“Where is … jacket. I had a jacket.” Amy was clinging to Greta for dear life, causing her to curse the heels she’d worn. At least her wobbly friend was in ballet flats, thus decreasing the possibility of a fall that would pull Greta down too.
“Sit. I’ll go check the coatroom.” She deposited the other girl in a chair and crossed the dance floor. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that the sexy DJ with the unfortunate name was no longer in the booth. Her disappointment at not getting a final glimpse of him was balanced out by the relief at not having to negotiate another prolonged eye contact.
She never knew what to do in a situation like that. Smile? Stick out her tongue? Until tonight, she’d defaulted to Option C—look at anything else in the room until it went away. Then again, before tonight most of the people she’d accidentally made long bouts of eye contact with were either making her a coffee, or being creepy on the city bus.
It was definitely a new experience to have someone’s eyes laser right into her, and to lose her stomach a little bit over them. New and weird.
Entering the coatroom, Greta realized she couldn’t remember what jacket Amy had been wearing. Turquoise dresses probably meant her black peacoat? Ugh, she should have asked. Then again, from the unfocused smile on Amy’s face when she’d plunked down to wait for her coat, she might not remember what it looked like either.
For a brief moment, she considered just grabbing something close and not too expensive-looking and calling it a night. Her buzz had long since been sweated out on the dance floor, and she’d have to get up early in the morning with Mina. All she wanted was a bag of chips and her bed. Maybe not at the same time. Or maybe exactly at the same time.
Oh, there. She spotted a black peacoat, just as she’d suspected, and reached to snag it. It moved. She reached further. It moved again. She made a grab and missed as it disappeared to the other side of the rolling rack. What the …
In a second, it reappeared on a body that strode around the row of outerwear. Maybe not Amy’s coat, then. But then Greta did a double take, because the body wearing the coat belonged to Hot DJ Dumb-Name-Force. She gave him a half smile, realizing he was even sexier up close. His perfect cupid’s bow-mouth smirked back at her.
Oh, God, that meant he’d probably seen her flapping about like an injured chicken. So embarrassing. Not that she cared what he thought, totally not, just that she tried to be graceful. Yeah, graceful.
“Help you find your jacket?” he asked. His voice wasn’t quite as deep as she’d thought it would be, and it was lightly accented. Oh.
His brilliant emerald eyes were boring into her, so she swallowed her embarrassment and annoyance that he’d flustered her and assured him she’d be fine.
“Nah, love, it wouldn’t be very gentlemanly of me to leave you here.” Oh, he was a gentleman. Of course. Because being outrageously hot, talented, and possibly British wouldn’t be enough. Then again, self-describing as a gentleman pretty much guaranteed you weren’t one.
“This coatroom is hardly a bad neighborhood,” Greta said, smiling despite herself. He glanced around at her friends and family: tipsy, loud, and meandering in and out aimlessly. He looked doubtful, and she couldn’t blame him. “But basically I’m looking for a female version of your coat. I think.”
“You think?” He raised one eyebrow.
“My friend. I forgot to ask her what she was wearing, but I’m pretty sure it looks exactly like your coat.” Greta started parting the other jackets on the hangers so she wouldn’t have to keep feeling the things his stare was making her feel.
“I see. And what were you wearing?” He was standing uncomfortably close to her, close enough that she could smell his cologne. Something leathery and aquatic at once. She’d heard that Europeans had a different idea of personal space than Americans, and he was definitely all up in hers.
“I didn’t bring a jacket.” She scooted a little away. It was hard to breathe that close. She inhaled.
“But it’s really chilly out.” He scooted closer. Harder again. Her breath caught.
“I’m tough. I can handle it.” Finally, her eyes lit on what (please God) was hopefully Amy’s actual jacket. She sniffed it. Patchouli—definitely Amy’s.
“Absolutely not. I’m not letting you leave here wearing nothing but heels and a flimsy dress.” His eyes raked her over, and Greta had to stop herself from rolling her own, despite the thrill down her shoulder blades. It wasn’t very gentlemanly to check her out so blatantly. She knew he was just like every other guy. Knew it.
They were all the same. They used your physical reactions to distract you from their lack of emotional ones.
“Well, good thing it isn’t up to you.” Greta folded Amy’s coat over her arm and turned to go. She hated how disappointed she felt that their interaction was so brief and not what she’d have scripted in her imagination.
