Faking It (Losing It, #2)(6)

It would match with the rest of my thoughts then.

“Okay,” I said.

She slid into the seat beside me, and I could smell her . . . something feminine and sweet and completely at odds with her inked skin. I was still thinking about that damn tree, imagining what the rest of the tatto">New York Times 19ifferento looked like, wondering how soft her skin was.

“My parents showed up in town uninvited, and they want to meet my boyfriend.”

She slid a little closer and tapped red-painted nails against the table.

“And how can I help?”

“Well, I’m supposed to introduce them to a nice, sweet boyfriend who I met at the library, which is not actually the boyfriend I have.” Her hand curled around my forearm that rested on the table, and I cursed all my winter layers because I wanted to feel her skin.

“And you think I’m nice and sweet?”

She shrugged. “You look it. I know this is crazy, but I would really appreciate it if you’d pretend to be my boyfriend until I manage to get rid of them.” I looked back at her cherry red lips. They brought to mind several things that were neither nice nor sweet.

What she wanted was crazy, but I’d be acting, the very thing I’d been missing for the last few weeks. And part of me was all for duct taping Nice-Guy-Cade and throwing him in the trunk. That part of me thought spending time with this girl was a very good idea.

She said, “Please? I’ll do all the talking, and I’ll end it as fast as I can. I can pay you!” I raised an eyebrow, and she continued, “Okay, I can’t pay you, but I’ll make it up to you. Anything you want.”

Somehow I had a feeling that she wouldn’t have said that last part to someone who didn’t look “nice and sweet.” Since that part of my brain was currently indisposed, I had a good idea of what I wanted.

“I’ll do it.” Her whole body relaxed. She smiled, and it was gorgeous. Then I added, “In exchange for a date.”

She pulled back, and those full red lips puckered in confusion.

“You want to go on a date with me?”

“Yes. Do we have a deal?”

She looked at the clock on the wall, cursed under her breath, and said, “Fine. Deal. Now give me your scarf.” She didn’t even give me a chance to move before she started tugging it off my neck.

I grinned. “Taking off my clothes already?”

One side of her mouth quirked upward, and she looked at me in surprise. Then she shook her head and wrapped my scarf around her own neck. It covered up her delicate birds and the smooth, porcelain skin of her chest, broken only by the thin black lines of her tattooed tree. She grabbed a napkin off the table and wiped off some of her bright red lipstick.

“All my parents know is we met in the library. You’re nice and sweet and wholesome. My parents are crazy conservative, so no jokes about me taking your clothes off. We’ve been dating for a few weeks. Nothing complicated. I haven’t told them anything else, so it should be pretty easy to sell.”

With practiced hands, she started smudging off some of the dark that lined her eyes. She pulled her hair forward so that it covered the array of piercings in her ears.

“What about you? What do you do?”

“I’m an actor.”

She rolled her eyes. “They’ll hate that as much as they hate me being a musician, but it will have to do.”

She kept fussing with her makeup and smoothing at the tattoo parlorRRwa down her hair, looking around like she wished she had a hat or something to cover it.

I placed a hand on her shoulder and said, “You look beautiful. Don’t worry.”

Her expression froze, and she looked up at me like I was speaking Swahili. Then her lips pressed together in something that was almost a smile. I was still touching her shoulder when a woman at the front of the store called out, “Mackenzie! Oh, Mackenzie, honey!”

Mackenzie.

She didn’t look like a Mackenzie.

She took a shuddering breath, and then stood to face the woman I supposed was her mother. I rose with her, and let my arm stretch across her shoulder. She seemed frazzled, which was funny, because up until now confidence was practically running out of her pores like honey.

I mean, she’d asked a complete stranger to pretend to be her boyfriend. She had seemed fearless. Parents were apparently her Kryptonite.

I looked at the middle-aged couple approaching us. The man was balding with wire-rimmed glasses, and the woman’s hair was graying at her temples. The hands between them were intertwined, and their outer arms were reaching forward like they expected their daughter to run up for a group hug. She looked like she’d rather run off a cliff.

I smiled.

This . . . I could do.

I gave her shoulder a squeeze, and said, “Everything is going to be okay.”

“Boo boo bear! Oh, honey, what atrocious thing have you done to your hair? I told you to stop using those dyes out of the box.”

Mackenzie was biting down on her lip so hard as her mother pulled her forward into a hug that I was surprised she didn’t draw blood. Her father took over, and she had to let go of my hand. I stepped to the side, and reached a hand out to her mother.

“It’s so nice to meet you, Mrs.—”

The words were already out of my mouth before I realized I had no idea what Mackenzie’s last name was. Hell, I hadn’t even known her name was Mackenzie.