Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8

Amber

A mber hadn’t lied, exactly. She just…hadn’t texted Reuben back yet.

She continued staring at the little bat emoji on the screen of her phone. It felt like hours passed as she willed her fingers to type any of the fifty-seven or so messages she had scripted last night as she lay in bed, unable to sleep. How hard was it to say “hey, I changed my mind and wondered if you’d meet me for coffee again” to a simple screen?

Or she could blame Gabriella. Now there was an idea.

With her eyebrows waggling, Amber typed out a message, deleted it, worded it differently, closed her eyes, and pressed send.

Amber

Gabriella has changed my mind for me. Coffee?

Too late to take it back now, she figured, and tossed the phone to the other end of the couch. She didn’t want to see how fast Reuben did or did not reply, so for the next hour she showered, cleaned her room, made macaroni and cheese, and scrubbed her toilet. Only then was her fear of a bad response overcome by her fear of the unknown.

There was, indeed, a slowly flashing light on the top left corner of her screen, which filled her with a renewed sense of dread. Yet she opened it anyway.

Reuben

Yes, absolutely yes. Tres Leches at 8:30 tonight?

Amber glanced at her watch and, seeing that it was still only two in the afternoon, sent back an affirmative. The next challenge became finding ways to waste the rest of the day until it was time to get on the bus. The answer should have been ‘work on her manuscript.’ After staring at it for a full thirty minutes and managing one sentence, however, she realized she was far too nervous to concentrate. Instead she hooked up her gamecube and played a solid four hours of Super Monkey Ball.

* * *

Reuben

I t was 8:25 when Reuben rolled up to the little parking lot. He shut off his engine and silently begged any deities that may be listening that this date would go better. The street was entirely empty and he didn’t see Amber anywhere, but he waited until exactly 8:30 to open his car door and step out into the dim evening air.

It was tempting to linger outside the window and peek in to see if his date was already inside. Yet he knew better than to be a lurker. Nobody took well to a vampire loitering outside and peering through windows.

Luckily for him, he had barely made it up to the door when the bus arrived and expelled a ruffled Amber. She spotted the slender form of Reuben in the fading light and hurried over, sputtering excuses about late buses and pairs of obstinate grannies.

“You’re only thirty seconds late,” Reuben insisted with a toothless smile. “There is no need to be quite so flustered. I’m glad that you came at all. We can talk more about that when we’re seated, however.” He held open the cafe door and followed Amber to the same table they’d occupied the night before. This time he looked much less out of place in a pair of well-fitted blue jeans and a pale yellow button-down polo.

Amber took a deep breath to calm herself as the same barista from the night before appeared at their table.

“Well, well, Amber. Two nights in a row?” Marissa teased with a grin. “Looks like things are getting pretty serious.” She seemed somewhat more at ease tonight with Reuben, though she still remained on the human’s side of the table. “What are we having tonight?”

“Same as usual,” Amber replied, and Reuben again ordered his raspberry tea. No need to reinvent the wheel, after all. Once their steaming drinks had arrived and the pair had settled somewhat into the scenario, both stared at each other across their cups as if unsure who should start the conversation at hand.

Reuben leaned back from the table and cleared his throat. “So. I’m really glad to have heard back from you. You saved me from a week of scrolling through a dozen dating apps as a backup plan. I seriously owe you for that one.”

The look of misery on Reuben’s face was so unexpected that Amber began to giggle and immediately looked more at ease. “Okay, that sounds as bad as me having to find a new agent. Searching for a usable needle in a massive haystack, am I right? But it’s Gabriella who saved you from that fate, so you don’t owe me anything.”

Amber hid her face behind her cocoa mug as much as possible in an attempt to mask how desperately she was attempting to look ‘casual.’ She was failing miserably, but Reuben gave no indication that he noticed. The last thing he needed was to screw this up again and have to go back to the abhorrent dating apps.

“I guess we better talk about the plan, then?” Amber said, her voice small and uncertain.

Reuben gave an affirmative nod and looped his finger through the teacup’s handle. “Yes, that would be for the best. Let me see if I can explain the situation a little better this time…we only need to be seen in public a few times together, being affectionate enough to convince the paparazzi that we really are a couple.

