Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 65437 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 327(@200wpm)___ 262(@250wpm)___ 218(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65437 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 327(@200wpm)___ 262(@250wpm)___ 218(@300wpm)
Owen locked up and led the way inside.
Jason had barely slept from fretting about The Date. He must look wrecked from all that tossing and turning. More unkempt than Mary loping behind them, one ear cocked over her head, yawning.
Oscillating between incredible relief, excitement, and crippling fear of what was to come, he kept rubbing his palms over his jeans over and over. If he wasn’t careful, he’d be attending his date with holes covering the length of his thighs. Right now, his stomach was dancing.
As they waited for their order, Owen’s gaze dropped to Jason’s hands and his expression did cop-like things. Gosh, no hiding anything with him.
“So the thing is, would you be able to drop me off in Mulburry? Or should I ask Alex if he’s working?”
“I happen to be heading there too.”
“What a coincidence.”
Owen spared him a look he couldn’t quite interpret, but it zinged as he tried.
Jason did that thigh rubbing thing again, and Owen paused. “It’s not a real date. Why are you so nervous?”
Takeaway cups slid across the counter into Owen’s waiting hands, then on to Jason. A short walk later the wind was a lazy caress as Owen led him and Mary over a stone wall into sand and tussock. They sipped their coffee while Mary loped through sunny patches behind them, and watched waves crest over a smooth shore.
Owen lifted his cup and blew carefully on its near-boiling contents. His eyes held Jason’s expectantly, and Jason took a burning sip of his own. “I know it’s not real, but there’s part of me that’s curious.”
“Curious?”
“And freaked out. I’ve never been out with a guy before.”
Owen froze, cup to his lips. “You’ve never been out with a guy before?”
“Mmm. Even in a faking-it capacity, I don’t know what to do or how to act.” He kicked his leg out, spraying sand. “I never so much as flirted with a guy.”
Owen choked and coffee sprayed in an impressive arc over his lap.
He coughed.
Jason patted his back.
“You okay?”
Owen took a few more seconds to clear his airway, then immediately cocked his cup for another gulp. “That was the last thing I expected.”
“My brother’s gay so you assumed I liked men too?”
“I certainly assumed you liked men.”
“Part of me wants to get haughty and deliver a scathing line about assumptions, but . . .” Jason laughed at himself. “Sometimes I wonder what it would be like?”
“Curious.”
“A bit.” Getting that tiny morsel of a secret off his chest had him sagging into his seat. It didn’t seem quite so big anymore.
Scratch that. He still had a fake date this evening, and he’d be even more hyperaware of himself then, imagining what it would be like if it were real . . .
Jesus, as if things weren’t challenging enough.
He should push curiosity aside. Focus on the plan. A fake boyfriend to rub in Pete and Nick’s faces and prove ‘Carl’ was totally emotionally together. And quite the catch.
Owen watched the waves, the horizon, face crunched in disbelief. He let out a dry laugh and the edges of his eyes gently creased. “You certain you haven’t so much as flirted?”
Jason started to shake his head and stopped, blood draining from his face. Mortification refilled it. “OMG, that call! Carl just thrust his phone into my hand and I panicked. Apparently I get husky when I panic, and I really, really panicked.”
“Makes sense.”
“That I got unintentionally husky?”
“That it was you on the phone.”
“Sorry about that.” Jason bit his bottom lip in the rhythm of Wagner’s “Flight of the Valkyries”. “Did you, uh, already suspect something was off then?”
“Not then.” A sideways glance with twitching lips and fingers drumming on a coffee cup. “When you arrived and scared yourself shitless in the hall mirror.”
“It was a kangaroo,” Jason said emphatically, and Mary had to go and bark behind them. He scowled into another sip of caffeine. “Can’t get away with anything, can I?”
“I wouldn’t say that.” Owen finished his coffee and gestured back towards the car. “About your date this evening . . . You’ll do just fine.”
“Reckon I’ll be convincing enough?”
“Yes.” Laughter. “Scarily so.”
During the quiet hours at the shop, Jason dithered about straightening things to the Australian Symphony Orchestra playing Beethoven’s Fidelio. Music kept his thoughts from drifting to the evening, kept him in the here and now. Focused on lining up the Catbernets. Neat. Neat and clean. Unlike himself thanks to a wee accident with a frosted cream donut.
Crap, he couldn’t turn up to his date in these clothes . . . also, would Carl really wear flannel to a date? Maybe he could get away with a button-up and some cashmere, just this one time? He’d have to get Owen to swing past home first, of course—
A tap on his shoulder.
Jason swung around so fast his earbuds fell out of his ears to hang around his neck. The first thing he noticed was the smile—warm and familiar, so much like his own and Cora’s but set in a weathered face, more crinkled with age. Great Aunt Patricia, or ‘Mum’ to Carl.