of my oven, I joined Rosalie in the other room, taking a seat in the black leather Eames lounge chair I’d purchased after my first big solo project had wrapped up. I loved this damn chair. I linked my fingers together and rested my hands against my abdomen.
“You’ve seen my mom,” she said hotly. “You know how she refuses to take no for an answer.” She held my gaze steadily now. “When she begged me not to marry Blake, I told her to mind her own business. In hindsight, she was right about everything. Which is somehow worse, because now it’s like she blames herself for my bad decisions. Like, if only she’d tried harder, I might not be where I am now.”
I understood what she was saying, but a small part of me rebelled at the notion that she was supposed to be anywhere but here, in my house, with me. “Well, I’m happy you’re here. With me.” Even as the words left my mouth, I wondered if I was stepping over that invisible line that existed between friends. Only, did I even care about the line anymore?
Just because you have feelings for Rosalie doesn’t mean she feels the same, I told myself. Sure, I’d caught her staring at my forearms as I’d rolled out that pasta dough when I’d cooked for her. And yes, I’d flexed a little more than was strictly necessary to give her a show worthy of the attention she paid to my muscles.
Still, appreciating the way someone looked wasn’t a foundation for a solid relationship. That was lust, and I’d had plenty of that in my life. Naturally, I imagined what it would be like to lay Rosalie down on my bed and worship her the way she deserved, but I wanted more than that.
I wanted everything that came after.
Unfortunately, there was also the not-so-small matter that her divorce still wasn’t finalized. That had always been a concern of mine, but at least now I was no longer worried she might go back to Blake.
Still, the idea of jumping into a relationship with a married woman—even if it was in name only—gave me pause. Deep down, I knew it was ridiculous, but Margaux and Colton’s affair had really fucked me up.
But I also recognized there was caution, and then there was cowardice. And I was no fucking coward.
I also wasn’t stupid.
This wasn’t the time or the place to tell Rosalie how I felt. But I could show her. I could be the person she turned to when she felt blue. The man who had her back no matter what life threw at her.
A small, faint smile split her lips. “You know what I mean.”
“Yeah, I do,” I agreed, “but I also know better than most that you can’t change the past. What happened, happened. You can’t blame yourself.” I leaned forward, bracing my elbows on my knees and resting my chin on my knuckles, trying to ignore the little voice at the back of my head that told me I was the worst sort of hypocrite. When both Mikey and Briana had said nearly the same thing to me after Margaux had dumped me for Colton, I’d told them they didn’t know a damn thing about it.
Rosalie nodded absently and looked away, her eyes finding the fire in the corner of the room that had burned down to embers. “In my head, I know you’re right. But every so often, I’ll have these moments where I feel like a huge disappointment to her. When you compare our lives—the choices we’ve made—I’m so much weaker than she’s ever been. I can’t help but think that’s why she’s so … aggressive about pushing you and me together. She doesn’t trust me to sort my shit out for myself, but then, why should she?”
“You’re not weak.” The inclination to push up out of my chair and wrap Rosalie up in my arms was damn near overwhelming, but I forced myself to stay put. Not the time or place, I reminded myself. “How can you even think that? It took guts to do what you did.”
“Maybe,” she mused, bringing her face back around to mine. “How much do you know about my mom?”
“Only the basics. She’s always seemed more interested in my background than talking about herself.”
Rosalie nodded slowly. “Yeah. She does that. What I think people don’t realize though is it’s a defense mechanism. Or, at least, a holdover from when she needed one.”
“I’m not sure I follow,” I said, leaning back in my chair and putting my feet up on the ottoman.
“When Mom first moved to Colebury, it wasn’t under the best circumstances, and I think she realized the more people talked about themselves, the less they’d talk about her. Her friend Lily says she should have been a reporter.”
