Five Fake Dates Read online

  Five Fake Dates

  DJ Jamison

  Five Fake Dates

  Five Fake Dates

  A short story in the Marital Bliss universe

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  Copyright 2019 DJ Jamison

  Published by DJ Jamison

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  Cover design by Jay Aheer/Simply Defined Art

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Epilogue

  Thank you for reading!

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  About the Author

  Books by DJ Jamison

  1

  Adam

  West is such a slob.

  He was a beautiful slob, the kind of guy who slept in his clothes, rolled out of bed with perfect hair, and looked like a model when he flashed a crooked smile. I would hate him, except I kind of already loved him.

  Which … sucked. Because West was my best friend. Tricky. Also: West had a major hard-on for my older sister. Disgusting.

  Ever since we were ten years old, West had been trailing after Hannah, fourteen at the time, dying for an ounce of her attention—which he never got. But this year, we were heading home for our first summer break since starting college, and West had bulked up. He’d grown a nice layer of stubble. He was freaking hot.

  I was a little worried the inevitable was going to happen. West, my sister, my heart beneath their feet. Not that they’d know, because I’d die before I’d tell either of them that it bothered me.

  Normally, I could trust in Hannah’s apathy, even with West rising to Hotness Level 12, but Hannah had recently broken up with her boyfriend of five years. She’d be on the rebound, and what was better than a summer fling? She’d been dating the same guy since West had been old enough to even be a possibility for her. Why, oh why, had I let him go to the gym so much this year while I studied? I should have been plying him with cheesecake and those lame action movies he liked, so he was my same old lazy-ass, weak-limbed friend. Not West 2.0. I didn’t want an upgrade. I’d loved the original, damn it!

  I zipped my neatly organized suitcase and turned to kick West’s bed. “Hey, get up. We have to get on the road.”

  West snorted and rolled over, his shoulders and upper chest bare above the sheets. I tried not to look at his body too closely, despite our close living quarters. It was like staring into the sun; I was only going to get burned.

  “I’ll leave you here, and then how will you ever make Hannah love you?”

  West jerked into an upright position. “Huh? Wha… I’m awake.”

  See? Hannah on the brain even while sleeping.

  She’d always been a good motivator… if your goal was humiliation and injury, anyway. West had done truly mortifying things in his early teenage years to try to impress her. He broke his collar bone while trying to wow her with his mad skateboarding skills. He’d made our dog, Spirit, howl in misery when West tried to serenade her. West was super cute, but his voice was a train wreck. He wrote her a poem once … the less said about that, the better.

  At first, I found it just as funny as everyone else. Well, except for feeling a little bad when my best friend was crushed over and over. But as we got older, my feelings shifted. I started wishing West would look at me the way he looked at Hannah. Didn’t take much work to figure out I was gay, and he was not. My first West-related heartbreak came with that realization at age fourteen. I would never have West. He’d never want to touch or kiss me. He’d always chase after a Hannah — if not my sister, some other girl.

  But I moved on. I wanted our friendship even more than I wanted a boyfriend. And I really thought I might be able to live with a future as West’s brother-in-law instead of his boyfriend—or as just a friend in the case that Hannah never realized what an amazing guy he was—but then the party happened.

  Such a cliché, right? Whiskey had been consumed. A dare had been made. By this time, West knew I was gay and was cool with it. So cool he went along with this dare. To his credit, he hadn’t met a dare he didn’t charge headfirst into. But usually the dare didn’t involve my lips.

  A lot of events were blurry, even for me. And West had probably consumed twice the amount of alcohol that I did. When we woke up the next morning, we’d both flailed awkwardly for familiar ground.

  Wow, last night was crazy. Can’t even remember how I got back to the room.

  Yeah, the whole night is a blur.

  But I hadn’t forgotten every detail. I’d remembered the heat of West’s mouth, his tongue sliding along mine, his hand in my hair. I shivered every time I thought about it. He’d seemed so into the kiss. You can’t fake that kind of enthusiasm, can you?

  I wish I knew for sure. Because then, I might be brave enough to fight for him. Because now that I’d tasted West? I wanted him all over again.

  I wanted him to love me, not my sister.

  Fuck my life.

  West

  I feel like crap warmed over.

  I was supposed to be excited for this summer vacation, but as we loaded the car and headed south, something felt off about this year. Probably me.

  My mom was back with her ex, who was a total bigoted douche, and I was not looking forward to being back in that dude’s orbit. I wanted to shake my mom, make her see what a creep she’d settled on, but she’d sounded happy, so I’d sucked it up.

  At least I’d get to see Hannah. After a year away, she might actually see me as something more than her little brother’s friend. I should probably be more stoked about that, but after a year away, I liked to think I’d gained some perspective. Hannah and I had nothing in common. Also? I’d sort of made out with her little brother, and playing musical siblings was a little weird.

