How to Fake Date Your Grumpy Boss (How to Rom-com #1)

by Camilla Evergreen

He echos, “The one I started?” I throw a look over my shoulder, frowning. “They’re all about my coat guy. I’m an obsessive writer who can easily put down twenty thousand words in a day. And I had no idea who he was. So I just kept writing and rewriting the moments after in new ways until I’d filled too many notebooks with nothing close to who he probably is.” “What would you do if you could meet him again?” Levi asks, taking his place when I miss the five again. I toy with the sleeve of my coat and think about that long, dark hair, that chest I fell into, the way he was awkward and almost shy but unapologetic at the same time. Thwack. Seven. I lift a shoulder. Thwack. Eight. “I’d probably ask to kiss him.” Thwack. Eleven.

My goofball billionaire with morals greater than the average person and a tongue sharper than the average tyrant. Not that he’s mine or anything, exactly.

Levi stifles a yawn behind the takeout container, using his other hand to reel me in against his side.

I’m floating. I never want to leave Levi’s side again, even though I know more than just this brief vacation time is winding down. Beside him is where things feel right. Safe. He rubs my waist before handing me the fries. “I think I probably have some emails to take care of, so I’m going to excuse myself.” Touching a kiss to the top of my head, Levi nods at my family. “Ladies.”

He was attentive, completely so. He had me attached to him the entire time we were around anyone, and when he went to get refills, his focus on me was so intent he was just about walking backwards to the bar counter in order to keep an eye on me. Someone was going to die before they laid a hand on me.

I’m standing in the doorway, watching, kind of…amused? My sixteen-year-old cousin is actually going for it, huh? “Do you work out?” she croons, lifting a hand to Levi’s bicep, and I’m not jealous in a concerned Levi wants to commit a crime kind of way. I’m jealous in a dangnabbit, if only I had those guts myself kind of way. Maybe I haven’t copped a feel of his biceps, but I sure as heck have felt them wrapped around me. Levi’s eye twitches; my phone goes nuts. I look at the messages. Levi: I can see you. Levi: Help. Me. Levi: Rose. Levi: Rose, dang it. Levi: You’re a sadist. Levi: A beautiful, cruel sadist. Levi: She’s TOUCHING me. Levi: ROSE.

Levi: You condoned this. Rose: I was obviously joking. She’s like three. Are you in the habit of making two-year-olds cry? You walk around kicking newborns? Levi’s lips press together, and I think he’s biting his cheek. Levi: You’re a monster, Rose.

The humor Levi’s fighting dies. His gaze snaps up, fixing on Corinne, hard and immovable. “I am with Rose because she’s a kind, caring, beautiful, smart woman.” Voice little more than a rough growl, Levi gives Corinne a full, nasty once-over. “Clearly,” he grits, “such virtues had dried up out of the family gene pool by the time you crawled out of the womb.”

“She deserved it,” I say. “You hurt her feelings. She was trying to turn you into a predator.” Levi yawns, setting his phone on the nightstand, letting his head rest back in the pillows, and staring at me past his lashes. “I don’t want to be a predator, kitten.” My eyes roll as I make my way to the bed and settle in with him. Closing his eyes, he murmurs, “I’m a puppy. Harmless.” My fingers itch to touch him, so I dare to be even a fragment as bold as my cousin. Lifting my fingers, I brush through the dark strands resting on his forehead. “You’re anything but harmless.”

Levi’s brows knit before his eyes open, as though he’s questioning where I’ve gone.

His hand lowers to settle against my shoulder where his thumb can stroke my racing pulse. Ripples of torment overtake that dark gaze. “Do I make you uncomfortable when I do things like this?” He swallows, sitting up some. “I want to touch you.” His mouth snaps closed, like he didn’t mean to say that. I can’t believe what I just heard. He wants to touch me? I close my mouth, trying to avoid thinking about how much I want to touch him. “That came out wrong,” he breathes, closing his hand and removing his touch. “I mean I like being near you.”

No one has ever made me laugh as much as him. No one has ever made me feel so comfortable and safe just being myself. No one has ever treated me with such blinding kindness.

