Too Friendly to Date. Nicole Helm

anal-retentive partner’s face when he got a load of Leah’s place was going to be fun. “Fair enough.”

      “You two gonna blab all afternoon? Freezing my balls off.” Henry marched over to the truck.

      Leah rolled her eyes and followed suit. Jacob took a few extra seconds to give the house one last look. It was going to be his, money pit or no money pit.

      * * *

      “LEAH, MY GOD, how do you live like this?”

      Leah had to bite back a smile. She was messy. Definitely. She knew it wasn’t an attractive quality and it embarrassed her...sometimes.

      But Kyle’s complete and utter horror was too funny.

      “Thanks for coming, guys. Food and drinks are in the kitchen. Grab what you want. I did actually clean that room.”

      It had taken all weekend and then another hour this afternoon when she’d gotten home from work, but it was one room down and she was determined to keep it clean until Friday, when her parents and Marc arrived.

      “As far as cleaning goes, trash anything you want. Everything with any sentimental value is in my room, which I don’t need help with.” It needed help, no doubt, but she didn’t like the idea of Jacob poking around in there. Not when he was likely to find all sorts of things she didn’t want him seeing. Pill bottles, inhalers, old pictures. No, she didn’t want him, or any of her friends, seeing any of that.

      “Leah, this isn’t going to take an evening. This is going to take a decade.”

      Leah patted Kyle’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. You’ll survive. I promise. If you start having chest pains or a numb feeling in your arm, you just tell Grace and she’ll rush you to the hospital.”

      “Ha-ha.” But he smiled, which was becoming more and more normal. Man, that was nice. Leah liked seeing Grace and Kyle together. The easy way they balanced each other out, made each other happy.

      Anytime she thought of that and felt a little bit jealous, she immediately blocked the feeling out. She refused to be jealous of anyone anymore. That was part of what had caused her so many problems after her surgery.

      Jealous everyone else got to do what they wanted, whenever they wanted. She’d been less and less inclined to take care of the second chance someone else’s life had given her.

      Jeez. What was wrong with her, thinking about that right now?

      She handed out paper plates and let everyone grab what they wanted. Her cheese-free pizza was a sad commentary on the state of her life, but what could she do? The body she was born with was a mess of allergies and malfunctioning parts.

      For the next four hours she, Jacob, Grace and Kyle worked through the scattered piles of debris. Organizing, putting things away, sweeping, mopping and dusting.

      Damn, what would she do without these people?

      After emptying the vacuum canister for at least the fifth time, Leah stood in the kitchen and took a deep breath. Her lungs were a little tight from the dust and exertion, so she slipped away to her bedroom for a sneak hit on her inhaler. She needed to grab a mask, too, but when she stepped back out, she heard a noise down the hallway.

      It sounded like it came from the worst room in the house. The room she wasn’t going to bother cleaning because she hadn’t even begun renovations on it. She was going to block it off. There was no way she’d get it viewable by next week.

      Mask forgotten, she walked to the open doorway. When she looked in, expecting and dreading to find evidence of mice, she found Jacob instead. He was standing in the middle of the room, little work notebook in hand, jotting notes.

      It wasn’t fair he could look so damn good in jeans and a flannel shirt and a beard. Minus the beard, it was what she was wearing, and she knew very well she didn’t look like someone anyone wanted to jump.

      Ugh. Why did she have to want to jump him? Since that thought was so frustrating, she put extra accusation into her voice. “What do you think you’re doing?”

      “Making a list.” He didn’t even glance at her. Instead, he kept writing in his little notebook just like he did at work.

      She took a step inside. “A list of what?”

      “Things that need to be done before your parents come stay with you.”

      “What?”

      He finally looked up, tucked the pen behind his ear. Why the hell was that sexy? Oh, right, because she was dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb.

      “Look, if I’m your boyfriend and I’m a contractor, they’d expect these things to be taken care of.”

      Defensiveness settled through her and she crossed her arms over her chest. “It’s a work in progress.”

      “You’ve lived here five years. How long have we been together?”

      She didn’t understand how he could be so casual about it. But it was Jacob. Jacob was casual about everything.

      Except his work. MC was the one place his laser focus and intense dedication went. Well, that and his family.

      “Leah? Hello? You want this lie to fly you’re going to have to think about these things. Details and—”

      “I know. I know. They think we’ve been dating a year,” she muttered, kicking at the warped floorboard.

      He let out a low whistle. “Damn. You ever been in a real relationship for a whole year?”

      “No.” She didn’t need to ask him if he had. She knew the answer to that since she paid way too close attention to his dating life. Jacob could barely manage a six-week relationship.

      Though it might have something to do with the way he went about dating. Like a mission. A to-do list to get to his wanted destination. Family.

      Which was none of her business. Fake relationship or no. Especially since “family” wasn’t something she’d ever be able to offer anyone.

      “You know, if we’ve been dating a year they’re going to expect us to actually, oh, I don’t know, touch each other. Possibly even sleep together.”

      Her face burned. So embarrassing. “I don’t think my devoutly Catholic mother is going to be concerning herself with our sex life.”

      He walked toward her, tucking the notebook in his front pocket. “‘Our sex life.’ Weirder words I’m not sure have ever been spoken.”

      “No shit.” Leah tucked her hands into her armpits, hugging herself close. They were alone and this was weird with a capital W.

      “So, you know, speaking of our sex life, how do you see that going?”

      He was joking and grinning, but the proximity meant she was having a hard time getting that through to her brain. Actually, not so much her brain as her sorely neglected libido.

      Leah took a breath and summoned all the unaffectedness she could muster. “Why are guys so gross?”

      “After cleaning up your house, you do not get to talk to me about gross.”

      Fair enough. “You’re not doing anything to this room, Jacob. I’m blocking it off. We’ve been too busy building MC to work on my place. Got it?”

      He made a considering sound in his throat and then left the room. Damn it, she hated when he did that. The no-answer thing meant he was going to do something stupid.

      Well, it couldn’t be any stupider than her asking him to be her fake boyfriend.

      * * *

      JACOB KNEW HE should leave with everyone else, talk to Leah about this situation somewhere...safe. But there really was no time like the present.

      He plopped himself onto her newly-cleaned-up couch. “So, we ever going to talk details about this