  Adam said he didn’t remember what happened the night we got wasted and made out on a dare. That’s probably a good thing, because the whole thing freaked me out a little. I’d never really thought about dating a guy. Adam was my best friend, and Hannah was my hopeless crush, and that was just how things had always been. But now? They were a whole lot more mixed up in my head… and in my pants, if I was being honest.

  It was disturbing how many times I had jerked off to a fantasy involving Adam’s mouth. What was the big deal anyway? I’d kissed a few girls. Never had I obsessed over it afterward. Was it because it was Adam? Or because it was a guy? Or maybe all the alcohol in my system had made it way better than it really was, and … yeah. That was a cop-out. I don’t know. Something about Adam’s mouth had done it for me. There was no way around it.

  “You’re quiet,” Adam said, breaking into my thoughts.

  I flushed guiltily, afraid that if I met Adam’s eyes he’d see right into my dirty thoughts. “Yeah, man, just thinking about the best way to woo Hannah.”

  Adam looked back to the road, hands tightening a fraction on the steering wheel.

  Damn. Why had I said that? It wasn’t even true.

  “Maybe you should try a new approach,” Adam said lightly. “You might hurt yourself.”

  I held up my middle finger, grinning and playing the part I knew so well after years of good-natured ribbing. “One time. I broke something one time.” />
  Adam laughed, his voice musical, and goosebumps rushed over the surface of my skin. Damn, but I loved that laugh.

  “Maybe I’ll take your advice,” I said casually. “I’ll stop trying to woo.”

  Adam kept his eyes on the road and his voice neutral, but he was tense. My crush on Hannah was part of our childhood memories. We’d talked about her plenty of times over the years, but lately, I’d started getting the feeling Adam didn’t like it. Now, I didn’t like it much either. It felt weird after kissing Adam. Not only kissing Adam, but really freaking liking it. Like hello, full-blown bi-curiosity was in effect, because kissing Adam hadn’t been like any other kiss—it was drunk, sloppy, and wicked hot.

  And… this was why my summer was going to be complicated.

  I was fantasizing about my best friend, and I thought it might be mutual, but what if it wasn’t? I needed a way to test out the waters with Adam. I’d been fixed on Hannah so long, I wasn’t sure Adam would even believe me if I said I wanted something else. Something being a guy. Wow. Besides that, what if Adam and I couldn’t make the transition from friendship to relationship? Maybe if you take us out of a dirty college dorm room and put us on a date, the chemistry just wouldn’t be there. Whiskey had been known to aid sparks in many a hookup, after all.

  “What will you do instead?” Adam asked.

  “Huh?” I had lost the thread of conversation. Realizing my eyes were fixed on Adam’s lap, I jerked them away. I knew what was behind that zipper, anyway. We’d changed in front of one another. When we were thirteen, we’d even measured our dicks to see who was bigger. Final verdict: Adam was longer, but I brought the girth to the party.

  And now I was thinking about Adam’s dick. What the fuck is wrong with me?

  “If you don’t woo Hannah, what will you do instead?”

  “Oh, uh, I don’t know.”

  “You could ask her on a date,” Adam said. “She says yes or no, and you save time and embarrassment.”

  “It’s probably what a normal guy would do,” I agreed, even though I was apathetic about it. Hannah wasn’t the one twisting me up in knots. But I couldn’t just tell Adam that. I was impulsive but leaping into man-on-man love wasn’t the same as taking a spur-of-the-moment road trip. I needed to do some field research. Was that a thing? Maybe I could get him drunk again and… No. Terrible idea.

  “Since when have you ever been normal?” Adam smirked, the tilt of his lips sexy as hell. Why had I never noticed before that stupid party?

  “I don’t know much about dating,” I admitted.

  “True. Have you ever been on a date?”

  “Not a real one, no.” An idea started to take shape. “Maybe…”

  “What?”

  I chanced a glance at Adam, our eyes meeting briefly as Adam looked away from the road. I felt it in my gut. This was the Miller family member I was supposed to be wooing. Time to nut up and go after the thing I wanted, even if it was kind of scary.

  “Maybe you could help me out,” I said.

  “Me? How?”

  I shrugged a shoulder, tried to play it casual as I slouched in my seat. “Just… help me, like, practice dating.”

  Adam’s forehead creased. “What, like go on pretend dates? You and me?”

  “Yeah. Exactly,” I said, grinning. “You can tell me when I’m being an idiot. Hannah’s an older woman, I can’t come at her with some teenage boy crap. My game needs to be on-point.”

  Using Hannah was dirty pool, maybe, but Adam would expect it. I wanted to find out if there was something to the emerging attraction I felt, but first and foremost, Adam and I were best friends. I didn’t want to start something I couldn’t finish, or to weird him out if he wasn’t as interested as I was. Faking a few dates would be the perfect way to see how we connected in a romantic setting.

  “Uh, okay,” Adam said, sounding unenthused. “Want to be my Plus One to my parents’ anniversary party in two weeks? They’re holding it on Bliss Island.”

  “Sure, I’ll be your date,” I said, emphasizing the word. “But I need to come up with my own dates, too.”

