Page 23 of For Butter or Worse
Tom
10
NINA
As Leo walked down the driveway toward Nina’s car, she placed her forehead in her hands and repeated the mantra she’d told herself since getting Tom’s email:
Do your job.Do your job. Do your job.
But, as usual, Leo made her job feel like a Herculean effort. Because as he smiled that smug smirk of his, she realized that almost every part of him irritated her. He made terrible dad jokes, though he clearly thought they were funny. He put on a phony smile for everyone, just showing how disingenuous he really was. And he’d apologized to her for using her nickname only after she called him out.
On top of all that, his annoyingly dark and thick hair did this perfect wave thing that she had a gut feeling was natural with no product involved. Ugh, even the way his pants fit as snugly against his thighs as a smooth demi-glace was obnoxious.
But she had to try because, as Tom said, she had no other choice.
Leo slowly opened the passenger-side door. He ducked his head in. “Aren’t you supposed to come around and open the car door for me? What kind of date is this?”
“Fake date,” she corrected.
“Chivalry is clearly dead.” He got in. “Swanky ride.”
“It’s not the latest Tesla model,” she said, deflecting. Even though she hadn’t been able to afford her own car until she turned thirty, she was still self-conscious about having spent as much money as she had. She’d saved up and bought the BMW with cash. She should have been proud. Shewasproud. “She does have heated seats, though.”
“Oh, I can definitely feel that.” Leo wiggled in his seat, emphasizing how delighted he was. “I’d ask where to, but I got the itinerary. Nice to have someone else plan a date for a change.”
“Oh, Leo, dates with blow-up dolls don’t count.” She smiled tightly.
“You clearly haven’t met the right dolls, then,” he countered.
And she laughed, which horrified her. Since when did she indulge his corny jokes?
Judging by the pleased look crossing his lips, he’d just gotten exactly what he wanted. But Nina had a job to do, and she wasn’t about to let him forget that. “Look, this may all be some joke to you, but I’m not good at pretending. I mean, you’ve seen me on the show—our poor contestants! My face says it all.”
“If you want, I can guide us through this.” His voice was gentle and even, like a scam artist trying to convince her that she should wire money to a downtrodden prince in exchange for a royal title.
“Like you did at the ice-cream shop?” She needed totryand trust him, like Tom said. But that was proving to be hard already.
“That date doesn’t count. It was a trial run. This is the real thing, a redo. And not for nothing, but I happen to be great at first dates.”
She still felt on edge, despite Leo’s nice-guy act. Probably because she knew him, and his tricks, all too well. “Is that so?”
“By the end of this fake date you’ll be begging me for a second.” He grinned, momentarily exposing the gap between his front teeth. She had to stop herself from staring at the pink of his tongue, which was only slightly visible. “Worst case, we cut the date short, right? Not that scary.”
Fine.The day was high stakes—if the public believed they were together, this could be the beginning of turning her career around, and if they didn’t...people would have another reason to rejoice in her demise. So if she was going to play make-believe all day, she’d need to just embrace the fact that she was on a date with Leo, in all of his smug glory. She’d pretend she was someone else—someone going out with a hot but heartless cardboard cutout of a man.
“There’s going to be photographers crawling around this place,” she said. In general, she didn’t love having her photo taken. She “had a knack for finding bad angles,” as Tom liked to say.
“Oh, I’m well aware.” He fastened his seat belt. “That’s why I dressed so sharply.”
“It all makes sense now.” She rolled her eyes before moving the gear into Drive—partly so they could get this over with and partly so she’d stop staring at how his arms looked in the jacket. It occurred to her that she hadn’t noticed how thick his arms were before, not that she cared. A half hour later and they’d arrived. Tom knew how much Nina loved Halloween season, which is why he must’ve thought visiting a pumpkin patch a few weeks before the actual holiday would be a good idea. Mr. Bones was known as a place where you might see real-life celebrities walking among the rows of curated pumpkins. There was even a small, roped-off area for any paparazzi who wanted to catch a glimpse of someone famous coming in or out at the entrance. In other words, this was the perfect place to be spotted.
Which was exactly what they all wanted, right? At least that’s what Nina reminded herself of when she parked the car. Her thoughts were interrupted by Leo taking a very loud and intentional deep breath. She looked over—his eyes were closed, and he was slowly blowing air out of his mouth.
If she didn’t know better, she’d guess he was meditating...in her car? She really didn’t want to get into whatever weird shit this was, but she had to interrupt him. They couldn’t just sit there forever while he found his third eye. “I don’t know whether to buy you a yoga mat or burn some sage to get the memory of whatever this is out of the car.”
A sheepish expression crossed his face. “This may be hard to believe, but you aren’t the only one who gets nervous.”
She watched him drop the visor and examine his hair in the mirror. “Yeah, but you get nervous about your hair,” she quipped. “I’m nervous about losing my career.”
