Page 9 of The Expiration Date

“Yes.” Aidan exhales. “Look, I sincerely apologize for throwing you into the catastrophic mess that is my life. But, when Samantha was telling me that I had to go out with those random women, I don’t know–I just felt like I was finally over it. Over acting like an absolute jackass.”

Jackass? This much was true. “Acting like I could have any woman I wanted because I knew that there would be some women waiting for their opportunity to get with me.”

That is also true. I’m sure he has a revolving door spewing out women almost every night.

He continues, “I guess deep down, I wanted to get back at Natasha. I was so hurt. I kind of lost track of myself, to be honest. But you always make me feel calm and safe, and you know me better than anyone. I trust you completely. That’s the only reason I suggested you to fulfill this role, so to speak.”

I know he already said that in the meeting, but it’s kind of nice to hear him say how much he trusts me. I do know pretty much everything there is to know about him, professionally that is. The only personal stuff I know about him, honestly, is from the news alerts and headlines I read on tabloids–which, to his credit, I shouldn’t take much stock in. There is something inside me that wants to give him the benefit of the doubt these last six months, because I have this intuition about people and Aidan honestly seems like one of the good ones. I think that’s what surprised me about his behavior after the breakup. He never seemed like a womanizer or really a drinker for that matter. What he’s saying now makes me feel better–I was right about him.

Mabel returns with the cream, sugar and our food. Thank God, I’m starving. I guess I did run six miles this morning, so my stomach was bound to yell at me at some point. Which probably contributed to me looking like I’m going to pass out. (That and the fact that my boss wants me to fake date him.) When I look across the table, I notice that Aidan has ordered the exact same thing as me. Or rather, I ordered Aidan’s usual order. That’s why Mabel reacted the way she did. Instead of pointing anything out, I unroll the silverware from the napkin and place them beside my plate.

“I want to preface this next statement and say that at any point, you can always back out of this arrangement. And, I want you to know with total certainty, this will not affect anything at all with our working relationship.”

I pour about half the small carafe of cream into my coffee mug. I can feel my eyebrows narrow in on each other. “How can you say that?”

“What do you mean?”

I scoff, “Aidan, you can’t know that it won’t affect our working relationship! Are you kidding me? I mean what will this entail? Because if we have to act like we are dating for real, that means we have to like…do stuff.” I nervously cut my waffle into tiny pieces and drizzle a mountain of syrup over it.

Aidan raises his eyebrows and smirks. “That’s presumptuous of you.”

Horrified, I quickly swallow the bite of waffle I’d jammed into my mouth a second earlier. “Oh my God! No! Not that! Ew…”

Aidan shifts a little in his seat and crosses his arms, still with that stupid, dangerously cute smirk on his face, clearly enjoying this show of absolute embarrassment.

“I mean not ew,” I fumble for words. “I don’t think it would be ew. Not that I’ve thought about it at all.” I slap my forehead, then cover my face with both of my hands. For the love of God, please stop talking, Haley.

I hear a rumble from across the booth. Is he laughing at me?

“Are you seriously laughing at me right now?”

“How can I not, Hales? You need to calm down. And for the record, that is not the ‘stuff’ that we would have to show the world. In fact, I think showing the world us having sex would probably be frowned upon.” Aidan starts cutting his own waffle.

My ears suddenly turn hot and I guarantee they are reflecting how much they are on fire right now. The real embarrassment stems from thinking of me and Aidan having sex–it makes me shiver, and not in a bad way. My whole body warms to the idea, probably because I haven’t been with a man in three years. Sad, I know. Pathetic, maybe. I just haven’t trusted anyone since Robert. I guess Aidan and I have the trust issue thing in common. Although his way of dealing with it has been the complete opposite of my method: absolute celibacy.

I swallow. “Okay, well then we need to lay out some ground rules.”

“Sounds perfect to me. Hey Mabel! Can you come over here real quick?” Aidan waves her over.

“Are we seriously going to ask a 70-year-old woman for advice on what the ground rules should be for fake dating?”

Aidan gasps. “First of all, Mabel is a young 70-year-old woman. Second of all, she thinks we are really dating, remember? So asking her about tips on fake dating will seem suspicious and she would probably tease me from here until eternity. Finally, I need a pen. We are going to write down the ground rules.”

“Okay, old man. On a napkin, really? Why not on Google Docs or Notes or something and we can share it with each other?”

“I prefer the term old-fashioned.”

Mabel comes over. Her silvery hair is up in a disheveled bun and wavy tendrils are sticking out in all directions.

“Can I borrow a pen for a little while, Mabel? I promise I’ll return it.”

“Sure, sugar.” She reaches into her indigo apron, pulls out a pen and hands it to Aidan. “Don’t lose it though. That’s one of my favorite pens, you know.”

“I wouldn’t dare lose it.” Aidan grabs a napkin from the table dispenser.

Mabel’s sweet eyes meet mine. “How’s the food, hon?”

I take a bite of the bacon, which was cooked to extra-crispy perfection. “So good, Mabel. Thank you.”

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