Page 5 of Hard to Pretend

“So what do you do, Seb? Since Chris hasn’t really said much about you.”

“I work at a marketing firm a few blocks from here,” Seb answered. “I’ve been there for a few years.”

“Do you like it?”

“It pays the bills.” Seb shifted and dropped my hand. “Actually on my way there now. Just thought I’d get some coffee first. What about you?”

The small talk felt awkward. I buried my hands in the pockets of my slacks. I wanted to answer his question, but I had to assume it was for Mason. Because if we’d been seeing each other for a few weeks, then he’d know about my job. That was normally something established on a first date, if not a little before.

Mason told him a little about the office he worked at until we finally reached the order counter. Theentire time, Seb stood close to me, playing the role of… whatever we allegedly were. People seeing each other? Boyfriends? It didn’t really matter.

In a few days, I’d tell Mason that things didn’t work out between me and Seb, and I’d pretend I never did this incredibly stupid thing. I’d sweep it under the rug and never mention it again.

I had never been more grateful to reach the front of a line than I was in the moment it happened. We placed our orders, and I paid for Seb’s. It was the least I could do since he’d saved my ass by playing pretend for a few minutes. When we had our coffees, he excused himself. “Going to walk him out,” I told Mason with a grin. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Unless I could pretend to walk Seb to work and never have to go back into the coffee shop and face the music of my own idiocy. Which I already knew wasn’t going to happen. Even if I did that, Mason would just text me later. Either way, I wanted to thank Seb before he slipped away again.

This is why I shouldn’t make snap decisions—or any decisions—before I had my coffee.

Luckily, Seb was still outside, typing on his phone and leaning against the building. He looked shell-shocked and bewildered, like he couldn’t believe anything that had just happened. I didn’t blame him. If some one night stand had appeared out of nowhere at a coffee shop and asked me to act like his boyfriend, I don’t think I would’ve reacted any better.

I also don’t think I would’ve been quick enough on my feet to play along the way that he had. I probably would’ve told them to get lost. I was intrigued by the fact that his knee jerk reaction was to just go with it. It took a special kind of person to do that.

I cleared my throat to get his attention. He jolted and looked up from his phone. There was a tentative half-smile on his lips as he looked at me.

“Sorry about that,” I started. “I just wanted to say thanks. For playing along.”

“You wanna explain what that was about?” he asked, taking a sip of his coffee.

“Mason was giving me shit for not dating, and I tried to pull the whole Canadian Girlfriend ruse—”

“Canadian Girlfriend?”

“Yeah, you know like in movies when someone claims they have a girlfriend. She just lives in Canada or goes to another school or something,” I explained. Seb nodded. “Right, so I was doing that and then you walked in and suddenly it seemed like a good idea. Which, I mean, it wasn’t, but that’s what I get for having ideas before coffee.”

Seb laughed. “Sounds like something one of my friends would try.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “So your friends are idiots too?”

“Basically.” Seb looked back down at his phone before slipping it into the pocket of his slacks. I expected him to walk off, but instead, he pulled backout his phone and passed it to me. “Give me your number.”

I took the phone but stared at the new contact screen as if it were written in a foreign language, one that I didn’t speak or understand. Possibly one I’d never actually seen like Gaelic or a fantasy language made up for one of the fantasy books my brother liked.

“Seriously,” Seb said with an easy laugh. He laughed a lot, but not in a way that made me feel like he was laughingatme. I liked it, and I wondered if that was always the case or if he was just deeply amused in the mornings. I didn’t remember him laughing that much when we’d hooked up, but that had been a very different context.

I might have actually been offended if he’d laughed when we’d been hooking up—especially if he did it right as I was taking off my pants or something.

“Don’t you already have my number?” I remembered giving it to him the morning after we hooked up, before I kissed him goodbye at my apartment door.

“You gave it to me, but I don’t have it anymore.”

Ouch. Did he give up on me after I never reached out? I wouldn’t have blamed him, but I couldn’t lie. It still stung.

He seemed to read the expression on my face and gave me a small smile. “I didn’t delete it, if that’s whatyou’re worried about.” I didn’t want to admit how true that was. “I was actually going to text you.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I had a text all typed out, but then I dropped my phone in a puddle and my Uber drove over it.”

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