13. Things a Good （Fake） Girlfriend Should Do

THIRTEEN

#1 Uh…

"No, no, no. Try it again."

After the disastrous dinner I'd made him last week, we'd ordered dumplings and gone over a game plan to prepare for the gala I was supposed to attend. First, he was taking me to get a dress for the event and then wanted me to accompany him to dinner with some of his work colleagues as a sort of practice run for our fake relationship.

Before that, however, we had to get a few things straight.

And so, at approximately 2:04 a.m., Nathan sighed on the other side of the bar at Opal while I gleefully gave him lessons in acting like a believable boyfriend.

Not that I'd been looking forward to it or anything. Nor lit up like a glow stick at a rave when he walked in after his shift at the hospital.

Seriously, though. No one had the right to look that good in scrubs. Once again, his shoulders and ass made the shapeless blue garments look like couture.

"This seems unnecessary," he said as he produced a cloth from his jacket pocket and polished his glasses. "You're working. You don't even drink when you're working."

"Only because it makes it harder for me to count tips." I continued restocking the garnish trays under the bar. "You asked me to help you with this stuff, mister. So, for the third time, pretend we're on a date. Didn't you ever play make-believe as a kid?"

He replaced the glasses and lifted one eyebrow in a way that made my knees weak. And not in a way that was all that unpleasant. Yeah, I could take this role play we were doing to a whole other level.

No, Joni, no. Bad girl. Roommate, yes. Dr. Zaddy, no. Stop fantasizing about that stern, no-nonsense expression he is wearing right this second.

It really wasn't fair. People weren't supposed to get hotter the longer you knew them. Almost two weeks into living together, I should have started to resent things like how Nathan never left so much as a crumb on the counters or the fact that he absolutely refused to drink tap water. Instead, they just made him more attractive. I honestly wanted to jump the guy every time he watered his plants or glanced at me after polishing his glasses.

Like he was doing right freaking now.

I think you're smart.

It was that comment that did it. No one else in my entire life had ever said that to me. But Nathan Hunt, the biggest, hottest, cutest nerd on the planet…thought I was smart.

Maybe if he hadn't said that, I wouldn't have been sacrificing tips just to watch him sip club soda like a dude about to fall off the wagon. Instead, here I was, hanging on his every word.

I cut another lemon in half with a loud chop of the knife on the cutting board. "You're supposed to be practicing, babe. Let me hear it."

Nathan's big brown eyes rolled as he sat forward and clasped his hands. The action made his biceps stretch his thin blue sleeves to their limits. "Fine. I'll get you another vodka soda."

I set the knife down. "Dr. Hunt, what did we just discuss? If the girl says, ‘Sure,' you don't just order her something, even if you think you know what she wants. You ask her first."

Nathan tilted his head in a way that made him look like a curious cartoon chipmunk. One rocking an indecently hot five o'clock shadow. "But you always drink a vodka soda. You avoid extra sugar when you can. If you were my date, I would have already figured it out."

I couldn't help but smile. "Aw, sweets, I love that you figured that out. And you should definitely work that into the conversation because it shows you see a girl and notice her."

Those big shoulders shrugged again. "I always notice you."

It was like he was commenting on the weather, but it still made me lose my breath. Nothing special, and yet somehow the most romantic thing I'd ever heard. Better than any shitty poem boys wrote in grade school, let me tell you.

Roses are red

Violets are blue.

Water is wet.

And I always notice you.

"That," I managed with a shaky exhale, "is exactly what you should say to any girl you're with. Right before you still ask her what she wants."

"This doesn't make any sense, Joni. It's just a simple observation."

"My dude, all women want is to be observed—to be seen. That's the stuff we love to hear, probably above all else. But we also want to speak."

His forehead crinkled adorably. "So you want to be seen and then heard."

"Exactly." I giggled. He wasn't making a joke, but it did sound the opposite of what old-fashioned people said about children. "So, try again."

Nathan huffed, clearly impatient. It made me want to jump over the bar and give him a hug.

"Fine. I noticed you enjoy vodka sodas. Would you like another?"

I grinned as if this small victory were as much mine as his. "Ten out of ten! And yes, sir, I would. Now, I'll pretend this glass of water is actually a drink on a date. See, it's that easy."

Nathan held up the glass of scotch he had, per usual, barely touched. "Cheers."

"Cin cin." I touched my glass to his, smiled again at the clink, and enjoyed the dimple that appeared in his left cheek when he pretended to drink as well. "Now, you sit here and pretend your date is leaning over the bar to give you a peek at her cleavage while, in reality, I will serve the sorority girls down there another round of cosmos. Back in a flash."

Nathan's eyes followed me across the bar while I made a few more drinks and grabbed a few more empty glasses to put in the sanitizer. I didn't look back.