“Just … take mine. Please. I’ll feel a hundred times better. It’s really quite chilly out. Drizzly. You’ll catch your death of cold.” She turned around and he was holding out his own black jacket.
“You know that’s a myth, right?” He winked at her instead of answering. She glanced out the window set into the coatroom of the venue. It did look fairly miserable outside. Maybe he was just being nice. Doubtful, but maybe. And her dress was flimsy, enough so that if it dampened, it could become transparent. Now that was a way to attract city bus creeps. For a second, just one, she regretted having turned down the after-party invite from Angie. But she only had the night off, not the morning, so staying out wasn’t happening. The drizzly night.
“Fine. I’ll take your jacket. How am I going to get it back to you?” She shrugged the proffered wool over her shoulders. It came down to her knees, but it was dry and warm. The fact that it smelled like a sexy sea-god was a bonus.
“I always keep some of my cards in the pocket, just in case. You can call me tomorrow.” He grinned widely, showing off a set of perfectly white teeth with a slightly crooked incisor. Her stomach flipped a little, despite her misgivings.
“You look overly pleased about the prospect of sending off your jacket with a strange girl in bad weather.” God, that smile.
“I am pleased. Your sister told me there was no way in hell I could give you my number, and it just happened.” The grin went from cute to shit-eating in Greta’s head just like that.
“You asked Ang about me?” At least her sister knew her well enough to tell him what was what, unlike the girls waiting for her out in the ballroom.
“Of course I did. The prettiest girl in the room was a member of the wedding party; it was a golden opportunity. I think she actually owes me a beer now, once her and Matt return from Cabo.”
“You guys bet on me? Are you’re telling me about it? I’m leaving. With your jacket. Which I may or may not return.” As Greta turned and stalked out of the coatroom, she wished she was better at comebacks. But of course, a new jacket that smelled vaguely like she imagined a pirate would ought to soothe her ruffled feathers. Also, all the one-liners she came up with tonight in bed would go into the early morning phone call Angie was going to receive.
* * *
“What time does Pizza Pronto open?” Greta moaned from beneath her comforter, which she’d carefully arranged to cover her entire head while still allowing a tiny breathing gap. A vague memory of shutting off her alarm hovered around the outskirts of consciousness. Angie had gotten off lightly, this time.
“Not for two more hours, but I’ve already sent your usual order in through the online system,” came Mina’s cute little voice through the breath hole.
“Pineapple, olive, jalapeno?” Greta suspiciously confirmed.
“Medium for you. Small cheese for me. Are you awake yet? I know weddings are long nights.” The bed reverberated beneath the little girl’s jumping.
“I’m up, I’m up. Not gonna lie, the fact that you know how to order my pizza helps. You’re all right, kid.” Greta emerged and smiled. More than all right, Mina was awesome. What would she do without her?
She wasn’t even hung over, but she was bone tired, from the early morning makeup and hair to the drinking and dancing, she felt like she could sleep for another 15 hours. Her last sister, married off. God willing, it’d work out for her. Hopefully this was the last time for a long time she would be a bridesmaid. She could hang up her dancing shoes at last.
And not a moment too soon, she reflected, thinking about a few of her moves from the night before.
Something wriggled in from the back of her mind. Agh. The jacket situation. More accurately, the frustrating-gentleman situation.
“How wrong do you think stealing is? On a scale of one to ten. And also, how long did they say the pizza would take?” Greta groped for a pair of sweats to pull on beneath the covers.
“Stealing is very super wrong, Greta. At least an eight. Two hours for pizza. That’s one movie, or two episodes of a drama show, or four episodes of a sitcom.” Mina was snuggling in under the sheets, and clearly ready for some boob tube. Not that Greta was arguing, tired as she was. She pulled up the TV menu and queued up their favorite Doctor Who season. She presumed it was their favorite, anyway—a thought from the previous evening occurred to her.
“Hey, Mina? You do like this show, don’t you?” Onscreen, Amy and Rory were aboard a pirate ship, bringing back a vivid memory of Hot DJ’s scent and perfect smile.
