Page 66 of The Dating Contract

“What?” Shayna, her eagle-eared sister-in-law, was the one who said something, her voice the equivalent of a hammer piercing something with a nail.

“Go change,” Naomi said, sounding hurried and, as usual, focused on the task at hand, which was the dresses. “We’ll talk about this later, because of course we really need to talk.”

Which meant though Naomi was focused, she wasn’t letting this go. Not at all.

And later did in fact come, after more dresses, and a moment where a little four-year-old who’d gotten a very glittery dress, was dropped off into the care of her father and brother.

A table, one large Cupcake Stop cupcake for each of them and her cousin and her sister-in-law were staring at her.

She’d ordered an americano, hoped it took forever to arrive, but that night, Cupcake Stop was faster than usual. The drinks arrived, and left her no more time to stall.

And nobody was giving her a chance to breathe.

“What?”

“There’s a story you need to tell,” Shayna said. “Because you said you wanted to know how ‘it’ was real. TheitI’m assuming you’re talking about means love? Relationships, yes?”

Knowing she wasn’t going to get out of this, Naomi nodded. “Yes.”

“So what do you mean specifically?” Naomi asked. “What’s theityou want to be real?”

Leah sighed, and admitted it: “Love.”

“So,” Naomi asked, “what you’re asking is how do you know when love is real?”

Leah nodded, took a bite of her cupcake. “That’s exactly what I said, but both of you should probably realize how much I actually want to discuss this, which is not at all.”

“You’re kidding,” Shayna said with a snort. “Two things. We’re family, and I’ve been running interference for you.”

“Yes,” Leah said. “I’m very aware and even more grateful, which is why, you know, I’m even talking in the first place.”

“Good,” Naomi said, “you’re improving on this conversation thing.”

“Right,” Shayna said, continuing the conversation like it was her right. “So. You want to know when love is real. I mean, not to put too fine a point on it, you’ve been doing a pretty good job demonstrating it the last few weeks with Samuel. I think you’re doing just fine.”

“Yeah,” Naomi said. “You’ve been hot and heavy with Samuel since the photo exhibit.”

And that was when she couldn’t take the pressure of holding this secret back any longer, and the dam burst, words pouring out of her as if she were Niagara Falls. “It’s fake.”

That was when Naomi’s jaw hit the table, but it was Shayna who spoke. “I am fascinated by this whole thing,” she said. “You really went through the trouble of setting up a fake relationship?”

Leah nodded. “Yeah. We have a contract and everything.”

Naomi shook her head. “When did this start? After the wedding expo and the photo exhibit?”

Shayna raised an eyebrow. “What was that?”

Leah took a sip of her hastily ordered espresso, and told the story of the wedding expo and explained what had happened at the photo exhibit that same night. “And then basically a bunch of things happened—invitations, circumstances, where it just made sense to…fake a relationship. And so he made us a contract. So yeah.”

“Well,” Shayna continued, “at least now we know why you were asking about the difference between real and fake. But my question is why exactly did you think fake dating would be a good idea?”

“It was convenient,” she said. “Samuel was there, he needed me, then I needed him, so we decided to use each other for a prescribed period of time and when it’s over, things were supposed to end without a scar on either of us.”

“I’m trying to find a place where you explain why you didn’t tell me before, but we’ll get to that later,” Naomi said, making Leah feel guilty and nervous simultaneously. “For now, I want to know why Samuel was such a good choice.”

Of course it was Naomi who got to the heart of the matter.

“Because we shouldn’t be together,” Leah finally said. “We were a horrible idea. I mean let’s face it. In those movies, or books where couples fake-date, nine times out of ten, they don’t know each other when they start. And these couples end up a fake fail because during the process of dating, they discover each other, even though they don’t know the pitfalls of dating or even knowing this particular individual. So they learn the good partsand…poof. Real feelings come up. With Samuel, he was a bad idea, and I knew from the beginning exactly why he was a bad idea. There was supposed to be no poof. No reason why there should be real feelings.”

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