Page 39 of The Fake Family Deal

“Thank you,” she says, coming over to wrap her arms around me, and I lean in to kiss her, melting into her mouth.

I’ve never considered myself to be a person who ached for domestic bliss. Hell, I’ve never considered myself a family man at all. But I think part of me always has been. It’s a part of me that I locked tightly away in favor of my career and my wealth. Marina’s making me see, though, maybe there’s more to life than that.

Maybethisis what life should be about.

Simon and the crew knock on the door around eight o’clock. We scramble to let them in, neither of us fully dressed or ready for them. Lila sits, amusing herself in her highchair, and we both smile at the crew like we’re covering a conspiracy.

No one seems to care, though. They file in, and as they’re setting themselves up, I take the director to the side. “I want to do another date night,” I say firmly.

Simon frowns. “Ah, okay, but that’s not exactly part of the plan.”

But I’m not moving on this. “Well, tough. I want to do it. I think we should have another romantic evening.”

“Even if that evening’s at ten o’clock in the morning?” Simon says snidely.

My top lip curls unbidden. The sooner I don’t have to speak to this guy anymore, the better. “Yes. All right?”

He throws up both hands in surrender. “All right. What do you suggest we do? It has to be something quick and easy, yeah?”

I frown back at him, racking my brains to try and come up with something quickly. What the hell do people do for dates?

Curse the fact that I don’t know everything in the world.

“Can’t we just go to a restaurant again?”

“We’ve already done that,” says Simon with a dismissive wave of his hand. “We need something fresh, something new.” We both stand and stare at each other for a moment, and then a lightbulb seems to go off in his head. “I’ve got it. Drive-in movie theatre.”

“Where are we going to find a drive-in movie theatre in Seattle?” I scoff. “In the morning?”

Simon waves his hand again, the idea crystallizing in his mind. “We’ll set one up. We have the projection equipment and everything we need. We can do it all ourselves. I can get this done, fast.”

“Don’t we need to wait for it to get dark?” I say. “Isn’t that kind of the point?”

With a shrug, the director turns to look out of the window. “Nah, the sky is gray enough today. We can always edit it to look darker than it is. All right?”

“Okay, fine, whatever,” I say, not wanting to argue. This wasn’t exactly the sort of date I expected, but I’ve got what I wanted. Me and Marina — and time.

Simon heads back to the crew, and Marina comes over to me, concern written all over her face. “What was that about? I heard you arguing. Is everything okay?”

“He wants to do another date night,” I say as if it wasn’t me who instigated the whole plan.

“Oh!” says Marina.

I can’t tell if she’s surprised in a happy or a sad way.

“What does he want us to do?” she asks.

“Go to a movie. Drive-in. Supposed to be romantic, or something.”

“Oh,” she says again, and then the practical side of her brain kicks in. “A movie where? How?”

“They’re going to put some boring old black-and-white thing on a projection screen so we can pretend to be having a drive-in theatre experience. He’s getting it all set now.”

“Cool,” says Marina, breaking into a smile. Seems she does like this plan after all. “I’ve always thought that looks really dreamy.”

I grunt in response. Doing things that are considereddreamyhas never exactly been my idea of a good time.

But an hour and a half later, we’re on the road, being driven out to some barn in the middle of nowhere so we can pretend to be watching a movie together. I guess we actually will be watching the movie, but the point still is that this is less than my idea of fun.

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