Faking It

Chapter 7

I began shuffling through the list of options we had for bars within walking distance. My face was familiar at all of them, but I wanted to avoid the possibility of being stopped by someone and having my position outed to May. I needed somewhere lowkey, where the two of us could melt into a corner and have the night alone.

I decided on Balloons, where the staff knew me, but were all very confidential. On a Friday evening, it would be loud with the raucous night life, but there would be the back booths reserved for the VIPs of the town, of which my family happened to be. I wanted more than anything, though, to disguise my status. I didn’t want to scare her, or worse, to watch her turn into the greedy women who attempted to seduce men like me for money.

“I know a place, just down the block here.” She walked closely beside me, but not close enough to touch. Her elbow brushed against my suit jacket a few times, but she did not seem to notice. She was interested in the city and seemed increasingly pleased to have a tour guide.

“Are you from here?” she asked, her chin tilted up to look at the buildings, whose colored lights gleamed against the vast darkness of the desert sky.

“I’ve lived in Tucson my entire life, yes. My parents are from a small town out closer to Flagstaff, but they really loved Tucson. When my dad had a work opportunity here, they moved,” I looked at her sideways, trying to decipher if she had gathered any pieces to put together, yet. Her expression revealed nothing.

“What do your parents do for work?”

“My dad works in finance, and my mom is retired,” I offered slowly. She fell quiet for a moment, clearly lost in another thought. I decided to turn the conversation towards her, to avoid revealing any further information about my family.

“What about you? What brings you to the city?”

She looked at me and smiled from the side of her mouth, her cheekbones gleaming in the light.

“What, can you tell I’m not from here?” She looked back at the street ahead of us. “I’m a traveling nurse. I’m in Tucson on an assignment at TMC for a 13-week assignment. I’ve been here two weeks.”

“Do you like it?”

She looked at me as if no one had ever thought to ask if she liked her job before.

“I like the traveling aspect of it. I like seeing different places every three months, and I like not being tied down to a specific area. I do like bedside nursing to some degree, I like helping people, but it is a physically and emotionally draining job.”

“I’m sure it is,” I smiled—I had not the slightest idea of what a day in the life of a nurse at a hospital would look like, but I wasn’t going to explain that. “Where was your last assignment before this?”

She didn’t respond right away and her face revealed a reminiscent but melancholy expression.

“San Francisco. I was there for nine months.”

“Ah, not three months?” I couldn’t stop myself from calculating the time in my head, wondering how many times I could see her in three months, or in nine, or if she would want to see me again at all.

“Well, the assignments are 13 weeks, but if a hospital likes you and wants you there for longer, they will offer you multiple contracts,” she paused and then continued, as if she needed to explain herself, “I stayed because I liked the city.”

“Do you like Tucson?” I asked automatically, then regretted it because I realized how desperate the question appeared.

“I like the city so far, yes, but the hospital is honestly terrible to work at,” she said without skipping a beat, “There is an assignment in Colorado Springs that starts around when my contract is set to end, so I was thinking about going there, next.”

I couldn’t help my spirits from falling.

This is good, I tried to tell myself, no commitment and no stakes.

“Colorado is gorgeous,” I offered, doing my best to keep my tone from revealing any emotion.

“That’s what I’ve heard,” she said “I have only ever driven through it, I’ve never stayed there for long. There are a lot of places that I would love to visit, but with Bo, sometimes finding short-term housing that accepts big dogs is hard, so my options can be limited.”

“Where do you think you wouldn’t be able to go with him?”

“Well,” she laughed, “Hawaii or Alaska would be amazing, but flying with him is kind of out of the question. And I have always wanted to go to Montana or Wyoming, but the towns are really small and there isn’t much need for short-term housing, so sometimes it can be difficult.”

I nodded quietly, unable to stop the wheels in my head from turning.

We arrived at the bar, the Friday night line of people already gathering. I stepped to the front and exchanged a word with the bouncer, Martin. I realized that the walk through the crowd and to the back booths was a dark and crowded path, and I took the opportunity to grab her hand again. Her fingers were cold from the night air.

At the booth, we ordered Old Fashioneds, which she said was her drink of choice. She finally revealed that she was from Tennessee, but told me that she worked to cover her accent. I found it charming, and honestly a little erotic, but I wasn’t going to say that to her face.

She said that she felt that people didn’t take her as seriously with her accent. I thought that it could be true, but I wanted to make it clear that it didn’t matter either way.

“You shouldn’t hide who you are because of what others may think,” I said.

“Thank you for the child’s storybook thematic message,” she snapped, half-joking. “But I think we all mask parts of ourselves.”

I reflected for a moment on her words—of course, we all masked ourselves. I was actively masking my thoughts in this very conversation. I was masking my entire life to her, hoping that she wouldn’t expose me.

The server brought our drinks on a tray and I accepted them, thanking her. I placed one in front of May and held my own in my hand. I held my glass up towards her.

“To unmasking ourselves,” I said, and then paused. I wanted to mention something else, about her, and about us—something cheeky. “And to my new fake girlfriend, Sophia.”

Her sardonic smile sent my heart into my throat—the toast had landed. We toasted and took a sip from our glasses. She set her glass down on the table and leaned towards me. I tried not to notice the round of her breasts, how close her skin was to mine as she leaned forward. I could smell her perfume and her skin. I wanted to reach out and kiss her neck, breathe in that smell.

“I’ll be your fake girlfriend,” she said, her lips just inches from mine. My heart nearly stopped, and I felt my c**k throb for a moment. A plan suddenly began unraveling in my head.

“But don’t expect me to sleep with you tonight,” she gave me a coy wink and my heart leapt again. I realized, suddenly, that I had been hoping for exactly that, if not necessarily expecting it. No, f**k that—I was expecting it. I had never been rejected by a woman, even on the first night. I felt my d**k ache.