Faking with Benefits : A Friends to Lovers Romance(14)

I swallow and nod. “Always.”

He smiles, squeezing my shoulder lightly. “What’s stressing you out, sweetheart?”

My heart flutters. Back in high school, half of the girls in my year were in love with Luke. It’s easy to see why, when he does his ‘sweet, concerned professor’ routine. “I’ve been listening to some podcasts for research,” I admit.

His eyebrow arches, amused. “That doesn’t surprise me.”

“And the women are never… like me.”

“What?” Josh looks up, frowning.

“They’re all perky. And funny. And smart enough to say hilarious, insightful stuff right off the top of their heads.”

“You’re funny and smart,” he argues.

“Not exactly perky,” Zack adds helpfully, “but you’ve got a really hot voice, babe. Just yell at us like you usually do. You’re great at that.”

“Hang on,” Josh says slowly. “Are you nervous? You?”

I twist my fingers together. “I think we have established that I do not like learning curves,” I say stiffly. “Or being bad at things. Why else would I need to practice having a boyfriend?”

“Do you never try anything new?” Luke asks, studying me closely.

I shift uncomfortably. “Not if I can avoid it. Or I spend a few months privately learning in secret, so I’m not embarrassingly bad at it.”

“Why?” Zack looks genuinely confused. “I screw stuff up all the time. Doesn’t bother me.”

I snort. “You’re famous. People will fawn over you no matter what you do.”

“That is true,” he says sagely. “S’hard to mess up when you’re this hot.”

Luke is still examining me like a bug under a microscope. “There’s no shame in making a public mistake, Layla,” he says quietly. “Everybody does it.”

“Yes, well, I’ve been made fun of plenty in the past,” I say briskly. “I don’t want to give people an opening to do it again. Not when I can do a little research and make sure I know what I’m doing.”

Luke frowns.

Zack bellows a laugh. “People made fun of you? Did they ever regain the use of their fingers?”

I sniff, tossing my hair behind my shoulders. “I don’t know what you’re implying.”

“Can we please get started?” Josh asks, flipping a final switch and sitting back in his chair. “We need to get this done before our slot ends.”

Zack and Luke both nod, turning to their mics. I take a deep breath, bracing myself.

“Okay. Let’s do this.”





TRANSCRIPT





THREE SINGLE GUYS EPISODE 443: THE FAKE DATE EXPERIMENT





(Theme tune fades)



JOSH: Hello, and welcome to episode 443 of Three Single Guys, a relationship podcast by three guys who are absolutely not qualified to give you dating advice. My name is Josh…



ZACK: I’m Zack.



LUKE: And I’m Luke.



JOSH: We’ve got a pretty exciting show lined up for you today, so stay tuned for our thoughts on swinger parties, advice on how to politely tell your significant other that they need to shower more, and news about our upcoming liveshow at PodFest. But before we get into all of that, we have something special for you all — we’re starting up a new segment. Something we’ve never done before. Zack, do you want to explain?



ZACK: Sure. (Clears his throat) I know that some people think that we’re talking total crap on this show —



LUKE: Which we are, to an extent. We do not give professional advice.



ZACK: Right. Right. We’re just three losers with a podcast. But we’re three losers with a podcast and a wall full of wedding invites, because we’re great at our job. We have helped people. A lot of ‘em. And we don’t appreciate being called ‘disgusting’ by a couple of sanctimonious snobs who think just ‘cause they got married to the first kid who held their hand in primary school, the sun shines out of their backsides.



LUKE: Zack.



ZACK: (ignoring him) Here’s a newsflash, to the pricks at Sweetheart Soulmates: being married doesn’t make you superior to single people. And, considerin’ most of your advice is basically ‘women, try harder to please your man’, it obviously doesn’t make you any better at giving advice, either. So you can take your ‘deep concerns’, and shove them down your—



(Luke interrupts)



LUKE: Rather than argue with our critics, we thought we’d take the high ground, and use this as an opportunity to test our advice skills — and provide you all with some first-hand entertainment along the way.



JOSH: We have a friend who’s lived in our building for the past couple of years. She’s loud, uses too much hot water, and is a generally terrible neighbor. If you ever heard muffled ABBA in the background of our quarantine episodes, that’s her.



LAYLA: Hey!



JOSH: Wait your turn. Anyway, this friend recently came to us for some relationship advice. It turns out, she’s terrible at dating.