Page 48 of Fluke
I squint back at her, making her giggle. “You know I’ll go with you.”
She sighs, her body sagging. “Really?”
“Really. It will be a total hardship, but I’m pretty sure I can go away with you and share a bedroom for a few nights. Poor me.”
She picks up a gum wrapper and throws it at me.
“I’ll pay you for your time if you want. Well, not me, but Bloom. I can get it approved,” she says. “You’ll have to miss a day or two of work, maybe. Is that okay?”
“I know the boss. It’ll be fine.”
“But really, I don’t want you to feel like you’re not getting anything out of this. I’m happy to … bake you a cake? I don’t know. Something. But I’m broke so don’t ask for anything expensive. But now that we’re at this part of the conversation, I feel a little guilty asking you to do this.” She bites her lip. “Let me do something nice for you.”
Here’s my opening.
I scramble to think of the best way to utilize this opportunity. Pippa isn’t going to feel good about this unless I let her feel like she’s paying me back somehow.What can I do?
“Okay,” I say, nodding. “I have something you can do for me.”
“All right …”
“We’ll be gone how many nights?” I ask.
“Three? Maybe four?”
“Great. Then you have to spend three, maybe four days with me outside of the trip.”
She stares at me.
“Take it or leave it,” I say, knowing she doesn’t have a choice—but also knowing I won’t make her go through with it if she objects.
I start to think she might actually do that—object—when the severity on her face melts. The tension in her body falls away. There’s a brightness to her eyes, a coy smile on her lips, and the woman looking back at me isn’t the frantic one who walked through the door.
This Pippa is kittenish—playful and intentionally coy.
She crossesher arms over her chest like she’s negotiating a multimillion-dollar deal. “You’ll try to take me to dinner.”
“You don’t know that.”
Her arms fall to her sides. Surprise is written across her face. “Then what will you want to do?”
Fuck your brains out. “Day one is spend tomorrow with me. Sunday dinner at my parents’ house.”
She balks. “I’m not going to their house for dinner.”
“Why not?” I ask. “You know them. You know my entire family. It’s not like I’m asking you to meet a bunch of strangers.”
“You don’t think that’s weird? What are you going to tell them? They won’t think it’s odd that you bring this random chick to dinner?”
I smirk. “No. I do it all the time.”
A streak of surprise mixed with horror ghosts her features.
“I’m kidding,” I say, chuckling. “I’ll tell them that their boy got a fake wife for a few days.”
She’s not amused.
“Come on, Pippa. Spending a few days together will help you relax and not worry about the trip for the next week—because you know you’re going to. I’m doing this as much for you as I am for me.”I’m such a liar.
