Page 65 of Meet Stan

“I do love you,” I said, and the passengers and flight crew erupted into cheers.

“It’s like a movie,” plum dress woman said.

“Yeah, a boring one with kissing and junk,” her grandson added.

Stan’s gaze never wavered even with all those distractions.

“But do you forgive me?” He asked softly. “Can you forgive me?”

I took a deep breath.

“I think so,” I said. “As long as you promise never to hurt me again.”

“Oh god, Ivy,” he said, fawning all over me in a totally out-of-character way. “Oh god, I promise you I’ll never hurt you again. I’m so sorry I didn’t call off the stupid plan weeks ago, when it was obvious it wasn’t a fake relationship anymore.”

“It did turn real, didn’t it?”

“Yes,” he said. “It did.”

His face split in a wide smile.

“Now, I do believe the intelligent young lad over there said there should be kissing and junk…”

He leaned his face in toward mine, but I stopped him with a palm to the forehead.

“You’re not kissing me, buster,” I said. “Not until you get a shower and a change of clothes. You smell like a pile of dog shit.”

The dog whimpered and gave me those puppy eyes despite the fact he was the size of a god damn house.

“No offense, pooch,” I said.

Stan burst into laughter, and after a moment, so did the other passengers, the flight crew, even the pilot.

“Okay,” I said. “I guess I’m not going to Singapore.”

“Does this mean the smelly dog’s not coming?” asked the guy in the pinstripe suit.

“No,” Stan said.

“Good.”

“Come on, pooch,” Stan said, petting the dog’s head. “Let’s you and me both go get ourselves a bath.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

Stan

It took the help of an outlaw biker gang, a street mutt with a butt of mange and a heart of gold, one slightly confused pigeon, and a lot of buttinski first-class passengers and flight crew, but I did it.

I managed to win Ivy back. For the first time. For real, I mean. I was tired of worrying if things had been fake or not. All I knew was that it felt damn real to me.

Ivy didn’t take the project manager position, choosing to stay in New York instead. She wound up getting promoted to staff supervisor in the accounting division, which is a step on the ladder toward upper management.

As for me, well, life went on only it was way better since I had Ivy in it. Sure, I had to eat my humble pie. My vaunted plan to make my friends believe in a phony relationship all to prove love didn’t exist had blown up in my face. The part about selling our fake relationship went off without a hitch.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that was due to the fact we weren’t faking our feelings. Not really. Life imitates art, art imitates life. Or something. I’m a businessman, not a philosopher.

As the months passed, Ivy and I grew even closer. She wound up not renewing her lease, and moved in with me instead. It just made more sense, as she was spending most of her nights here anyway.

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