Rasul tipped his head back, letting his gaze sweep the space around him. “I mean, both? Not muscle you out, though, more worm my way in with you remaining.”
“I’m not looking for a roommate.” Jacob set the teapot back down on its trivet. “And I’m not going to date you.”
That hurt more than he’d expected. “Because of the crappy way I asked and how I told my agent first?”
“Because I don’t want to.”
Double ouch. “Ah.” He didn’t know what else to say.
Jacob came over with the two cups and, to Rasul’s surprise, folded himself gracefully to the floor beside Rasul. He handed him tea with the same calmness he’d exhibited since he’d opened the door of the bookshop. “I think there’s more to your story. How did your agent react when you said we were dating?”
Rasul clutched his cup in his palms, willing the warmth to seep into him. “She wanted an explanation, and details. So I told her the truth. She already knew about the part where people tried to shanghai me at the store, or whatever it was Adina had inspired them to do, but I told her how you ended up also being my arranged escort and… well. She liked that you’d been hand-picked by the dean.” He clutched harder at the tea. “I almost came to legitimately ask you out last night, but I got the feeling you wanted to be alone, so I didn’t.”
“I did want to be alone, and thank you for noticing.” He nudged Rasul’s knee. “Drink your tea before it’s cold.”
Rasul did. It was as good as the day before. “But now you’re angry with me?”
Jacob also sipped his tea. “I’m not. Perhaps a bit annoyed, but there’s a distinct difference.”
“But you don’t want to date me?”
“I don’t. Though that has nothing to do with your agent, your lie, or the girls outside.”
Rasul set his cup aside. “Seriously? Because I really thought we had something going last night. Was I completely off?”
“You weren’t wrong. But for many reasons, all of which are my own business, I don’t want to date you. Which is part of why I left when I did.” Jacob sipped again. “That said, I appreciate your current dilemma and am open to helping you solve it, with some ground rules.”
Rasul had been all set to push for Jacob’s damn reasons when he realized what else Jacob had said, and now he was just confused, though also slightly hopeful. “Do you… mean you will date me?”
“I will pretend to date you.”
“You’re going to fake date me? To keep my agent happy and my stalkers off my tail?”
“Something like that, yes. But with several important conditions.”
Rasul shifted so he was cross-legged and facing Jacob. “Okay. Hit me.”
Jacob stared into his cup as he spoke. “First, I need to understand why hearing you’re dating me soothed your agent.”
“Because she thinks you sound like a good influence. She called me again this morning after researching you further. She highly approved of the fact that you weren’t on social media and had such great Google results. Apparently you’re some kind of upstanding citizen. She said, in fact, that she could see this relationship being the impetus that finally gets me to work again.” He rubbed his cheek. “I don’t know about that, but I mean, I’ll take anything.”
“So she expects me to… keep you in line? Out of trouble?”
“I don’t know that she expects that precisely, but she’s hoping for it, and at the very least wants to take me out of this weird limelight Adina put me in. Which is not what I’m hoping for. I seriously wanted to ask you out. Properly. Legitimately.”
“But it would help you if I filled that role?”
God, this was not how Rasul had wanted this conversation to go. He was hoping for angry passion. He could work with angry passion. He would’ve used it to launch Jacob straight into bed, or maybe onto this fine kitchen tile. He hunched his shoulders. “Yes. It would help. With the image problem. I don’t know about productivity.”
“You said, though, that you wanted to write at my kitchen table.”
Rasul glanced at it longingly. “I do. I really do.”
“Then it’s fine. We’ll pretend to date, you’ll use my kitchen to work, and everyone is happy.”
Rasul sure wasn’t happy. “How in the world are we supposed to pretend to date?”
“We say we are, to start. We meet for coffee, to go to dinner, and I drop by the college to say hello while you’re there. We take walks along the bay, and when people ask me if I’m dating you, I say that we are. You do the same. That’s how.”
Everything about that sounded exactly like what Rasul wanted, excepting one important thing. “But you won’t have sex with me.”
“I will decidedly not have sex with you, no.”
“And you won’t tell me why.”
“And I won’t tell you why.”
Dammit. Rasul picked up his tea and took a large sip. “I take it I’m not to try to change your mind?”
“You can try, but you won’t succeed.”
The cool, indifferent way Jacob told him he had no chance really turned Rasul’s crank. He settled against the doorframe again and studied the man. “Can I stay overnight?”
Jacob opened his mouth, paused, then frowned. “I don’t want you to, no. Not right now. But I understand that interrupts the fiction in a significant way.”
“I can stay late and work sometimes and then go home. That’ll give tongues enough room to wag.”
“That sounds feasible.” After draining his tea, Jacob set it aside.
He was maddeningly calm. Rasul wanted to rattle him, make him react. Yet at the same time, he wouldn’t dare. Not someone who so graciously offered to help him.
Not someone so obviously not interested in him.
Rasul gave in. “So, what’s next?”
“Next we go downstairs and let the fiction begin. If you still want to, I’ll get out the books for you to sign, but it’s not essential.”
Just like that. Goddamn. “Should… we set up another time to meet?”
“I’ll text you.” He paused. “Well, texting is probably difficult on your phone. I’ll call you.”
“Great.”
It was surreal as hell to climb to his feet and follow Jacob back down the stairs into the shop. Noise bled through the door, making it clear they were about to descend into chaos.
“Hey,” Rasul said before Jacob could open the door. “I’ve never fake dated before. Are there rules I should know?”
Jacob glanced over his shoulder at him. “What do you mean?”
“Like, touching. Can I do that casually, or no? Usually I do, but….”
He’d meant it to come off as flirtatious, but mostly he sounded pathetic.
Jacob turned back around. “We’ll play it by ear.”
The room was brightly lit and crowded with people, mostly women, who turned on the pair of them like locusts. They were huddled farther back in the stacks, except for one white girl with blond hair pulled back in a tight ponytail right beside the door. She looked familiar for some reason.