Page 25 of All Along

He grunts. “I passed English. And I’m done talking about this.”

“But you never told me how you got your injury. What happened? How bad is it?”

“Need to know,” he grunts.

I let it go. After a decade of being pen pals, I’m intimately acquainted with the words ‘need to know’.

I hold up my hands. “I’m officially letting it go.” For now.

“Moving on. Let’s discuss dating.”

My heart skips a beat. Dating. What I wouldn’t do to date Caleb. He’s my dream man. Has been for decades. But we’re friends. He shoved me into the friend zone when he shipped out to basic training immediately after our high school graduation.

“We’re friends, remember?”

Ugh. I hate the word friends where Caleb is concerned. Don’t get me wrong. I think it’s important for a couple to be friends. But ‘only friends’? Ugh. No thanks.

“My family’s worried about me.”

My head spins from the change of subject but I roll with it.

“Why?”

He scowls. “Let’s just say they haven’t seen much of me since I returned to the island.”

In other words, he’s hiding from everyone. Not just me.

“Why are you hiding from your parents? They love you.”

Acid churns in my stomach. A big, gaping hole exists in my life where my family should be. I would give up all my romance books for my parents to love me. Instead, they’ve rejected me time and time again. They ignore me and pretend I don’t exist.

Caleb doesn’t respond so I keep going. “And your sisters love you, too. They miss you. They want to spend time with you.”

He smiles and his dimple comes out again. How he can look so rugged and cute and adorable at the same time is a mystery to me, but he pulls it off.

“Willow, Abigail, Clara, and Eliza are crazy.”

I don’t disagree. I don’t really know his sisters. But I’d love it if they were my sisters. I’d love any siblings but my mom couldn’t have children after me. Not after my dad—

I shove those thoughts away. I’m not thinking about my parents now. Caleb needs me. He deserves my attention. Not them.

“What I’m trying to say…” He pauses.

“Yes?”

“I think we should fake date to stop my family from worrying about me.”

It’s a good thing I’m sitting because his words would have knocked me off my feet if I were standing. Holy mermaids! He wants to date me.

Fake date,I correct myself.

Whatever. Fake dating still means spending time with him. It means he’s not embarrassed to be seen with me. The girl with more curves than the ocean has waves.

I inhale a deep breath and calm myself before I jump him. We’re merely pretending to date. Pretending to date doesn’t mean I get to strip his clothes off and lick every inch of him.

Wait a smuggler minute! Does fake dating mean those things? I read romance novels. I know all about how couples fake date in public but get busy in the sheets in private. What does Caleb want?

“Define fake dating.”

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