“Yeah. It’s a little scary, but it has happy endings. My dad says I can’t be a Companion when I grow up, is that true?” Greta’s smugness that her ward did too like this show was suppressed by her irritation at the girl’s father. It was just like Bob to squash a child’s dreams. Thankfully, it seemed that Mina just might value her opinion more. That was an honor she wasn’t sure she’d earned, guiltily remembering the snooze button again.
“You know what, kiddo? I have no idea. But I’m still hoping I can be one when I grow up, too.” She ruffled Mina’s hair. No one should ever tell a kid, especially a girl, that their dreams were too big. No matter how impossible they might seem. If she were Mina’s mom …
“I thought you were a grownup.” Well, she technically may have been. But it didn’t necessarily feel that way, living in the apartment above her boss’s garage, driving a car he provided, caring for his child. It felt like suspended animation more than adulthood. Kind of like what was happening on screen. Her life sometimes seemed a story she was telling someone else.
“Getting there. One adventure at a time.” None aboard a pirate ship, sadly.
“When will I have an adventure?” Greta’s heart broke just a little bit. Mina’s father had left that morning for Hawaii with his flavor of the week. He told his daughter he was going on yet another business trip.
Mina would have loved Hawaii. Running along the beach, collecting shells and marveling at the sound of the ocean reflected inside. Picking giant colorful flowers and throwing them over waterfalls to watch them float downstream. Being free, being a kid, just being somewhere where her dad paid attention to her.
Bob was a man before he was a father. Sex before emotion. Pleasure before business or responsibility. Something she remembered all too well from her own childhood.
“Sometimes you don’t notice it’s begun until you’re already in the thick of it. What if…” Greta cuddled her up and started their favorite game. Playing what-if had gotten them through countless scraped knees, hurt feelings, and listless afternoons. “What if I was secretly a space alien?”
“What if I was a sea siren?” Mina accepted the subject change easily enough. She grinned up at her nanny, and Greta’s heart clenched. Sometimes it almost hurt to imagine her growing up.
“I would be forced to abduct you into my flashy-light thingy and then tickle you until you promised to stop killing sailors!” Greta tickled Mina until she shrieked “uncle”. Speaking of the sea, though—“Hey, I have to make a phone call. I’m pausing it for a minute.”
She wriggled out of bed and over to the chair she’d tossed the offending jacket across the night before. Sure enough, in the pocket were a couple thick white business cards. Funny, she’d imagined a DJ would have something louder than white on their—but what was this? The card read “DJ Force” at the top, but the associated email read [email protected] Well, well. Looked like he was overcompensating for his utterly plain name with the Force.
It took a few deep breaths before she pulled her cell off the desk. “I hate phone calls,” she muttered to herself as the phone rang. “Hate them, I hate them, I hate—hello?”
“Hate what, love?” came that gently lilting voice down the line, and she could just tell he was smirking.
“It’s Greta. From last night. Um, the girl with your jacket.” She chose to ignore the question.
“I know.”
Her eyes narrowed. “How did you know?”
“Because Ang gave me your number just in case I lost our bet. You’re programmed in my phone already.”
Greta was going to fly to Cabo and strangle her older sister personally. So much for having her back. Greta was beginning to think this was less about a bet and more about a setup. Angie grew up in the same house as Greta. She might be willing to risk it all on love, and end up losing the way their mom did, still pining after the man who’d left, after all this time. As for Greta, she’d long ago decided that wasn’t happening to her. Every time she fell for someone, she broke it off. And she’d recovered just fine.
What she hadn’t done was ask her sister to add more complications.
“You know I’m going to drown you both in those beers you think you’re going to enjoy after her honeymoon, right?”
“That gives me a good week or so to win you over, now doesn’t it?” Another question she wasn’t going to answer. She wasn’t sure which was worse, the audible smirk, or the fact that she was half-smiling picturing it? He just had such a cute mouth.
“Where should I bring your jacket?” Greta refused to be dissuaded from the business at hand, cute-mouth smirk or no.
“You want to meet at the Four Barrel on Valencia?” Typical. That place was as hip as could be. She idly wondered what to wear before remembering she didn’t care, and also that she had pizza coming around noon.
“Fine. I’ll be there at two.” Greta said letting the click of her hang up say goodbye for her. She sighed, and stroked the scratchy-soft side of the jacket. As she did, a rustle in the pocket alerted her to the fact that her friends had drunkenly written down the description of the next guy she was supposed to date and then eventually marry.
