Page 15 of Right Man, Right Time
And the last thing I want is for Sarah to think I’m alone and unattached, possibly still pining for her.
No fucking way.
There’s only one solution I can think of, and I’m rolling with it.
“I need you to pretend to be my girlfriend.”
“What?” she asks with a laugh. “You can’t be serious.”
I swallow down the rest of my drink and say, “I’m dead serious.”
“Pretend to be your girlfriend?” She blinks a few times. “Dude, I kissed you for like five seconds, and you want me to pretend to be your girlfriend? You’re supposedly famous,” she says, using air quotes. “Hire someone.”
“I’m not going to hire someone. Do you know how lame that is?”
“Lamer than asking a girl in a bar ten years younger than you to be your pretend girlfriend?”
I pinch the bridge of my nose because, dammit, she has a point. This is all lame.
“You know what? Never mind. Forget I even asked.” I turn back toward the bar and try to flag down the bartender to order another drink. Anything to help forget this awkward conversation and the fact I’ll have to deal with Sarah at the arena. We don’t always interact with the front house staff, but from the description of Sarah’s job, it seems like she’ll be out on the ice for certain games with sponsors, so I’m bound to run into her.
“Why do you need me to pretend to be your girlfriend?” Ollie asks.
“Don’t worry about it,” I say. “Go see how your friend is progressing with the penis sitting.”
I feel her hesitate like she doesn’t quite know what to do, so I encourage her.
“Seriously, go.”
“Okay,” she says softly while stepping down from the barstool. But she doesn’t walk away right away. Instead, I feel her eyes on mine. It’s like she has more questions that she wants to ask but is trying to pluck up the courage to ask them.
“Ollie, I’m serious. Leave.”
“I can see that you’re serious,” she says. “But I feel like I should stay.”
“Why?”
I finally get the bartender’s attention and ask for another Scotch. He gives me a concerned look but fills me up without a word.
“It seems like you’re maybe in a bad mood.”
I lift my glass to my lips. “What gave you that impression?”
“Hmm, I wonder,” she says sarcastically, staring at my drink. “So what is it? What’s causing you to drink this much and ask strange women to be your pretend girlfriend?”
“Nothing you need to worry about.”
“Is it a girl?”
I grumble under my breath. “Ollie, please, for the love of God, just go.”
Because she’s a defiant ass, she takes a seat on her barstool again and pokes me in the side. “Tell me. It’s a girl. What did she do to you?”
“Do you really think I’m going to tell a complete stranger that?”
“Well, you did ask me to be your pretend girlfriend, so I assume, yeah, you would.”
For how annoyingly young she is, she’s quite clever and quick on her feet. Absolutely terrifying.
