Too Friendly to Date. Nicole Helm

are you yapping about?” Jacob muttered, finally tearing his gaze away from Leah. “The favor I’m doing Leah?”

      “Mmm-hmm.”

      “If someone would care to clue me in, I’d be appreciative,” Kyle said, sliding into the seat next to Grace. Grace leaned over and gave him a brief kiss on the cheek.

      It was still a little weird seeing his best friend with his older sister even after months of getting used to it, but it was hard not to admit it worked for the guy. Kyle hadn’t changed into a different person overnight, but his tightly wound self had loosened a little.

      And Grace loved him and was going to move back to Carvelle with him, the town they’d all grown up in. It was only fifteen minutes away from Bluff City, but it would be strange. Kyle had been his roommate since college and, until his relationship with Grace, hadn’t gone back to Carvelle since they’d left for school.

      Still not something Jacob could wrap his head around.

      “It’s no big deal. Jacob’s just going to pretend to be my...boyfriend while my family visits.” Leah pushed her plate around, never once touching the food on it. “It’s hard to explain, but it’ll help me out. And it’s not a big deal and we should all just agree not to talk about it as much as possible.”

      “Your...” Kyle blinked a few times. Then he coughed. “Oh, I see.”

      Awkward silence descended, and when Jacob caught Grace studying him, he crossed to the fridge. Anything to avoid his sister’s scrutinizing stare.

      He didn’t need Grace reading anything more into this whole favor than just a friendly gesture. Or, worst-case scenario, telling Mom. That was another ground rule he needed to set with Leah. No telling his parents while they were trying to fool hers. God only knew what his guidance-counselor mother would read into the situation.

      “I put an offer in on the house on Jasmine Street.” Way better to discuss business than anything remotely related to relationship stuff. Of the real or fake variety.

      “Jacob.” The disapproval in Kyle’s tone was enough to loosen any awkwardness. Kyle’s conservative business nature, Jacob knew what to do with. How to circumnavigate it when he’d rather take a risk.

      “Personal project.” Which Kyle very rarely approved of. Probably because they never stayed personal.

      “You have a plethora of personal projects. What you don’t have are unlimited funds. Leah, tell him.”

      Her body kind of jerked in response. “Why me?”

      “He listens to you.”

      She snorted, glanced his way and quickly looked back at her plate. Abruptly, she shoved her chair away from the table. “You know what? I gotta go.” She disappeared before anyone could argue.

      Jacob ignored Grace’s frown and Kyle’s considering gaze and focused on making his sandwich. Even though he’d agreed to Leah’s plan, he hadn’t thought about the reaction from people they knew. What those people might think.

      “Look, you two can get the pinched, worried looks off your faces. The thing with Leah is not a big deal.” And it wasn’t. A favor. A gesture. That was what friends did for each other. Why everyone was being weird about it was baffling.

      “No big deal to you,” Grace said.

      “What does that mean?”

      Kyle and Grace exchanged a look. It was one that conveyed some shared idea, only Jacob didn’t know what it was. He hated that.

      “Be careful with her,” Grace finally said.

      It was the kind of admonition that irritated him. As if he was somehow careless with people. Just because he dated. A lot. “I don’t know where everyone got this idea I’m an ass to women. They do the breaking up—”

      “You know Leah has a thing for you. You have to know that. And I think you’ve got a weird if not fully realized thing for her, and this pretending? It’s going to be messy. Leah’s been a really good friend to me. I don’t want to see her get hurt.”

      Jacob frowned. What a...weird idea. He just couldn’t imagine. Even for those seconds he’d imagined maybe, just maybe, Leah felt that weird attraction, too, he couldn’t imagine hurting her. Attraction or no, she’d never hesitated to kick his ass before. “Leah is tough as nails. How is she going to get hurt?”

      “My point exactly.” Grace glanced at the clock. “I have to go to the gallery. Just... We can talk about this later.”

      “There’s nothing to talk about,” Jacob called after her. “There’s nothing to talk about,” Jacob repeated before taking a bite of his sandwich.

      “Ah.”

      “What’s that ‘ah’ about?” Jacob demanded with a mouthful.

      “Nothing. Nothing at all. I’m sure it will be totally fine. And nothing will go wrong. And you two won’t...”

      The way Kyle trailed off was meant to insinuate something, but Jacob wasn’t biting. “Mind your own business, Kyle.”

      “It affects our business. The one we own together. And Leah is a marginal owner as well, if you recall. And then there’s the little fact that you weren’t exactly silent when Grace and I started...seeing each other. Maybe I am minding my business by speaking up.”

      “So you guys don’t want me to do the favor she asked me to do because you think we’re going to—what? Fall in bed together and end up hating each other?” Which was really weird to think about. Both sides of that hypothetical equation.

      Falling in bed together, well, it may have crossed his mind once or twice, but hating each other? They’d been friends for a long time. Friends who disagreed and argued and still remained friends. How would they end up hating each other?

      “I don’t know the circumstances behind it, so I can’t say you shouldn’t do it. But I don’t think Grace cautioning you to be careful is unreasonable. There are some things at stake. Even more than Leah’s feelings, whatever they may be.”

      “Because I’m such an asshole? We can’t even trust me to be around people?”

      “Because...relationships are tricky. Especially when people are in business together. Because, though you are not an asshole, your track record with women is...less than desirable.”

      “Everyone seems to be forgetting the fake part of this whole deal. It’s pretend. I’ve been around Leah for years without hurting these precious feelings she suddenly has. We aren’t really going to be dating. You guys understand that, right? It’s pretend.”

      “But whatever...undercurrent runs between you and Leah isn’t.”

      Grace said Leah had a thing for him. A thing. Whatever that meant. What could it mean? He was actually afraid to find out, because when it came to Leah, he wouldn’t be in control. So, he’d forget Grace had said anything. He’d ignore the things he randomly felt from time to time. They’d pretend for a week, then go back to normal.

      “You guys are overreacting.” And they were. They had to be. Whatever “undercurrents” that were there had been ignored for this long. What would change just because they were going to have a few meals pretending to be a little more than friends?

      Nothing. And that wouldn’t be hard. Not with a game plan. With a game plan, anything could be accomplished. So, that was where he’d start.

      * * *

      LEAH ATTACHED ELECTRICAL tape to the base of the light fixture she was rewiring to be put in the Council Bluffs house. The smaller work had always been her favorite part of being an electrician, even more so since she was working in restoration. Most of what she had to do was throwing away the old and putting in something new, but these smaller light-fixture projects meant making something old and past its prime useful again. It was all good work,