“Are you going to tell me what that was all about?” Mina asked from the bed. Greta unfolded the napkin.
“Yeah, in a sec…” The napkin was covered in smudgey berry-colored lipliner words. Not all of them were legible (Capol? Hoobar?), but a few stood out. Besides the physical description of (course) Jon, someone had scribbled, “outgoing,” “confident”, and “hip”. DJ Force Jon Hargrave certainly fit the bill for all of those things. An idea was starting to germinate somewhere in the back of her mind.
“Greta! I’m turning the show back on. Rory’s about to get his black spot.” She nodded at Mina absentmindedly. There was another call to make first. Details to iron out. A tangled web to weave.
* * *
Four hours later she was standing in the coffee shop wearing an adorable, sixties-style vintage dress and red lipstick. The lipstick had been Mina’s idea. She had said it would make her confident. Greta secretly also thought it was the kind of lipstick that made a man stare at your lips. That wouldn’t be a bad thing, as long as he was agreeing to the plan. She glanced down at the way the dress accentuated her cleavage, and back up at the man she was trying to convince. DJ Jon surely wasn’t going to say no.
“So let me get this straight. You want to date me, but only where your friends can see, because you really don’t want to date, and fake dating is the only way to avoid the real. Did I get that right?” Jon’s face was cuter than it ought to be when it was making an incredulous look.
“Well when you put it like that, it sounds—”
“No, you’ve got it right,” Mina interrupted. “That is exactly the plan. You’re a pretend boyfriend. Only for a month, though. Then you pretend break up. It’s very easy.” He looked down at her and grinned. There was zero reason for Greta to be jealous of his attention on someone else, and yet . .
“A girl who tells it like it is. I like that kind of girl.” His grin moved up to Greta’s face. She swallowed hard. Truly, she thought, this was a brilliant plan on her part, regardless of whether or not Jon believed she was a mercenary. Though his smile looked remarkably like the one he’d had when she accepted his jacket.
In her hastily arranged morning-after meeting, Greta had ironed out a few pertinent details of the pact they’d made the night before. Nothing less than six dates would constitute giving it a real shot, and the girls would have to see each other out to confirm. All she had to do was set up a series of fake dates, and then after a month or two, she could tell Amy and Summer it just wasn’t working out—so sad, but she’d tried, their turn now. Although she hadn’t exactly figured out what was in it for her partner in crime. Perhaps she should sweeten the deal.
“I am willing to compensate you for each fake date.” With what? She should have thought this out.
“No kissing,” Mina swiftly interjected.
“Of course not,” Greta assured her, at the same time Jon said, “We can negotiate.”
What would it feel like to kiss him? Probably pretty darn good, judging from that perfectly shaped mouth and slightly too-large ego. Too bad that wasn’t happening. Not part of the deal. It would only complicate matters, and besides why was she even thinking about that? This was a straightforward situation. Fake dates don’t kiss.
“With one condition.” Damn it.
“I already said no kissing,” Mina frowned at him. Greta was never prouder of her charge than at that moment, even more so than when she said she wanted to grow up and travel with the Doctor.
“I wouldn’t condition the kissing, little one. If she does that, it’ll be because she wants to. I’m a gentleman.” He winked, even as Mina made a puke face. Good girl. Even if she had considered it for a half-second.
“No, my condition is this: every time you take me out on a pretend date, I get to take you out on a real one. Fair is fair.” Damn, but he was good, Greta thought. She could take lessons in negotiation from him. He’d just taken this from six fake semi-public dates to a round dozen, half of which were now solidly out of her control. And yet where else was she going to find someone who fit the bill so exactly to get this farce over with? No, she was stuck, all right. Only one question remained.
“Why? I just told you I want to fake-date you. And the compensation I mentioned was more like … Starbucks gift cards, but I guess that isn’t how you roll anyways.” She pointedly gazed around at the uber-cool baristas and the machines she couldn’t even guess at the use of. No, he was at home in a world that was as foreign to her as a time machine.
“Maybe I might like you.” Now she was the recipient of his wink, and her stomach rolled again. It was going to have to stop that. This guy had “danger” written all over his gorgeous face, and she had had enough of that to last a lifetime already.
