"Today's Forecast is for Hot and Steamy"
"Daylesford’s Hottest Derriere...and Hottest Kiss"
"Liam Wright’s Hunky New Beau is Totally Right"
"I take it by your smile that this is a good thing?" I asked with a chuckle.
"Are you kidding me?" he said, slamming his hands onto the counter. "This is fantastic, Hudson. Way better than anything I could have expected. Thank you so much."
The sparkle in his eye was gone, replaced by something more serious, more genuine.
"I'm glad I could help," I said as I began to scoop the newspapers up into a pile. "Are you ready for your workout this morning?"
I saw Liam suck in a breath as he slid his hands slowly off the countertop.
"Yeah, I kinda don't want to do that anymore," he said.
"Oh."
For some reason, it was a struggle to get that one syllable out.
"Yeah, I'm sorry. I don't really think I am a gym person. Nothing personal, at all. You were amazing," he added hurriedly, but not in time to stop my stomach from dropping to the floor. “With everything going on right now, I just don’t have the time to give it the proper focus and attention I need to. I hope you can understand, Hudson?”
“Sure,” I said, handing him the pile of neatly folded newspapers and ignoring the nervousness I must have imagined in his tone.
Porter's words started to make sense, and I hated it when that happened. Liam had gotten what he wanted. Publicity. I had just been too blind to see it, and too stupid to realize that I was simply a means to an end.
Liam cleared his throat, drawing my attention back to him. "My publicist called this morning and said that the network was really happy with the coverage too."
"That's great," I said. I was happy for him, and desperately trying to quash the disappointment that wanted to burst out of me.
I braced myself for the inevitable thanks a lot and goodbye I could tell was coming. Maybe it was better this way. Liam had gotten what he wanted and so had I. The gym had apparently received a lot of new inquiries since Liam had begun posting about us all over his social media.
And I got to have at least one fake date with my real crush.
All in all, it wasn't a bad ending for anyone. So why did I suddenly feel like crawling under the covers and watching Romy and Michele's High School Reunion on repeat for the rest of the day?
"I had a good time with you, Hudson," Liam said in a tone I couldn't recognize. It wasn't his TV voice, that was for sure. "And the kiss on the red carpet was great and all, but can I tell you something?"
I leaned in closer.
"What?"
Liam leaned in closer too.
"I kinda wish our first kiss had been in the back of the limo."
We both smiled and my heart throbbed heavily against my chest.
"But that kiss wouldn't have gotten us on the front cover of all of these newspapers," I said with a grin.
"Who cares?"
Liam kept leaning in, getting closer and closer to me. I wanted so badly to reach out and touch his soft face again. But I didn't. He was just being polite.
I kept reminding myself that a thank you and goodbye was coming up.
"Can I ask you a favor? Another one, that is."
Anything. I would literally agree to anything he asked me right at that moment.
“Sure,” I managed to wheeze.
“Any chance we could turn our fake date into something more...semi-permanent?”
I grabbed my water bottle and gulped thirstily.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Would you like to be my fake boyfriend?” Liam asked, batting his eyelashes at me in the most criminally cute way two sets of eyelashes had ever been batted.
I was stunned silent.
“For Mrs. Langley, that is…” he added as a smile gently stretched across his lips.
“Sure,” I said, drinking the remaining water in my bottle. “For Mrs. Langley.”
Chapter Eight
LIAM
"This is good, this is good, this is good," Parker said as he furiously paced up and down my dressing room.
"Parker, stop it," I said.
He was making me nervous. "You know I don't like when you walk around like that. Stop it. It's freaking me out."
I heard him grumble something under his breath, but he came over and sat down across from me anyway.
It was kind of a big deal, asking Hudson to be my fake boyfriend. After his initial shock, which probably had more to do with the fact that he hadn't come up with the idea himself, Parker was totally on board.
It was, however, his idea to have this meeting with Hudson.
It would be a chance for the two of them to meet, and for the three of us to figure out some of the more practical things. Like how the hell this whole situation would play out, and what we had to do to make it feel as real as possible. Because, while a fake relationship was a good tactic to get a promotion, getting busted having a fake relationship was a surefire way of blowing those chances to smithereens.
"We haven't vetted him," Parker said, taking off his glasses and giving me his most serious of serious looks.
I burst out laughing.
"Parker, he's going to be the fake boyfriend of a local weatherman. He's not a candidate for vice president of the country, for god's sake. We don't need to do a complete background check on the guy."
Parker was unimpressed. He proceeded to put his glasses back on and started combing through the papers on his ever-present clipboard, which was basically an extension of his body at this point.
"Well, if we’re not going to run a proper background check on the guy, let's just go over what you do know about him, shall we?" He peered up at me through his glasses.
"Sure," I said, injecting as much confidence into my voice as someone who had no idea who Hudson really was could possibly inject. What I didn't know in specific details, was more than made up for with the gut feeling I had about the man.
He may have been a fan, and that may have rung an internal alarm bell when he first said it, but he quickly proved he was no ordinary, run-of-the-mill fan who just wanted a quick selfie, or for me to say the damn catchphrase.
I didn't know how he did it, but he made me feel safe when I was with him. Which surprised me, because frankly, I didn't think I was the kind of person that felt unsafe. Yet, whenever he was around, I just felt better with him there.
And I meant what I had told him at the gym, I did wish our first kiss had been in the back of the limo. Even though it would have been breaking the rules, and been more real than fake, it would have been nice to have just a little something that was real in my life.
But the kiss on the red carpet had felt pretty damn real too. I mean, sure, there were photographers snapping away all around us, but it was the fact that he did it. Not me.
I think he sensed how uncomfortable I was getting, so it was probably just that. He wanted to do something to distract the reporters from my ass. So he kissed me. I'm sure it wasn't anything more than that.
He did this funny thing where he asked me questions, though. For someone who had questions shouted at him on the red carpet, or asked in sit-down, faux-serious interviews by faux-serious local reporters, I found his questions disarming.