Page 15 of Misadventures With My Fake Fiancé

He placed a big hand on my shoulder. The touch was gentle, his palm warm. “Vi, you might be identical, but you're nothing like your sister. I wanted to call you first, but I didn't think you'd say yes.”

I cocked my head to the side, confused. “Why's that?”

“Because the few times we've seen each other since I've been home you've always been...prickly.”

I had been...prickly toward him. He'd walked away without even saying more than goodbye after our night together, as if I'd never meant anything to him. I'd been mad at him about that ever since. “Yeah, I guess I have been. If I hadn't been so prickly before, you would have asked me out?”

“Hell, yeah. I just didn't think you were interested.”

He caught me completely off guard. He'd been interested in me since he moved back to town. He was interested in me now. My stomach flipped, a little like turbulence on an airplane. “Well...um...I'm not prickly now. Remember the kiss last night at the airport?”

I hadn't been prickly at all. In fact, a few other adjectives popped to mind. Interested, curious, eager. Horny, even.

Shrugging, Mike said, “That wasn't a real kiss.”

My mouth fell open. “What's a real kiss then, because I'm pretty sure you were checking my tonsils with your tongue.”

Mike smiled as if he remembered the tonsillectomy. He leaned down close. “Last night was just for show, to seal the deal for my mom, and to disguise the fact that I had to get that behemoth of a ring onto your finger. I remember our real kisses.” He looked me in the eye again. I'd forgotten how blue hiswere. How he could not just look at me, butseeme. “I know you do, too.”

I swallowed, lost in his gaze. “Yeah,” I whispered. “I remember them.” Heat crept into my cheeks. I would never forgetreallykissing Mike. I'd never wanted it to stop when I was eighteen. But it did, and that's why it hurt too much to remember them for long. He'd wanted me enough to sleep with me, but not enough to stay. In fact, he stayed away almost ten years. It had been obvious where I stood, until now. We'd barely talked in all that time, but here in Alaska, practically stuck together, his talk wasn't asfakeas I'd expected. It seemed pretty darn real.

But here I was with him again, pretend engaged, and I didn't mind the idea of Mike kissing me. For real. In fact, I thought it might be a very good idea. My hormones and brain weren't working completely in sync. My brain said he’d chosen medicine, not me. My hormones said, “who cared?” I just didn't need to do any more real kissing in public.Especiallyin front of his mother. I inwardly cringed.

“Everyone was surprised when I said we'd been dating for a while,” Mike commented as he fiddled with a display of lures, picking up one that was big enough to pull in a whopping halibut. He toyed with it and tossed it back into the pile.

Several people in front of us peeled off after getting licenses. The line was noticeably shorter.

“How long have we been dating?” I wondered.

“Four months.”

What? Were we dating in hiding? “Four months? How do you know I haven't run into your parents around town since March?”

Mike ran a hand through his hair. “When I told her, she said right off that she hadn't seen you in a while.”

That's because I avoided her like the plague.

“We've only been going out for four months and now we're engaged? You move fast.”

He shrugged, grinned. “When you know, you know.”

It was hard to tell if Mike was saying those kinds of things because he really meant it, or because it was all part of the ruse. I was afraid to ask because both answers were a little scary.

“So how did we meet up again?”

Mike fished a pack of gum out of his jacket pocket, silently offered me a piece. I took one, crumpled up the foil wrapper and stuck the piece in my mouth. Minty.

“We ran into each other at Big Sky over Spring Break and we took a couple of runs together. One thing led to another and here we are.”

From skiing together in March, up to our necks in deceit just south of the Arctic circle in June.

I shook my head in womanly disgust. That was the vaguest relationship update I'd ever heard. It was going to be like pulling teeth to get the details out of him, especially since he probably hadn't invented them yet. His mother most likely assumed the same thing as me. Men were vague.

Another cashier showed up from somewhere and it was our turn. I started filling out the form, fished out my driver's license. I slipped my hair behind my ear and a few strands got caught in my ring. I winced. “Crap. I'm stuck.”

Mike gently worked the ring out of my hair, slipping the freed strands back behind my ear. “There.”

He had such big hands, like frying pans, but he was so competent with them, so gentle. I could only imagine his skill in the OR, or on my body. Sure, he'd been just as tall our senior year, but he'd been like a puppy, all big hands. Gangly. Since then, he'd grown into them, bulking up with fabulous muscle and hard lines.

---