Page 48 of Slow Hands Cowboy

“Yes, we are,” Walker said, smiling and wrapping his arm around Addison’s waist, pulling her close to him. “We are on a date.”

“That is so romantic,” the girl said, holding her hands in clasped fists against her chest. “Can I get a picture with you?”

“You can,” Walker said.

Then he maneuvered them around so that they were standing next to the podium girl. Then she took her phone out of her pocket and snapped a selfie.

Addison felt dizzy. “Sorry,” she said. “Oh my gosh. This is so cool. I’m going to send this to all my friends.”

She wanted to say no, don’t do that, because she didn’t want this to get around, but that was the exact opposite of what they wanted. They wanted it to get around, it was just so counterintuitive that she would want it to be spread around that she was out on a date with Walker.

It was like some old, terrible fear that rose up inside of her chest. Something she couldn’t really readily explain.

But something that felt very real all the same.

They got led to their table, in the center of the restaurant, where they would be very visible, and Walker lowered his head, his lips touching her ear, making her jump. “You are hating this.”

Then he pulled her chair out for her, and she sat, robotically.

She could feel all eyes in the restaurant on them.

The anonymity that they’d experienced out on the street where everybody was distracted melted away.

Everyone in the restaurant was looking at them now.

Everyone.

She hadn’t fully realized that they would be on display like this, and she should have. She had agreed to all this without practically taking the idea and imagining running through it in the real world.

She had agreed to this without deeply pondering the implications.

Because they were going to have to make conversation like they knew each other a hell of a lot better than they did.

They were going to have to make conversation like they were comfortable with each other. Like they had spent the last two weeks in each other’s presence.

As if he was reading her mind, he reached across the table and put his hand over hers.

She could feel the color bleeding into her cheeks, and she tried so hard to keep from looking like she was losing her mind.

Tried to look like this was inevitable, like it was something she expected. A normal gesture, innocent, even, because the story was that they had immediately sparked in attraction, and slept together after he had carried her away from the wedding.

“You look beautiful tonight,” he said, smiling. Too smooth. All of it was too smooth. She needed to do something to get her control back in this moment, because she was losing it, completely.

People were whispering about them, she was so, so aware of it, and she didn’t want to look around the room too keenly, didn’t want to look like they wanted to see who was seeing them, because that would make it look more like they had engineered this than it should.

Hilarious that she would be annoyed that it might look like they were doing exactly what they were doing. But the whole point of it was to fake date. So people couldn’t know that it was fake.

“Thank you. You look incredibly handsome.” That was actually true, but she would never normally compliment him.

She had spent most of her life, in fact, hoping that he never knew how handsome she thought he was.

But now she didn’t have to do that. This was her chance, she supposed. Her chance to actually be somewhat authentic with him.

Not that she wanted to confess feelings for him, she didn’t have feelings for him. It wasn’t that. It was more…

Her worst nightmare when she had been younger was anyone knowing that she had found Walker attractive.

It was why she had pushed him away. It was why she had been so mean to him. Why she had agreed to fake ask him to prom when Alan had goaded her into it, because she had been so desperate to throw him off the scent.