My Life in Shambles(31)
My brows raise again. “And what’s the verdict?”
“I think you’re trustworthy,” she says and leaves it at that.
“Angie,” Valerie says and elbows her. “Be nice to him, he’s making you coffee.”
“I am nice. But if you’re going to run off with a stranger and pretend to be his fiancé for a few days, I’d like to make sure he’s not an axe-murderer. I wouldn’t be a very good sister if I didn’t do my due diligence.”
“What?” I ask. “Could you repeat that?”
“I want to make sure you’re not an axe murderer.”
I give her a pointed look. “No. The pretending to be my fiancé thing.” I glance at Valerie and now I recognize that hopefully shy and almost giddy expression in her eyes. “You had another think about it?”
She nods. “Yeah. I told them about your father, I hope you don’t mind.” Her expression falters into something like shame and it’s absolutely adorable because of course I don’t mind if it means she’s here. “They told me it was a good idea.”
“Well, we didn’t say it was a good idea,” Sandra says. “More like an interesting idea.” She comes over to the table and plunks down a rugby calendar from a few years ago, one where I appeared naked on the cover. I try and keep that thing buried under stacks of books so I’m amazed she was able to unearth it in such a short amount of time. Maybe she has x-ray vision for cocks.
She points at it. “Care to explain why you’re naked on this French calendar?”
I reach over and try to swipe the calendar from her. “All rugby teams do it every year.”
“And yet they picked you,” she says, holding it up in the air and trying to compare the two of us.
“It’s because I have an incredible arse,” I tell her. “Your sister can attest to that.”
I just wanted to see Val’s face go red and it does, all the way to her roots.
Sandra snickers in response. “Fair enough. So, can I keep this or is this your only copy?”
“It’s all yours.”
Lord knows my nana has a stockpile of them that she insists on giving to her church congregation.
“Thank you,” she says, sliding it into her purse with an eager smile.
“Anyway,” Val says, clearing her throat while giving Sandra a dirty look. “I just wanted you to know that if the offer still stands … I’d love to take you up on it.”
We stare at each other for a moment and I’m hit with the knowing that something is going to change. I’m not sure what but her sudden commitment to this crazy, ill-conceived idea of mine means that her need to say yes to new adventures is bigger than the both of us. I’m in her orbit now as much as she’s in mine.
“All right. Well, we leave tomorrow morning. We better get there before lunch or my nan is going to bring out her spoon.”
They all stare at me, brows raised in unison.
“I take it your nan didn’t whack you with a wooden spoon when you were young?”
“No,” Angie says. “Our beatings came from our mother and were mental, involving the deliberate erosion of our self-esteem.”
“Subtle, but effective,” Sandra adds.
“What time tomorrow? Should I meet you here or?” Valerie asks. For a second I’m disappointed that this means I’m not spending the night with her, but obviously I’m both thinking with my dick and being selfish.
“I’ll come pick you up at the hotel at nine,” I tell her. “Sorry if that’s too early.”
“I can’t promise she won’t be hung over,” Sandra says. “It is our last night in Ireland together.”
The crazy thought of Valerie meeting some other guy tonight, some guy who doesn’t have an outlandish plan of lies, makes a hot coal of jealousy burn in my stomach.
Shite, I’ve got to get a hold of myself. This possessive version of myself, especially over someone I have no right to get possessive over, is entirely new to me.
“Perhaps you two should, you know, exchange phone numbers,” Angie says with a bemused look on her face. “Might come in handy during the fake fiancé thing. Tell us again why you want to do this?”
Since we still have our espressos to finish and they’ve only heard the truth second hand, I tell them the same thing I told Valerie. In the end, Sandra has watery eyes and is clutching her chest, while Angie looks moderately affected.
Then they leave and Valerie and I say goodbye for now. It’s just a wave as she makes her way to their taxi, which Sandra had called without me noticing.
A wave that’s distant and awkward and shy, the kind of wave you give someone you don’t know very well.
And that’s when it hits me that I don’t know her very well.
And I’m about to take her home.
To see my nan.
To see my father.
And have her pretend to be my wife-to-be.
What the fuck could possibly go wrong?
*
The next morning I have my stuff packed in the back of my Cayenne and I’m heading over to Valerie’s hotel.
The snow has transformed into grey slush and everyone looks positively miserable at the prospect of going back to work. I’m honked at twice for reasons I can’t discern, and by the time I pull up to the hotel, I’m ready to get out of Dublin before the city starts to implode.