Chapter Five
Bethany
I woke up the next morning with the instant apprehension that I’d made a huge mistake. Had I really invited a person I’d just met to stay in my parents’ house, after hiring him to pretend to be my boyfriend for several days? Is the reunion really worth that kind of a risk? I’d planned--originally--to interview people for the “position” of my boyfriend but had chickened out at the last minute, thinking it was just too pathetic.
I got out of bed quickly, throwing on a robe I’d left behind the last time I’d visited. I opened the door to my bedroom. As soon as I did, the smell of coffee and breakfast greeted me, and my stomach informed me that in spite of the big meal I’d had the night before at the diner, I was hungry.
I hurried downstairs and into the kitchen, to find Ransom standing over the stove, making pancakes. He’s making pancakes. I looked around, still shocked, and saw bacon, eggs, and even a big bowl of cut-up fruit set up off to the side, ready to be eaten. I’d been worrying about whether I’d invited some kind of serial killer into my parents’ home, and Ransom had gotten up to make breakfast--and not just breakfast, but what looked like an actual breakfast feast.
“Good morning,” I said, still locked in confusion at the sight I’d walked in on.
“Oh--hey, I figured you’d be up soon,” Ransom said, sounding utterly and completely at ease.
“So, you made a giant breakfast,” I said, still not quite awake enough to fully form the question.
“I thought you’d probably be hungry, and with everything so well-stocked and all, I figured it’d be a nice way for you to wake up,” he said with a shrug.
“I guess…” I shook my head and stepped across the kitchen to the table, where I saw my parents’ big French press filled and ready to go. I poured myself a cup of coffee and went back to the fridge for milk. “This is kind of a lot,” I pointed out, gesturing to the big, already-prepared meal.
“It’s really not,” Ransom said.
“A meal like this would take me probably about a good hour to set up,” I pointed out. Looking at it more closely, it all looked absolutely perfectly cooked, as well.
“I used to spend a lot of time hanging out with a chef friend, who taught me a few things,” he said matter-of-factly.
“Oh,” I said, more for the sake of saying something than anything else. I looked at Ransom’s back, taking in the lean-muscled frame, the tattoos I could see on his arms, and remembering the general vibe I’d had about him the night before. How did a guy like that have a chef friend? I thought of asking, but pushed the idea out of my mind. Why can’t a guy just randomly have a chef friend? I mean, it isn’t like that’s a rare job. It didn’t jibe with the impression I’d had with him, but in fairness I didn’t really know almost anything at all about him.
“So what’s on the agenda for today?” Ransom flipped the last of the pancakes onto a plate and turned to face me. His hair was looking much less styled than the night before, but still looked messily good--and I pulled my robe around me a bit tighter, wondering how I looked, fresh out of bed with my hair messed up and no makeup on.
“I guess we eat breakfast and start working out our cover story, so we can be prepared for the first event tonight,” I said, sipping my coffee.
“What’s happening tonight?” Ransom began bringing the plates and platters over to the table and I got up to help him. The fact that he apparently was already completely comfortable in my parents’ kitchen--that he seemed to know it at least as well as I did--unsettled me a bit, but I pushed the thought away again. Focus on what’s important.
“There’s a big dinner and mixer type of thing at the school. I’m assuming it’s going to be catered, because I really doubt anyone will want to eat cafeteria food, no matter how nostalgic they were feeling,” I explained.
“What are the other events?”
I shrugged. “It’s like a kind of homecoming week thing--themed events with dress-up stuff and a fair of some kind, stuff like that.”
“Sounds like fun--and then at the end of the whole deal, there’s some kind of dance?”
I nodded and started helping myself to eggs and bacon.
“It’s supposed to be like a callback to prom, I guess,” I said. I’d bought an expensive dress for the occasion, and it only just then it occurred to me that I had no idea what Ransom would wear. “We need to get you a suit or a tux or something.”
“I know where I can get one--I’m set,” Ransom said.
That tickled my curiosity again, but I decided to let it go.
“So we need to figure out what our cover story is going to be. How we met, all that kind of stuff,” I pointed out.
“Well, the important thing to come up with first is how long have we been dating?” Ransom sat down across from me and started serving himself coffee and juice and pancakes.
“That’s a good question.” I ate a forkful of eggs--still somehow perfect, enough so that I had to wonder just how Ransom had managed it--and thought about that for a moment. “I feel like longer than about two years would be weird, but shorter than six months would, too.”
“Yeah, I feel like you wouldn’t invite a boyfriend you’d been dating for a few months to your reunion,” Ransom agreed. “Why would longer than two years be weird?”
“Because showing up with a boyfriend that long-term would be a question of why no one ever heard about you,” I pointed out.
“Oh, right,” Ransom said, nodding after a second. “So why not say like...a year? Wouldn’t that be long enough to be an established relationship?”
“I guess. It’ll still open up some questions about why nobody knows about it, but not as many,” I agreed.
“So, we’ve been dating for a year, getting kind of serious--which will definitely also give everyone the idea that you’re successful in all parts of your life,” Ransom goes on with a little playful grin at me.
“That is the point,” I told him.
“How would you have met someone? Do you do online dating?”
I shake my head, dismissing the idea completely. “I don’t want it to be some boring story about meeting someone through Tinder or something.”