It wasn't because he was attracted to me. I knew that now. When I'd first moved in, I had thought that maybe there was something there, but I hadn't gotten one iota of that since.

Something else I was learning about Nathan Hunt: he liked to understand things. And he was a very quick study.

So that stare wasn't attraction. Nathan was just trying to figure me out.

"Notice anything good?" I asked when I returned to Nathan's end of the bar.

He tilted his head in acknowledgment of the question. "I'm curious why you called those women sorority girls. It didn't sound like a compliment."

I snorted. "It wasn't."

"Aren't you close to their age? What's the difference?"

I went back to chopping lemons. "There's a type. Girls who come to the city for school, usually because they have watched Sex and the City and Friends way too many times. They're not from New York, and they imagine their lives are going to be just like Carrie Bradshaw's. Hence the cosmos. And the dumb giggles."

As if on cue, the girls broke into a round of laughter. Nathan didn't even hide the fact that he was watching them while I spoke, and at least two of them were openly noticing him back.

One smiled at him and batted her eyes. She might as well have pulled up her skirt.

"Why don't you go down there? Try out your moves?" I suggested, though I couldn't bring myself to look at him while I said it. "College girls are smart. Right up your alley."

My throat felt tight while I said it. The idea of any one of those girls even touching my kind, brainy roommate made me want to do way more with this knife than chop lemons.

Nathan turned back to me. "I'm fine here with you."

The flood of relief tasted as sweet as chocolate milk.

God, I was an idiot. I had no right to feel this way.

"Can I ask you something?"

Nathan blinked. "Of course."

"Why scrubs tonight? Did something happen?"

Nathan glanced down at his surgical wear and made a face—well, as close to making a face as he ever got. "Surgical attendings typically wear scrubs in the ER, and I usually change when I leave. Tonight, I didn't."

"But why?" I pressed. "You've been coming here after your night shift for the last two months, but you're almost always dressed in work clothes or street clothes. See, I notice things too, Dr. Hunt."

He looked at me for a long time. Long enough that I felt frozen in place.

"I suppose I just wanted to get here first," he said when I was about to turn away.

It doesn't have anything to do with you, I told myself. Stop horning out over your stupid hot roommate. He was crunched for time. He's trying to learn how to be less awkward.

It's not because he actually likes you.

"Maybe we should do things differently," Nathan interrupted my cycle of neurosis.

I had never been so grateful. "How's that?"

"Maybe instead of this strange ‘rehearsal,' as you called it, we can just make a list. What are the things that I need to be aware of to nurture a relationship?"

My eyes popped open. "Oooh, I love lists."

At that, Nathan smiled. Not at the dozens of awkward jokes I'd cracked nervously. The fact that I liked lists made him smile in a way that seemed to light up the entire bar, and I felt as bright as the Rockefeller Christmas tree right along with it.

"Me too," he said. He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a small black book. "I write a lot of them here to remember things. Let's do one about relationships."

He opened the book and proceeded to flip through a bunch of pages, much too fast to see what was actually on them.

"I make lists all the time," I said with a grin and couldn't help but blush when I received one right back. "I just don't write them down."

Looking absurdly pleased, he pushed the book across the bar. "Would you be willing to start now? Maybe with things I should know about you. Favorite things, dislikes, major dates, etcetera. Information a boyfriend should know."

"On it!" I flipped the book around toward me and immediately began scrawling the first things I could think of.

Joni's Top Three

1. Anything dancing. I will move to any kind of music.

2. Peonys

3. Pidgons

Joni's Bottom Three

1. Bobba tea. Tapioca is gross and way to sweet.

2. Homewerk of any kind. Reading, math its all horrible.

3. Stepping in ice puddels after it snow's

I passed the book back to him. "My spelling sucks. Now you."

With an adorable glance over the rims of his glasses, Nathan quickly read through my lists. "Pigeons? Really?"

I nodded. "They're cute. I like it when the males get all puffed up and trot after the females. They look like little gray footballs."

With a wry smile, he set to work making his own.

NATHAN'S LIKES

1. VERY GOOD ESPRESSO

2. WHIPPED MASHED POTATOES WITHOUT ANY LUMPS

3. HARPER'S MAGAZINE INDEX

NATHAN'S DISLIKES

1. FOOT MASSAGES OR ANYONE TOUCHING MY FEET

2. SOCIAL MEDIA

3. SMALL TALK

"Looks about right," I said. "I'll remember not to rub your feet ever."

"Please don't." Nathan took back the book, turned to a new page, and wrote something across the top before passing it back to me. "If you don't mind."

THINGS A GOOD BOYFRIEND SHOULD DO

I looked up. "Really? This is only going to be for me, though. Everyone's different. My best advice is to treat every girl you date like a puzzle. Figure her out, and you'll be a good boyfriend."

Nathan swallowed but didn't look away. "Consider it a case study, then. I think it will help. Please."

