Page 26 of Let It Be Me
“Yep. Perfect.” I lie with a smile.
Jeff regards me as he knows I’m lying, but accepts what I tell him regardless. When he closes the door I continue with my pacing and thinking. Pacing and thinking. Over and over until I stop in my tracks. Then it hits me. I scramble to pick up my phone from my desk and pull up Kamryn’s contact.
“Hey,” she picks up and answers on the third ring.
“Hey. I have to ask you something that might be intrusive.” I start and resume my pacing. Anything to keep from sitting still.
“As opposed to the last ten years of our friendship?” She says with laughter in her voice.
“Fair,” I start and take a deep breath.
“Sarah? What’s up?” Kamryn asks when I’m silent for longer than usual.
“When you and Liam were test driving your friends with benefits relationship, when did you realize you had feelings for him?”
A deep breath is released into the phone. “Wow. You weren’t joking about being intrusive.” I hear a heaving breath on the other end of the line and I just know she’s tipped her head back in her office chair to gather her words. “I always had feelings for Liam. You know that. But if I had to pick the exact moment, I think it was the week before I met Mason. Liam ghosting me helped me to move on faster though. Why do you ask?”
“I’m being linked to a hockey player,” I tell her.
“The one you’re supposed to babysit?”
“That’s the one.”
I hear tapping and assume she’s looking it up. “Oh, he’s hot.”
“Kamryn,” I whine.
“I’m sorry,” she laughs into the phone. “Okay, what’s the issue?”
“He’s my client, he’s younger than me, and instead of putting myself in save-mode I suggested we fake date.”
Silence. And then laughter. Kamryn’s laughter is so loud that I pull my phone away from my ear and wait for her to compose herself.
“Okay. I’m sorry. Really, I am. Fake dating. That is– Let me ask you something. If he wasn’t your client, would you be hesitating?”
“No.”
“What about his age? If he were older than you would you be hesitant?”
“No. But you wouldn’t even know he’s younger than me unless you looked him up or asked him.”
“Looks like you have your answer, Sarah Jane. The other question is, what are you going to do?”
There's my best friend. “Well, I told him we give the fake dating thing six months and then go our separate ways.”
“Six months?” She questions skeptically.
“Is that a long time?” I ask, now fearful that it’s too long to keep up a charade. “That’s when hockey ends,” I tell her.
“No. The timing doesn’t really matter. But, Sarah, I’mworried about you falling for him.” She tells me. “And I know you haven’t told me everything that happened with you and Paul, but know that I’m here. When you choose to love again, and I hope you do because you have so much love to give, I want you to remember that love should be freeing.”
I snort into the phone. “You don’t have to worry about that.” Paul ruined me for any future relationship I planned to have. So me falling in love is nothing anyone should worry about.
“Okay.” I hear the skepticism in her tone again and then hear noise from her office and a muffled voice in the background. “Damn. I have a meeting to get to. But, we’ll talk later, okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, and I want to be the first to know when you’re no longer “fake dating,” she says with a teasing lilt to her voice.