  “How many of these dates are we talking?”

  How many dates to figure out whether your best friend might want to be your boyfriend? And whether one kiss was a fluke, or only the beginning of a bisexual discovery?

  “How about five? Five fake dates.”

  “Okay, then. Five fake dates,” Adam said. Flashing a smile my way, he added, “But they better be good. No McDonald’s bullshit.”

  “You wound me,” I said. “My fake dates will be awesome.”

  This idea was perfect. I applauded my genius. Seriously, I was brilliant. By the end of these dates, I would finally have the answers I needed, one way or another, to move on from the confused state that drunken kiss had thrown me into.

  2

  Date 1: Seafood and shellfish allergies

  West

  “Wow, looking good, Westley!”

  Hannah opened the door, wide smile on her face, and okay, there was no getting around the fact she was pretty. What struck me now, like a lightning bolt of duh, was that she and Adam looked a lot alike. They both had angular faces, almond-shaped eyes with long lashes, and dark hair. Adam’s was curlier, a little unruly, while Hannah’s was longer and straighter, but yep, there was no missing these two were siblings.

  “Hey, Hannah,” I said, shifting on my feet. “How’s grad school going?”

  She beamed. “You may now call me Dr. Hannah Miller.”

  The girl was brilliant. Really, I should have figured out she was too smart for me ages ago. She blasted through undergrad in two and half years.

  “Wow, really, that’s…”

  Adam stepped off the bottom step of the staircase behind her, and my eyes locked on him. Wearing navy blue shorts and a white-and-blue striped T-shirt, he looked cute and preppy. Pretty much par for the course around Bell Harbor, where expensive homes lined the coastline, and even the houses farther inland cost a pretty penny. It was essentially a wealthy bedroom community to Portland, Maine, about a twenty-minute drive away. Mom’s “boyfriend” lived there, but he’d shacked up in our McMansion paid for by my father’s life insurance policy after he died in a work accident. The dickhead, as I was going to refer to him henceforth, had now grown roots in my favorite recliner in the living room.

  I was psyched to see Adam, and I was double-psyched to get out of the house.

  Hannah half turned to look between us. We were still locked in some kind of stare-off.

  “Am I missing something?” she asked.

  “Nope,” Adam said without missing a beat. “You want to come with us?”

  I shook my head forcefully, slashing my hand across my throat. That was not the plan.

  “Where are you guys going?”

  “Dinner,” I said. “Seafood.”

  She looked like she might crash our date for a minute. Adam would think his job was done, and he could wash his hands of all five fake dates. The little traitor. I’d be mad, except he probably thought he was doing me a favor. I really should get around to telling him that Hannah was no longer my cup of tea. Even if it didn’t work out with Adam and me, my Hannah daze was over.

  “Nah,” she finally said. “I had a big lunch. Have fun, you two!”

  Adam joined me at the front door as Hannah walked farther into the house, out of sight. Scanning me head to foot, he cocked his head. “Hmm.”

  “What?”

  “This is what you decided to wear?” he asked, motioning with a finger from my button-down, black-and-silver, smooth-as-fuck shirt to my gray jeans that made my ass look good.

  “What? It’s stylish,” I said a little defensively. “No rips or stains. Good date wear.”

  Adam smiled, and it hit me like whoa. The power of that smile seemed to increase by the day.

  “You look great,” he said, and I puffed up a little. “But you’re going to melt.”

  My smile wilted. “Yeah, I sort of put loo
ks ahead of comfort.”

  “Your call,” he said. “Guess we’ll see how that shirt holds up when you’re pouring sweat.”

  Well, this was going great. I’d managed to make my date imagine me as a sweat-soaked wreck. That was totally sexy.

  “I assume you don’t have a car?” he added.

  “I thought we could take your car?”

  Adam made a buzzing noise. “You’re taking me on a date. Asking me to drive you is kinda lame. Do you want Hannah to think of you as a kid who needs to ride a bicycle everywhere?”

  Scowling, I put my hand against his lower back and ushered him toward the steps. “Point taken. Let’s go.”

  He laughed then. “We can take the car. I was just kidding.”

  “You’re such an asshole.”

  He glanced at me, smile wide and beautiful. “Just doing my part in your dating education.”

  Adam

  I watched West gamely eat oysters while trying to hide how much he hated them, and I admit, my heart pitter-pattered for him before dropping to my stomach. He was trying so hard for Hannah, and he was so dang cute while doing it. I’d teased him about his dating outfit, but he looked great. Of course, he could show up in sweatpants and I’d think he was gorgeous. West was lucky he was such a good friend, otherwise I’d be tempted to smack him for getting all the luck in the genetics lottery. So unfair.

  He raised another oyster to his mouth, grimacing as if gearing up to eat a bug on one of those old Fear Factor episodes. I laughed, grabbing his wrist to stop him. “You look disgusted eating those.”

  His face twisted. “It’s like eating snot.”