“Why would anyone ever say anything bad about your mom? Sure, she can be a lot at times, but she’s a genuinely good person.” Colebury was a small town where news traveled fast, but I’d never gotten the impression that people were malicious with their gossip, and I’d certainly never heard anything untoward about my landlady.
“She was married before, but he was violent. At a time when women had no choice but to stay married to their abusers, she left, making her an outcast in the town she’d lived her whole life in. Even her own parents turned their backs on her. That’s how she ended up in Colebury. She rented a room from a lovely older couple whose daughter had died a few years before, and went about building a new life for herself here. Eventually, she saved enough money to buy this property, blazing yet another trail. It took a couple of years, but she fixed this place up and started renting it out to supplement her income. Some people were scandalized.”
“How so?”
“Someone accused her of running a whorehouse out here. The police had to investigate and everything.”
“You’re fucking kidding me,” I said, laughing.
Rosalie chuckled, too, at the absurdity of it all. “People didn’t know what to make of her, and things only got worse when she had me. ”
“Why would having a baby cause even more problems?” I asked.
She tilted her head to the side, studying me for a brief moment. “You really don’t know, do you?” When I shook my head in the negative, she blew out a long breath. “I guess that means people’ve stopped gossiping about that at least.”
“Hand to god, I’ve never heard anyone say one bad word about your mom. Or you,” I added. Honestly, I’d never heard anyone say anything about Rosalie. It was almost like she’d faded from everyone’s memories.
“That’s good.” She lifted her arms to unwind her long braid and shook out her hair.
I tried not to drool as I pictured twisting those long locks around my fist and pulling her head back for a kiss. Damn, I had it bad.
“Have you ever noticed that I don’t talk about my dad? Like, ever?” she asked, pulling me out of my fantasy of running my fingers through those long, golden strands and back to the present.”
“Now that you mention it … I guess I just assumed he’s a mean old bastard like mine.”
She shook her head. “He might be, but I honestly wouldn’t know.”
“Ugh. At least my dad stuck around.”
She waved her hand in dismissal. “Oh, nothing like that. I literally have no idea who my dad is. My mom went to the sperm bank. All we know for certain is he was a blond-haired, blue-eyed med student at the University of Vermont.”
I took a minute to absorb her words. I’d never met anyone who’d used a sperm bank, much less someone who was the result of one.
“That shocks you,” she observed.
I shook my head slowly. “Not shocked, necessarily. Surprised mostly. I have friends who’ve used surrogates, but … that? Wow.”
She chuckled. “It’s okay; you can say it: artificial insemination.” She sounded the words out so each individual syllable was clearly articulated.
“Right,” I said. “Artificial insemination.”
“Very good.” She smiled my way, and I grinned back at her.
This certainly wasn’t where I’d expected this conversation to go, but I appreciated that she felt comfortable enough to share the details of her life with me. It was another piece of the puzzle to who she was and what made her tick.
“Anyhow,” she breathed, lifting her arms up to plait her hair back into its braid as I watched with avid interest. “The point of telling you all of this is to illustrate what I’m up against. My mom never did what was expected of her. Meanwhile, I stayed with Blake as long as I did because it was exactly what was expected of me. She won’t come right out and say it, but I know she’s disappointed.”
“She isn’t,” I rushed to assure her, unable to stay in my seat a second longer. I practically vaulted over to the coffee table to the couch, sitting down next to her and taking her hand in mine. “I know she isn’t, Rosie.”
Her eyes darted upward, and our gazes locked. “You called me Rosie.”
I swallowed deeply. “Um, yeah. I guess I did.”
“No one calls me that, ever. Except for my mom.”
“It just slipped out,” I said, clearing my throat. “It won’t happen again.”
Her tongue darted out to lick a small path over her bottom lip, and I had to stifle a groan. I’d never wanted anything more in my life than to lean forward and press my lips to hers.
Her gaze flicked between mine, searching. “No. I liked it,” she said eventually.
“I like you.”
“I like you, too,” she answered back.
