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“We rent a waterfront condo. It’s right on the beach and has plenty of room for us all. We’re not all staying in one room. That would be . . .” She shuddered. “Also, people here might have some questions if you’re leaving the same week I am. And my mom might post on Facebook, which I bet someone will hunt down because they always are gossiping about something.”
As she spoke, Daniel noticed that she never seemed to sit still. Having a conversation felt like he was watching a performance.
“And they’d definitely figure out we were together,” he finished for her.
“Exactly. And that’s why it’s a bad idea, so we can forget about it and pretend this never happened.”
“No, it’s a great idea.”
“Huh?”
“I need people here to think I’ve moved on from my ex-wife.”
“You do? Why?”
“She’s with someone else. Someone . . . well-known.”
Amelia raised her eyebrows, and he expected her to question him. “Is this the news that drops in a week?”
“It is.”
“And you want to look like you’ve moved on.” Her hands moved as if she were drawing a graph. It somehow helped him make sense of this strange situation.
“Exactly.”
“So . . . What, we pretend here too?”
“For a short amount of time. Then we break up.”
“Wow, okay.” She leaned back in her chair. “This is not how I expected this conversation to go.”
“Me either. Is this something that you would be willing to do?”
“I think so, but there’re a lot of logistics we need to work out. Especially since we leave in two days. How about we go to dinner tonight and I can tell you more about it?” she offered.
Their conversations about not work-related things, coupled with their possible fake relationship, had thrown them into new territory. Dinner with her would push them beyond that.
But he couldn’t remember a time when he went out to dinner with a woman who wasn’t Lucinda, and the idea of it, especially since it was Amelia, made his heart skip a beat.
“Sounds good,” Daniel said. “What time do you get off?”
“I try to leave at five.”
He had been staying late, trying not to think about his life, but he could leave at five if he wanted to. “Okay, I can leave then. Any ideas for a restaurant?”
“The Metro Café Diner is close by.”
He had only been there once, and it was back in college. It was a casual breakfast spot, which was more than okay with him. He didn’t think his flustered mind could handle somewhere fancy. Then he would have an even harder time not thinking of this as a date.
“Sure,” he replied. “I’ll see you tonight.”
Amelia nodded at him, giving him a small smile as she stood to leave. And that was when Daniel saw the curve of her hips. He hadn’t looked at a woman since he and Lucinda had dated. But now he was single, and he felt like a kid in high school looking at a girl for the first time.
He only let his eyes linger for a second, and then he tore them away. She walked out of his office soon after.
Daniel’s mind was a jumbled mess, and he did what he usually did when he felt this way. He called his sister.
Terri was older than him, and they had been very close all their lives. She and her wife, Chrissy, had been blissfully living in Nashville for the last five years, and recently, they adopted a little boy named Tommy. However, since their father had been told by God that being gay was a sin, Terri hadn’t talked to him since she came out in high school.
