Page 21 of Don't Call Me Sweetheart

Her gaze turned thoughtful. “You’re right. I don’t know what I’m talking about. Because we’re talking about you now, not me. And I don’t know anything about you. Not really. It doesn’t seem fair, does it? You know so much about me, and I know nothing about you.”

It wasn’t the first time that accusation had been leveled at me. Usually that statement was followed by this isn’t going to work. And, it’s not me, it’s you. It’s definitely you.

If I didn’t make a change, it was always going to be me. I was the problem. I could change my location, my job, my name. But until I changed myself, my life was always going to be the same. Just me.

Alone.

Kate wasn’t alone. Because she knew how to connect to people. To make relationships and keep them. She had family. She had friends. She had a daughter who wanted her around enough to volunteer her as coach. She had a bartender who made sure she was safe. Friends she could text with a picture of the license of the random man she went home with, who would call to make sure she got home okay.

I didn’t have any of that.

But I wanted it.

And maybe Kate could teach me how to get it.

“Kate,” I said. “I have a proposal for you.”

Chapter 9

Kate

“Let me get this straight,” I said. “You want to fake date?”

We had taken the conversation back to my place, where I was now cutting up cheese and apple slices, more to give me something to do with my hands than anything else. Negotiating the terms of sex wasn’t an everyday occurrence for me. I needed a bit of normalcy. I needed snacks.

“Not fake date. Call it…practice. We would date for real, but with the understanding that, on a predetermined date that we agree to, it would end. November first, before the holidays kick off.”

“I’m pretty sure I’ve seen this Hallmark movie,” I said dryly. “It ends with you falling in love with me.”

“Not a chance.”

Wow, he seemed awfully sure of that. Maybe I should have been offended by his absolute certainty that he couldn’t love me, but the words were uttered so wistfully that the sting didn’t penetrate. I almost felt…sorry for him.

Anyway, I wasn’t looking to fall in love myself either. Not yet. Baby steps and all that.

I looked at him curiously. “Why not? I’m pretty lovable. Everyone says so.” Except George, at the end. Clingy nag were his exact words, a fact that even now kept me up some nights. Arguing with a dead man.

“Oh yeah, you’re a sweetheart.” He grinned. “People have told me.”

I waited for him to say something more, but he snagged an apple slice and popped it into his mouth, dodging the question of why not. He did that a lot. He asked questions but didn’t answer any in return. He listened to my stories but didn’t provide any of his own. This man wasn’t one to open up easily, that was for sure.

“So, how would this work, exactly?” I asked. “You and me, I mean. Other than the end.”

“It would be a real relationship,” he said. “We would do all the things normal couples do, like…” His voice trailed off.

I looked up to find Max staring into space with a very odd expression on his face, like he was doing a complicated algebra problem in his head. Almost as if he had literally no idea what normal couples did together. Which was absurd, because look at him! Of course he’d had girlfriends. For all I knew, he’d been married and divorced twice already.

“We would…go on dates?” I suggested. “Would we meet each other’s friends? What about family?”

“I just moved here, so I don’t have a lot to offer on the friends-and-family front. I’ll leave that up to you to decide what you’re comfortable with. I’ve already met Jessica, of course, but as her principal, not as your boyfriend. Whatever you want to tell her, and anyone else in your life, I’ll go along with.”

That was nice of him. Considerate. But I also recognized it for what it was: another dodge. Sure, he was new in town, so he probably couldn’t claim a whole lot of local friends and family. But that didn’t mean he had no one anywhere, did it? Surely he had people he cared about. Parents or siblings or friends, people he kept in touch with across state lines.

“What are you going to tell your parents?” I asked. “Do you have brothers or sisters? Friends from college or whatever school you were at before you came to Piedmont? Are you going to tell them you have a girlfriend? Or are you going to tell them nothing since we have an expiration date?” I fired off the questions in rapid succession. “I don’t care either way. I just want to know what the plan is.”

Max opened his mouth, then shut it again. Then he shrugged. “We’ll see.”

We’ll see?

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