“In exchange, you can enjoy all the fancy sweets at the dinners I’m forced to attend, while gathering information for your novel. And if you don’t want to talk to me between events either, that’s fine! I want this to be as low-stress for you as possible. And if you still feel nervous, I can have my boss assign you a security guard.”

“I could probably make that scenario work,” Amber replied, her eyes drifting toward the ceiling to avoid having to meet Reuben’s gaze. Nothing in her face said that she was excited about the prospect, but Reuben was grateful she was at least considering it.

“It would be mutually beneficial, and I do like sweets,” she continued, “but I’ll have to warn you...I’m not super experienced with couple-type activity. I mean yes, I write about it. But it’s not something I’ve had much experience in. I don’t know if I can pretend well enough to pass the scrutiny of the public.”

Reuben couldn’t quite decipher Amber’s true feelings about the whole situation and wished that he had Stella’s magic. But Amber’s lack of experience in the relationship department was…charming, somehow. Did Amber think he would be good at dating? Reuben leaned in and cupped his mouth as if sharing yet another dark secret. “Amber, I’ll be honest with you. I have no idea what I’m doing either.”

A soft laugh escaped his lips. It was quite sudden in the quiet cafe and he reflexively apologized. “I’m not laughing at you, I swear. I’m laughing at myself for being an absolute idiot. I guess I should have thought more thoroughly about this whole situation before attempting to drag someone into it. I might have been able to get Stella, my manager, to go with a different plan if I had enough backbone to stand up to her.”

Amber joined Reuben’s laughter. “No, no, it’s fine! That means that we’ll have to figure this out together. It also means that we don’t have a whole lot of predispositions and ingrained expectations to get rid of before we can move forward. Fake or not...”

The pair fell silent as they sipped their drinks and ran circles of what they should say next. “I suppose,” Amber murmured as she set down an empty cup and looked up at her date, “that you’re going to want to discuss the details a little more thoroughly? How long the facade is to last? Where you want me to be and how close you want us to act? Do you want to...maybe...go on more quiet dates like this to practice?”

The last question caught Reuben off guard. It almost sounded like Amber wanted to spend time alone with him, which was ridiculous. Just yesterday she’d been so uncomfortable that she literally ran out. And today she was asking things like that ?

Reuben nodded, rubbed his chin, and pursed his lips as he thought about Amber’s less confusing questions first. “I’m not too sure about the exact length of time, but it could be up to six months. Which now that it’s coming out of my mouth... sounds like a long time.” He swallowed nervously. “Since I’m very rusty in the dating department, we could start slow and see what each of us are comfortable with.”

“I don’t think six months is that long. I’ve had ketchup sit in my fridge longer than that and it was still edible.” Amber flashed Reuben a smile, only moments later seeming to realize how ridiculous that might have sounded. The tips of her ears turned bright red and she cleared her throat loudly. “But slow sounds good. I think...after a while, I could be okay with that.”

Reuben chuckled a real chuckle, but chose not to comment on the analogy. “We could eventually tangle our daily schedules together if you wanted to go that far. Morning coffee, texting, shopping, and maybe spending the night at each other’s homes if you are comfortable with that. We’d make it as real as possible while respecting each other’s boundaries. Only if you want to! If you don’t want any of that, that’s fine. And it’s only until the election! Then you are free to never talk to me again if you don’t want to.”

Reuben was giving such mixed signals and he knew it. Would they need to text each other constantly if they were only putting on a show for the public? Unless...he planned to expose their texting conversations by releasing screenshots to the media? But he also didn’t feel like that would get him the kind of attention he needed. Perhaps he wanted to let Amber live out her novel material?

All the thinking and overthinking began to give Reuben a headache, so he gave himself permission to simplify and stop second-guessing everything. Hopefully Amber would understand how out of his depth he was.

“I mean, I’d be fine with texting each other at least. And going on a few dates. Between the politician who puts on a mask every day and the author whose job is to spin romantic fantasies, I’m sure we can come up with something convincing.” Amber tapped the spoon on her empty mug and pushed it out of the way.