“Or is it actually that you don’t want people thinking that you were trawling Tinder for hookups a year ago?” Ransom raised an eyebrow at me and I felt my cheeks heating up with a blush.
“If you’re going to be my fake boyfriend, we might as well have a good, fake meet-cute,” I pointed out. “That’s half the fun of a sham relationship.”
“I could be a big donor to your agency,” Ransom suggested, just as I took a sip of juice.
“No,” I said, once I’d cleared out my mouth and throat. “No, that would never work.”
Ransom raised both eyebrows at me.
“Why not?” He almost sounded offended.
I gestured up and down along the shape of him.
“Tell me how many people would believe that a tattooed guy with 1950s bad-boy hair is a super donor for an adoption agency,” I pointed out.
Ransom chuckled. “Hey--people with 1950s bad-boy hair can be wealthy and have diverse interests.”
“They can, but they usually don’t,” I countered.
“Don’t judge a book by its cover, Bethany. Besides, what did you have in mind?”
I thought about it for a few seconds, realizing--too late, again--that I hadn’t actually put all that much thought into my plot to have a fake boyfriend at my reunion.
“I definitely think it should be through work,” I said slowly.
“You’re not going to be my boss--that’s just too rom-com,” Ransom told me.
“No, I wouldn’t want to be your boss anyway--that would sound incredibly unprofessional,” I agreed.
“So, what’s something that could have brought us together, but where you’re not my boss?”
I thought about it as I ate some bacon and some fruit. “You could have been someone working with the agency on an event.”
“Like one of your banquets or donor drives or something?” he asked.
“Yeah--like we have a bunch of events throughout the year to get donors to give money,” I explained.
“Like any non-profit,” Ransom agreed.
“You could be an independent contractor or something--someone doing something to help make one of the events happen,” I said.
“I could be a chef,” Ransom offered.
I snorted. “Just because you had a chef buddy and know how to make an awesome breakfast doesn’t mean that you could pretend to be a chef professionally for a whole weekend. Besides, how would you have worked with the agency as a chef?”
“I mean a chef-caterer,” Ransom explained.
“Go on,” I said, curious in spite of my initial rejection.
“Maybe I’m a chef in charge of a catering company that your agency used for some big banquet type event or dinner for donors,” Ransom suggested.
“And we met because I was in charge of that event,” I added.
“Over the course of a few weeks I seduced you with my delicious food and exceptional professionalism, and after the event was over, we started dating,” Ransom finished.
I set my fork down, considering that as our cover.
“That actually works,” I said. “I mean, it’s a little cheesy but still in the realm of possibility. It’s something that people could actually believe.”
“And it plays to your strengths as someone whose life revolves around her work,” Ransom said.
I scowled at him, torn between feeling offended that he’d pegged me so accurately and amused that he was confident enough to make the comment--I had, after all, admitted I didn’t have much of a social life. “You’re going to make about a million jokes about me being a workaholic this weekend, aren’t you?”
Ransom grinned slowly. “A million and one,” he said. “And what kind of long-standing relationship would we have if I wasn’t able to do that?”
“Fair enough,” I said. “But only if I can make playful digs about...food. Or something.”
Ransom snorted. “Maybe let me take the lead in the playful digs,” he suggested.
“Whatever. We’ll make it work,” I said.
“Now we need to come up with a name,” Ransom said. “I’m sure as hell not going to be Ransom for this.”
“How about James? That’s...a name I’ve always liked,” I suggested. It was a first name that had belonged to one of my biggest college crushes.
“James is fine. I can remember that,” Ransom said.
“So, what do we do now?” I asked. For someone who’d actually had a plan to bring a fake boyfriend to an event, I hadn’t really considered the logistics of it that much.
“We should figure out as much as we can about each other--or at least I should figure out as much as I can about you, and you should figure out as much as you can about my cover story,” Ransom said.
“That sounds good,” I said. “How are we going to do that?” It would be like studying for a test--something I’d thought was long behind me.
“If you feel up to clearing up the breakfast mess I made, I’ll go into town and get something decent to wear for tonight, and then we can get started,” Ransom suggested.
“How much of a mess did you make?” I got up and looked at the kitchen more closely. I found, though, that Ransom had been surprisingly respectful: the dishes were pre-washed and piled neatly to go into the dishwasher, except for the things he’d used to make pancakes. It wouldn’t take more than maybe twenty minutes to get everything straightened up.
“I’ll be quick--I know what I’m looking for,” Ransom said.
“You’re sure you don’t want money for this? I mean, you’re spending money,” I pointed out. Ransom shook his head and finished off his coffee, rising to his feet.
“I would have spent money while I was in town anyway, and I’m saving money on a hotel and all that,” he pointed out. “I’ll be back in an hour.”
He left the kitchen and I got to work on cleaning up the breakfast dishes, thinking to myself that for two strangers, we’d already managed to fall into an odd kind of habitual routine. It felt good--but I reminded myself that it was all fake. We were just two people working through a deal to benefit ourselves and each other, and that was all. After the reunion was over, and Ransom--James--got the information he wanted, we would probably never even speak to each other again. I didn’t want to admit it to myself, but the fact actually made me a little sad.