Page 13 of The Fake Dating War

And if this whole thing doesn’t work…

No, it will. It will.

An hour later, Leo packs up his bag. He’s got to meet Wyatt at the adoption agency soon, so he is leaving work early.

I watch him stand up, then sit back down. Strange.

At the same time, a message pops up on my screen. Mr.Davies is chatting with the whole client recruitment team online. He’s promising to send new leads soon. I’m now watching my inbox like a hawk. As soon as that email comes in, I’m going for the best one. Across the aisle, Coleman is doing the same. Steel green eyes meet mine. Both my hands get involved. My imaginary weapon is a shotgun. The corner of his mouth twitches when I pretend-fire off three rounds, each one making my shoulder recoil. He’s shaking his head at me.

“Reema?”

That’s Leo calling me.

He says my name again.

I blink. “Sorry. Satan distracted me.”

“When are the two of you going to fuck and get it over with?”

“Excuseme?! Not if he’s thelastman on earth!”

“Remember when that massive filing cabinet toppled onto the intern’s desk? He walked over and straightened it without any help. Sorry, but your Satan is jacked, sonot if he’s the last man on earth…? Let us not lie, darling.”

“I don’t remember that happening.” I definitelydon’trecall watching his arms bulge as he pushed that cabinet up.Norcan I hear the soft grunt he made when he did it, or how he came over to my desk afterward to poke my cabinet as if actually worried it would happen to me next.

“Knowing you, Patel, you’d keep working even buried under a tonne of weight.”

“Stop pretending to be all chivalrous. No one is watching, Coleman.”

“I bet your hardheadedness would dent the metal.”

“Get away from my cabinet!”

“Stop harping in my ear. I’m almost done.”

“Why do you even care?”

“I don’t. But you’ll whine when you get hurt, saying that’s why you weren’t good enough to win.”

“For all I know, you’re sabotaging the thing to fall on me.”

“If anything is going to crush you, it will be me. Then you can cry about it later.”

Leo clears his throat.

“Aren’t you going to be late for your meeting?” I wonder.

“I’ve got a few minutes…” His voice trails off and goes whisper soft. “And you don’t have to answer, but I’ve been thinking lately. Whydidyou lie and tell your family you had a boyfriend in the first place? I think I know, but I also might not be sure.”

The topic rattles clumsily between us. From his resigned stance, I can tell he thinks I won’t answer him. He’s right in that I don’t want to talk about this. Not because I don’t trust or care for Leo—I do—but because this is my own thing.

I’m so embarrassed, and when that happens to me, I squirrel and package away the cause. It hurts to bring it back out into the open. But here is Leo, the one who so tirelessly is trying to find me a date, asking me with genuine sincerity.

My throat is desert-dry, and by contrast, my palms are moist.

“Pressure to be doing good in life is the simple answer,” I say slowly. I’ve turned back around. My mouse is clicking randomly. The screen in front of me could, for once, say anything. I don’t see it. “You know my routine. I do the same thing every day, and I’m good with that boringness, but any time my family called me, they would hear about my life and keep making these sympathetic sounds.” I change the tone of my voice, extending the vowels when I say, “Reema, I hate you have to go through it all alone so far away in another city. You’ve got nobody with you. Why don’t you move back home? What kind of life must you be living? Do you truly have no one? Isn’t there anyone? It’s so sad. I’m worried about you.”

Succinctly and with repressed anger, Leo says, “That’s bullshit.”

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