We sat there for several long seconds, simply staring at one another and smiling like goofs. And the longer I stared at Rosalie, the more right I felt about what came out of my mouth next. “How badly do you want to get your mom off our backs?”
She chuckled. “Umm, only like number two on my list of goals.” She didn’t have to say what her number one goal was. We both knew it was getting her ex to sign those settlement docs so they could finalize their divorce once and for all.
“So, I have a bit of a crazy idea,” I told her, even as I asked myself if I was really going to do this.
“I also like crazy ideas.” Her neck and cheeks flushed pink, and that damn tongue of hers darted out again to taste her bottom lip. The way her chest rose and fell with breathy exhalations made me wonder what sort of crazy ideas she was picturing. Because good lord, the crazy things I could envision doing to her right now.
I had to force myself to scoot away lest the compulsion to lean forward and claim her lips with mine took over what little good sense remained.
“What would … umm …” I ran my hand through my hair, trying to recapture my train of thought. The way she was looking at me made it damn near impossible. I cleared my throat. “Right. Okay. We’ve established your mom needs to chill out. In your mind, what would actually make that happen?”
“If you and I got together,” she answered, her words slow and measured like she was testing them out as she spoke.
I nodded. “Exactly. So let’s give her what she wants.”
“You want to date me?” Her question came out as a surprised squeak.
“I want us to pretend to be dating. It’ll make Gloria happy, which hopefully will keep her from showing up unannounced to harass us.”
“You honestly think that’ll work?” Her brows screwed down into a deep vee as she thought it through.
“Scout’s honor, I have no fucking clue. But it’s got to be better than what happened tonight, right?”
“Not sure her interference could get much worse, to be honest.”
I lifted a skeptical eyebrow in response.
Rosalie chuckled. “Okay, you’re right. It could always be worse.”
“So, Rosalie Mitchell Wentworth, what do you say? You want to be my fake girlfriend?”
She batted her dark, sooty lashes at me. “Why, Preston I-Don’t-Actually-Know-Your-Middle- Name Kelly, it would be an honor.”
“It’s Patterson,” I said. “My mom’s maiden name.”
“My middle name is Catherine, by the way. And you can drop the Wentworth. I’m going to start using my maiden name again.”
“Rosalie Catherine Mitchell, it is,” I said, liking the sound of that much better. The fewer reminders of Blake, the better.
All of a sudden, she launched herself off the couch. “This calls for a celebration!” She reached into the fridge to grab the last two beers in there.
With a fond smile, I watched her moving about my kitchen. But then my smile fell when I had to remind myself that this was all just pretend … even if my feelings weren’t.
Moving back into the living room, she passed me my beer and then plopped back down onto the couch, contorting her legs into a pretzel shape in front of her. “How is this going to work?”
“Well, we’re already dinner buddies, so we’ll just continue with that. Maybe light some candles so it looks romantic.”
“Good idea,” she said, reaching into her back pocket and pulling out her phone.
“Are you taking notes?”
She smiled. “Of course.”
I chuckled and rolled my eyes. “You do you, then.”
She stuck her tongue out at me. “We have to keep our story straight. My mom’s not dumb.”
“How many nights a week is she home these days?” I asked. “Seems like her car has been gone a lot lately.”
Rosalie tapped the pad of her index finger to her chin. “She plays bridge on Monday nights, does yoga on Tuesdays and Thursdays until seven, and I think she’s in two book clubs now. Really, the only time I see much of her is on Sunday nights.”
I nodded. “Okay, that gives us plenty to work with.”
For the next half hour, we stuck our heads together to plot out exactly how to sell the hell out of this fake relationship. Like Rosalie had said, Gloria wasn’t dumb. I had zero intention of doing anything to make her think I wasn’t one hundred percent devoted to her daughter.
At least that’ll be easy, I thought, as we pulled up our calendars to plan our first official not-really-a-date date.