What was she actually thinking? Reuben opened his mouth to drill her about just that, but changed his mind. She was agreeing, and that was all he needed for now. It didn’t have to be more complicated than that.

“That sounds lovely,” he said instead. “We can both help each other out and maybe come out with a new friend.” Reuben wasn’t planning on tossing Amber to the side after their arrangement, but that would be up to her. He assumed most people would leave him after they juiced him dry of what they needed, based on his previous relationships.

In the meantime, though, perhaps it would be nice to have a friend. “Of course I’d be willing to spend alone time with you like this. I’d prefer it over crowded spaces any day of the week. A quiet corner in the library, a sunset hike, or lazing around the house all day in pajama pants. Everything would be more convincing if we got to know each other.” He’d slipped his fingers around his teacup and nervously started to spin the remaining pink-tinted liquid in the bottom of the cup.

The smile that had disappeared yesterday returned. Amber reached out and wrapped her small, soft hand around Reuben’s, stopping the tea swirling with a gentle smile. “I think all of that sounds wonderful, ” she insisted. “I’m not big on public speaking or public events, but it will be fine. We’ll get you through the upcoming election, me through the second draft of this novel, and everything will be fine. And neither of us will have to attend any more dreadful speed-dating events.”

“And I won’t have to hope that I find someone as interesting as you on those awful dating apps,” he sighed with relief.

There was still one topic they had to discuss, and while Reuben hadn’t consciously left it for last, his subconscious almost certainly did it on purpose. “I do want to warn you about two other things.

“Because of my job, many events also have news coverage to generate hype around said events. And it’s not just events, either. The paparazzi like to steal pictures whenever they happen to have a camera in hand. The cameras will snap a few shots of us.

“Hopefully we will have time to get comfortable first, and that a few pictures will be enough to keep my boss at bay, but it would look a little funny if we never spent any time together except at these events. People may become suspicious and we may have to purposefully spend some of our quiet dates in public spaces.

“The cameras might love me, but don’t let my practiced smile trick you. The feeling isn’t mutual. It’s exhausting having to be perfect all the time. No one is perfect, I mean, but the paparazzi sharks circle until someone slips from the boat and hits the water. Then there’s a feeding frenzy.”

Amber seemingly hadn’t considered the paparazzi on top of the public. Her face fell, though Reuben could see she did her best to appear brave. “I really hate paparazzi…As long as they don’t trail us to my apartment. I don’t think I’ll mind a few candid photos, but you have to swear that they won’t find out where I live. And also that if I have food in my teeth or a tag sticking out or toilet paper stuck to my shoe, that you’ll tell me before it ends up all over the tabloids. And don’t make me talk to people?”

Amber pulled her hand back with a nervous cough. “So yeah. We’ll keep our employers happy and we can have some fun along the way. I’ll do my best not to rock your boat.” She gave Reuben the most genuine smile of the entire night.

Reuben blinked his stunned expression away, tucked his hands under the table, and shook his head twice. “Oh no no! I promise, no public speaking will be required. I wouldn’t make you come to all of the boring press conferences, either. They are dreadfully dull and often run longer than intended. The galas, charity events and dinners that come with them is another story. And I hear you loud and clear about the address. I have no trouble keeping your home safe from nosy reporters.”

Reuben’s brow softened as his lips curled into a smile. Amber was kind of adorable, being so worried about such trivial things as tags and toilet paper. “I solemnly swear to keep a sharp eye out for a stray trail of toilet paper or catch you if you fall. It will be a team effort to paddle this boat. I have no intention of leaving you to drown.

“The other thing, though…It’s not just paparazzi that I have to worry about. There are plenty of people who would resort to violence to keep me and other supernaturals out of society. I should be the one asking if you are okay being alone with me in the first place. I will, of course, try my hardest to be the best boyfriend I know how to be, and do everything I can to keep you safe. As long as you have no problem with boyfriends from romcoms and cheesy romance novels. They are…kind of the only examples I have to emulate.” He shifted in his chair, suddenly looking a little shy. He wasn’t knocking the genres; he was simply too embarrassed to admit that he regularly indulged in both.