Page 13 of Fool Me

She lowered her lids and made a silent decision. From here on out, a strict, no-smiling policy operated whenever no cameras were around. Naturally a smiley person, this would feel odd, but she didn’t owe anyone, and leastwise Grant Mason, any smiles.

8

Grant spent Sunday morning avoiding his phone as assidulously as if plague germs coated it. Given Ronny’s endless connections with influencers, there’d be pics of his date with Sadie popping up everywhere—pics of them eating together and holding hands, pics of them laughing and jewelry shopping. They’d be beautiful shots, too, considering the stunning venue and leggy blonde Sadie in her dainty yellow outfit, her heart-shaped lips smiling sweetly. But they would be beautiful lies, a world that didn’t exist, a life he desperately wanted but couldn’t have.

Vaguely aware he might be hungry, he finished putting away his neatly folded laundry and wandered toward the kitchen, his mind continuing to sift unhappily through the previous day’s events. From the instant he’d picked Sadie up to the moment he’d dropped her back to her place, she’d rejected his every offer of friendship, let alone deeper connection. She’d abandoned him the moment they’d arrived, then said she was so hot she wanted to leave. He’d managed to get her to stay for lunch, but just when he’d thought they’d finally have an extended chance to sit and talk in a more relaxed way, she’d insisted on a jewelry shopping marathon.

Plopping down at his kitchen table, he pressed a thumb into each eyebrow, wishing one of them was an “easy button.” Planning and executing dates usually excited him. Grant was up for anything—nothing bored him, really—so why not figure out what his date would most enjoy and do that? He considered it a personal challenge, actually—the Sherlock Holmes of perfect dates. If a woman gifted her time to him, she should at least have the time of her life, right? But with these dates, he had zero control. Zilch. And though he’d tried to help her have fun at the date she’d chosen, it obviously hadn’t been good enough.

He wracked his brain for the thousandth time—what had he done to make her dislike him so much?If she were at all this way toward other people, he could understand. He could chalk it up to some quirk of Sadie’s and try…try…to move on from her. But he had known her for years, spent hours with her and her roommates, worked with her in classes and in productions (a place where everyone’s true colors were eventually exposed), and he had never seen her be so much as short with anyone who didn’t deserve it. Just the opposite. When things got rough, everyone sought her out as their emotional go-to, the in-house therapist for her roommates and pretty much everyone else. Everyone wanted her at their gatherings too, because her mere presence put people at ease. If Sadie Heppner came to your party, it would be a fun night—not for her popularity, but because she brought out the best in people.

Wait…was that it? Had she been trying all this time to bring out the best in him and he had missed all the hints? Maybe. He could be clueless at times. Julia called him naïve. With a frustrated grunt, his arms drooped heavily toward the floor and his forehead clunked onto the table in front of him. The cool wood felt reassuringly solid. Maybe he’d finally figured it out. He needed to pay closer attention to everything she said and did. That shouldn’t be hard, considering his eyes automatically locked onto her the moment she stepped into view.

His thoughts returned to Amrita. As she’d shown him how to spread the dosa batter thin as paper using the back of her ladle, she told him, “Patience is the most beautiful prayer.”Right. Patience. He could do that.After a childhood spent watching crops grow, he was pretty good at that, and Sadie was worth acres of patience.

Thoughts of the dosa reminded him that his fridge held a small plastic tub of the batter. What better way to practice patient prayer and distract himself from negative thoughts than to make a dosa?

Energized and grateful for the distraction, he retrieved the batter from the fridge and pulled out his largest nonstick pan to start it preheating. When a drop of water sizzled on its surface, he scooped up a ladleful of the fermenting, bubbly liquid and poured it in. Immediately, he readied the ladle over the dollop, his brow furrowed. No one would consider him a chef, but cooking intrigued him. Amrita had been a good teacher, and really, how hard could it be? He just had to apply the right amount of pressure when spreading the batter into a larger and larger circle using the rounded bottom of the ladle…

Ring!

His phone jingled from somewhere in his apartment. Argh! In any other circumstance, he’d let it ring and call them back, but with his luck, it would be his agent, Aileen. He’d been trying for nearly a week to get her to return a call. If he missed her call now, he’d have to start the process all over again with her receptionist. The medium-sized dosa circle he’d managed to create so far would have to do. Removing the pan from the heat, he dashed off to his bedroom and grabbed the phone from his bedside table. A glance at the caller ID on his way back gave him a double take.

“Hi, Julia,” Grant said, surprised as always that someone so famous would call him. She probably wanted to thank him for the successful social media pics of the first fake date.

“Hey, Farm Boy,” she said in her signature tone that managed to be nasal and seductive at the same time. “I’m calling to see how your date went.”

Grant put his phone on speaker and rested it on the counter so he could talk while he cooked. Retrieving the ladle, he tried to spread his dosa circle a smidge larger, only to watch its smooth edges begin to shred. He gave up and set the pan back on the burner to cook as-is.

“I haven’t seen any posts yet,” he said, “but I assume some of Ronny’s people got some good shots?”

“You haven’t seen them? Did your fake date go so late I woke you up?”

“Uh, no, no. I dropped her home around three in the afternoon. I just haven’t been online yet today.”

“You’re so cute. I can’t remember what I did the previous day till I’ve checked my phone.”

“Well, I’ve been puttering around, doing Sunday stuff, so?—”

“The festival certainly looked…exotic,” she said, cutting him off, a touch more insistence in her tone.

“It was amazing. I didn’t even know I liked Indian food, but it’s delicious.” Speaking of which, a golden brown tinged his dosa’s lacy edges.

“Is it especially good when you’re hand feeding it to a girl you just met?”

It struck Grant that neither Julia nor Ronny knew he and Sadie had a history. That shouldn’t matter, though, to the fake date scenario. He opted to ignore that part of her already odd question. “Oh, did somebody get a picture of that?”

“They sure did. And one of you giving her an intimate back rub.”

Grant laughed lightly. “If intimate includes being surrounded by thousands of people. She looked tired in that folding chair, so I gave her shoulders a squeeze or two.”

“I bet. And you even went jewelry shopping.”

“Oh, we did a lot of that,” Grant replied with a sigh. A tangy, deep caramel scent rose from the dosa. According to Amrita, that meant it was almost done.

“Uh huh. So, I was thinking, with all that fun you had and all those photos, I’m pretty sure that pic of us is worthless now. Maybe one date is enough for this little fauxmance with substitute me.”

A shiver of panic ran down Grant’s spine.Maybe one date is enough? No way. He needed more time. He thought fast. “Ronny was pretty clear on at least three dates.”

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