Page 6 of The Pretender
“Far be it from me to say, but I doubt your family would think that if they love you.”
“Yeah, maybe not. What about your family? Are you close?”
Balt’s expression shifts rapidly as he tears his gaze away from me and looks back out the window.
“Uh, sorry if that’s a sore topic.”
“It is.” He glances at me with the briefest of smiles. “I’d rather not talk about them.”
“Sure, yeah. No problem.”
I remove my socks, bundling them together while I try to think of a way to transition the conversation.
“You know what would be cool?”
Balt turns to me. “What?”
“If I could rent a boyfriend. I mean, I guess I could with an escort service, but that feels smarmy and expensive.”
I expect Balt to laugh along with me, but he looks super serious. “What would that solve for you?”
“It would give me a distraction. One positive thing I could show for all the years I’ve been away. I can’t rent a successful career or a massive bank account, but I could at least have someone on my arm.”
“For how long?”
“What?”
“How long would you want your rental boyfriend?”
“Um, I don’t know. I’m making shit up as I go. Why?”
“I could use a place to stay for a few weeks.”
I tilt my head as his response slowly sinks in. “I could rent you?”
He smiles. “Not rent. I’d do it free of charge. Maybe I could even help you with your business. I’m an accountant by trade.”
“You’re an accountant? That could be helpful. But why? You don’t even know me. Maybe I’m the serial killer.”
He chuckles. “I’m not worried about that.” Balt crosses the small space and sits on the edge of the bed. “You’d be helping me too. I took a sabbatical from my job and needed a break from the city.”
I consider his offer, imagining my family’s face when I show up with a man like Balt on my arm. Plus he’s got skills that could be useful to us. I’m sure we could pay him some kind of consulting fee. Can we create enough chemistry to fool everyone? A bad boyfriend would be worse than no boyfriend.
“Do you have a certain idea of what you’d like your boyfriend to be like?” he asks.
“Oh, uh, well, I haven’t thought about it.”
“Give it some thought. I’m up for it if you are.”
A smile tugs at my lips. “Cool. I will.”
“Great.”
“I should probably warn you though, my family has no chill. They’ll give us little privacy and ask you every question under the sun. But they mean well.”
His brow crinkles but he nods. “Noted.” He digs his toes into the carpet. “Should we get ready for bed?”
“We should, yeah.”