“Not buying it. You don’t know me. If you just like the way I look in a dress, well, I’m afraid you’re leaving a terrible impression on my ward, and we must retract our offer.” We? Our? Greta sincerely hoped Mina would not object to being involved, or tell her father what they’d spent the morning plotting. Luckily, she just glared and nodded. Good girl. There was a biscotti in it for her just for that.
“No, it isn’t that. Although you do look amazing. And you should know that, and I won’t apologize for saying so. Both of you.” He gallantly included Mina in his hand gesture, and she stood a little taller in her own pink sundress and red cowboy boots. Greta made a mental note to try to find more appropriate male role models for the girl. Just because her dad was absent didn’t mean she should fall for the sweet-talking hottie Brit.
Hello, pot? This is kettle.
“I think the fact that you aren’t even remotely impressed with me is intriguing. And I must admit I like a challenge.” Jon’s green eyes stared into her again, clouding her head for a moment until his words sunk in. Then the anger surfaced.
“I’m not a challenge to be won. I’m not a bet with my sister. I’m more than a pawn. I’m a real person, and you know what? Forget it. Never mind. You can just forget the whole thing. Go … buy some records, or whatever it is that you do.” Greta wasn’t sure why her eyes suddenly felt hot and prickly.
Because she knew it would come to this, it always did. No man had ever failed to disappoint her, from her father to the string of ex-boyfriends that had led her to stop dating in the first place.
Her eyes were on the exit, blind to anything but escape. Suddenly his hands were on her hips, pulling her in closer, one moving to her chin to tip her face toward his own.
“That’s not what I meant. You aren’t a challenge to be won. You’re a challenge to know, and I want to know you. Please let me.” He sounded so earnest, looked so anxious. Greta wavered. It was a really good answer, but she was really unreasonably hurt by his words. Stupidly hurt. If Mina had come home with this story, she’d have slapped the responsible kid personally.
“Please,” he asked gently. She cracked. Good manners had always been a weakness of hers. She nodded slightly, and Mina clapped. She’d have to have a talk with the girl later, about how she couldn’t start shipping Jetta. Oh sweet God, did I just give us a celebrity name? I’m losing my everloving mind.
“Fine. Okay. You can take me on real dates afterwards. But I have a condition to your condition.” She wasn’t going down without a fight. Wait—not going down at all. Fake dates definitely didn’t do that.
“No kissing,” Jon said before Mina had a chance. It made them both giggle.
“Oh, hush, you. The sub-condition is that I get to pick what our real dates are. Shouldn’t be a problem, should it?” It was Greta’s turn to wink. Because of course, she planned to make it a problem. Why he evidently truly seemed to like her was a mystery, but she wasn’t interested in going down that road. So if she had to arrange the roadblocks herself, so be it.
“No problem at all. I believe we’ve got a deal.” Jon solemnly shook hands with both Greta and Mina. “If you don’t mind, I’m a bit knackered from last evening still. Let me know when my first appearance is required, m’lady.”
“Tuesday. I have a lunch. We have a lunch. You’re going to meet my friends. After all, they’re the entire reason I got myself into this whole mess.”
“Methinks the lady doth protest too much,” he said to Mina. And then he bowed—actually bowed—and took his leave.
“I want to like him,” Mina announced before the door had even closed behind him. “He’s very handsome, for a grownup. And he talks like the Doctor.”
“I want to like him too,” Greta confessed. It was hard not to be honest, now that his eyes weren’t piercing her like a … sword. No, not that, that brought up other thoughts.
Anyway, how could she explain to this innocent kid what she’d learned in her life about the dark side of masculinity? The poor girl was disappointed often enough by her father. But then, that was probably reason enough not to get her hopes up. They’d inevitably be dashed. Greta didn’t need to teach a course on a lesson Mina was learning daily.
“But we don’t really know him. And have you noticed how much he looks like a pirate? Very cunning and rugged.” Just planting the seeds that she shouldn’t trust men. That was fine, right? Goddamnit, he left the jacket again. I bet that was on purpose.
“Isn’t that a good thing? The Ninth Doctor was cunning and rugged. And he was kind of a space pirate. Ooh! Like Captain Mal from Firefly!” Mina’s eyes were shining. Greta regretted, for the first time, training the girl in all the classic nerd television. She never dreamed it would be used against her. Gathering the offensive peacoat and her dignity, she mutely held her hand out for Mina and headed home to scheme.