The Fidelity Files (Jennifer Hunter #1)(105)

After entering the last digit, I studied the completed number on the screen of my phone, my finger poised and ready to press the green Send button like a finger on a trigger.

It's easy, I told myself.

I would just press Send, he would answer, and I would simply say something like, "I'm sorry, my mother is sick...in Guam, and I'll be moving there for God knows how long..."

"No!" I said aloud. "No more lies."

"I'm sorry, my life is just too complicated right now. I feel that I shouldn't drag you into it."

Perfect.

Honest, truthful, painless...in theory.

I took a deep breath and began to apply pressure on the green button.

And that's when the doorbell rang.

I released my finger and looked curiously in the direction of the hallway. As I made my way to the front door, I checked my watch, and then remembered that my mom, Julia, and Hannah were coming over today to take me out to lunch.

I quickly put my phone and Jamie's business card down on the dining room table and went to the door.

"Hi, all!" I said, trying to sound excited and well rested. After all, that's how normal people sound on Sunday afternoons, right? Relaxed, calm, enjoying the weekend, reading the paper, maybe even watching a TV movie.

Hannah hugged me briefly and then rushed passed me to do what she always does when she comes to my house: explore my closet.

"Oh my God," I heard her yell from my bedroom a few seconds later as I hugged my mom and Julia. "I love this skirt!"

"Great," Julia said, rolling her eyes. "Now, that's all we're going to hear about on the way back home."

I smiled politely back at her.

Julia stepped inside and took a look around, silently judging everything with her eyes. "Hmm...It's amazing. I always manage to forget how white this place is."

I bit my lip to keep myself from throwing back a snide retort, knowing it would get me nowhere.

"Who's Jamie Richards?" I heard my mom's voice ask in a very interested tone.

I immediately swung my head around to find my mother holding Jamie's business card in her hand and examining it with great interest.

"Calloway Consulting," she read aloud from the card, and then picked her head up. "A business associate?"

I shrugged and tried to downplay it. "No. Just a guy I'm dating."

Her face instantly lit up. I could almost see the silhouettes of unborn children appear in my mother's pupils. I suddenly wished I had just lied and told her he was a business associate.

I tried to cover. "It's no big deal, really. I don't think it's going anywhere. Where do you want to go to lunch?"

"How many times have you gone out?" Hannah asked, returning to the living room and plopping down on the couch. She shifted to get comfortable, as if getting ready to watch a movie she'd wanted to see for months. All she was missing was a large bucket of popcorn.

"You know, I don't really want to talk about it," I replied, walking over to my mom and gently removing the white card from her tightly clasped fingers and placing it back on the table. Her fingers had instinctively clenched around what had become a small token of hope.

I didn't see any good in telling them about Jamie since I was undoubtedly going to end it anyway. What was the point in getting them all excited? My life had no room for a man. In fact, I don't even know why I agreed to go out with him in the first place. A cute distraction from my hectic existence? What a pathetically lame thing to do. But I knew my family would never understand my reasoning. "What's so complicated about your life?" Julia would sneer. "You can't avoid your issues with your father forever," my mom would warn in a maternal tone. "He's ugly, isn't he? That's the real reason, right?" Hannah would naively speculate, extremely proud that she had unraveled the truth behind the great mystery that was my love life.

They all stared at me. A woman on trial for her life. Would she please the jury with her agreeable response? Or would she be sent to the gas chamber?

I sighed and threw my hands up in the air. "Twice, okay? We've gone out twice. And I'm afraid it's not working out. Now can we go to lunch?"

"You know," Julia began thoughtfully. The look on her face implied that she was conjuring up something that in her mind would be as significant as the latest scientific breakthrough in cancer research. "Two dates sound like a very familiar number."

"What do you mean?" I asked, genuinely curious.

"Well, don't all of your so-called relationships last about two dates?"

The members of the jury looked to me with eyes that said, She does have a point, Jen.

Busted! Julia had hit the nail right on the head. All of my so-called relationships did last two dates. But what I couldn't tell them was that those "relationships" never actually existed. The fictitious men of my past were usually given two dates before I came up with a reason to scratch them from the lineup. Because I always figured two dates was just long enough that no one could argue I hadn't given them enough time to make an impression, and just short enough that no one got their feelings hurt.

As I contemplated Julia's observation, I suddenly felt very bad for wanting to cancel my third date with Jamie. He was the first "real" guy they'd ever known about. And it was appearing that my artificial "two-date" stigma had actually manifested itself in my real dating life. That couldn't be healthy.