I sighed. "All right."

THINGS A GOOD BOYFRIEND SHOULD DO

1. Let her pick the music and TV shows as much as u

2. Notise things about her nobody else does + listen to everything she sez. Even if you dont think it matters.

3. If you see something u like about her, tell her. Every time.

4. Always kiss her like its the 1st time.

I tapped the pen to my mouth, debating over one other item that had just occurred to me. Knowing Nathan, he'd probably take one look and leave. But in the end, I decided it was for the best. One day, some lucky girl was going to nab herself a surgeon who looked like Superman, and she deserved to get off too. Most men thought clits operated like start buttons, if they could find them at all. The fuck if my student here wouldn't at least know to figure it out.

5. Figure out how she likes to be touched. Its diffrent for everyone. And dont be stingey with your tung ether.

I passed the book across the bar to him. He read through it and looked up without a shred of embarrassment. Or, to my relief, criticism of what I was sure was atrocious spelling.

Now, I was the one who was impressed.

"I expected there to be more," he said when he was done.

I shrugged. "I'm not that complicated. And I didn't think I had to write down the Ten Commandments. Do you need to be reminded to be nice, not cheat, and not lie?"

Nathan shook his head solemnly. "No, I do not need to learn tenets of basic respect and honesty."

It was a joke, but he wasn't treating it like one. I liked that he wasn't treating it like one. That determined expression reminded me of the fact that most of my boyfriends had not learned this particular lesson ever.

He studied the list, and I had a flash of what he must have looked like in school, cooped up at a library, studying for his exams. And yeah, I won't lie. The image seriously did it for me. Especially when I could just as easily imagine myself pouncing on him in the back of a lonely, isolated library stack.

Stop it, Joni. He is your roommate and fake boyfriend. Emphasis on fake.

"As a doctor, I'm also very familiar with the female anatomy," he continued like I wasn't combusting in front of him. "And I make it a point to make sure my partners receive as much pleasure as I do from our sexual encounters. Anything less would be unethical, don't you think?"

His brown eyes met mine, and for a split second, the noise in the bar faded away, and once again, I found it hard to breathe.

"I—definitely not," I managed without a stutter. Just barely.

"It's also just enjoyable," he added.

"Oh?" Why did my voice sound so breathy?

"Yes. Every body is different, whether it's one of my patient's or belongs to someone I'm seeing. They all respond differently to various stimuli or treatments. Figuring out which ones and how is like a puzzle. I've always liked puzzles. I'm good at them." He seemed to refocus on my face again. "Are you all right? You don't look like you're breathing properly."

That's because I'm imagining exactly what you do during your "sexual encounters," Dr. Hunt. Or how you would solve my puzzle.

My God, he had said it just like that without the slightest suggestion or game at all. Like he didn't know the way it would make my thighs squeeze or my nipples poke through my shirt.

"I'm fine," I managed. "I—I'm glad we're on the same page, I suppose. Less, um, to teach you."

Nathan looked down at said page, then back to me. "Well, you're a good teacher. I appreciate it."

I focused back on the lemons, willing my cheeks to return to a normal temperature.

My reaction didn't make sense. He wasn't overtly coming on to me. Between being a dancer and just being a red-blooded teenager growing up in New York, I'd experienced more than a lifetime of that kind of stuff. I'd been on the receiving end of catcalls since my tits had popped out, had been sneaking out to nightclubs before I could even drive, and had learned the art of flirting in a bar as soon as I got my braces off. Kids in New York grew up fast, and I was no different.

But this was different. I shouldn't be reacting to what was, on his end, just a basic conversation about anatomy.

It occurred to me that these lessons were bullshit. Not because Nathan wasn't socially awkward—he was. But I didn't know how to tell him that his lack of game and absence of pretense was sexier than any line I'd ever gotten. There was something so unbearably hot about a man who looked at you without a shifty, unpredictable gaze. Who just straight out said he wanted to be with you instead of spitting games or shouting catcalls. Who didn't try to hide it at all.

Nathan didn't need to learn to flirt. He just needed to find a girl he really liked and tell her straight out. If she didn't appreciate his brand of honesty, then she didn't deserve him.

The idea of him with another woman struck a nasty chord of wrong through my stomach. I pushed it away and was about to tell him to throw all my advice out the window and just be himself when we were rudely interrupted.

"Joni?"

A deep voice I had genuinely hoped I'd never hear again echoed through the bar and down the little path it had created in my soul over the last eight years.

It had been four months since I'd heard it. Since that shifty gaze and insinuating smile had last landed on me.

Back in my life.

Again.

Fuck.

"Who is that?"

Nathan had turned on his stool toward the owner of the voice, who was currently making his way through the bar.

I ground my teeth and nodded in the direction of the voice.

"That's…Shawn," I said with a heavy sigh. "He was sort of…my boyfriend. Or something like that."