Out of everyone I’ve ever known, he’s the only person who has ever entered my family and not said a single bad thing about them for the way they are. He expressed his concerns to them directly. And he made it better without disrespecting them behind their backs. I just… I can’t lose someone like him in my life. He makes me feel strong. More than that, he makes it seem like I’ve been strong all along and he had nothing to do with it.

Beautiful dork. Taking a deep breath, I settle myself down beside him, against him, on him… I let my head rest against his broad shoulder, and he questions nothing as his arm circles my waist, settling his hand at my hip. He rubs my hip bone with his thumb before shifting me closer and turning his face against my hair. I let my arm drape across his chest, hugging him. “Levi?” I murmur. “Hm?” “Do you think… Would it be all right to ask you for a more permanent writing position of some sort, once the book is done?” He changes from thumb to index finger and begins drawing circles into me. My heart settles in my throat as I try to convince myself his silence doesn’t speak volumes. We’re friends. He said so. We just confessed it aloud. He doesn’t want to get rid of me, even after all of this is over. That has to mean something. Asking my friend to help me out with getting a job isn’t unusual, I hope? I hope he doesn’t think I’m taking advantage of his position.

“Kitten…” He massages my skin, and I can’t explain how good it feels or how scared I am by the apprehensive notes in his voice. “…you’re an amazing writer.” But. There’s a but, isn’t there? “But—” There it is. I’m so busy preparing myself to grieve, I almost don’t catch the rest. “—you’re a novelist. Even the autobiography isn’t exactly what you want to do—no matter how much you excel at putting words on paper in whatever style is expected. The way your eyes light up when you talk about stories just isn’t matched when you’ve got such tight constraints on your bursting creativity.” He angles himself toward me more, holding me. Close. “You’ve lived being told what to do your whole life. Your heart longs for magic and the freedom to weave whatever you please. I’ll do whatever you want, kitten. Whatever position I have access to, however I can help, just tell me. But I think we both know you’re an author.” Author. As far as I’m concerned, he’s just said I’m a deity.

“I have a pretty strong feeling you already have, kitten,” he murmurs, snuggling, burying his nose in my hair. “And not just in the aspect of your obsessive crush on Slenderman Guy, which is endearing and adorable and deserves a full series.” I shift, clinging to his shirt. “Did you finish the first story?” “No. I didn’t want to take the book out without you here, and then I was assaulted.” I chuckle at the threads of annoyance twining his tone. “Big baby.” “Little puppy. Borf.”

“I’ve discovered that there’s a way to do anything, no matter how stupid or crazy it might be. It’s not about can or can’t. If you want to, you should, and you’ll figure out how. And if you don’t feel like it? If you’d rather just play in your own private worlds on your computer?” He kisses my head, sleepily murmuring, “I’ll give you a million tax-free dollars. You’re a pretty cheap date, so I think that’ll cover you for at least a few years.” “I don’t want your money.” “Which is one of the many reasons why it would be effortless to give it to you.” He squeezes me. “Your options are limitless, kitten. The only thing you need to worry about is what you want.”

I roll around, putting my face to his chest. Snuggling my hands against him, beneath my chin, I sigh. “Kitten…” “Can you carry me?” I ask, a sleepy touch lining my words. “If you really want me to.” I catch Mom smiling when I crack an eye open, and I’m glad for that at least. Considering we were shoved into the same bed together three nights in a row, my boundaries with this man have eroded. And it’s Mom’s fault, so the least she can do is be approving.

I wouldn’t have felt Levi’s infinitesimal exhale of relief if he didn’t have me cradled against him. I look up, a little blearily, into his eyes, and my heart stops when his face moves toward me. My brain short-circuits, like it thinks he’s about to kiss me, but he only touches his nose to mine in the tiniest boop. He has a way of stopping my necessary bodily functions, because that gentle motion clean turns off my heart.

So. Oh man. Okay. Be still my already fragile heart. Does Levi have a home library in his mansion? Some ginormous double-story thing with floor-to-ceiling bookcases and ladders that you can roll on? I laugh. Purely because I can picture the stoic secret dork doing that in private with a perfectly straight face and only bits of amusement in his eyes.

Levi puts a book in front of my face before I realize I’m at his side, and I look down at the stupid Melanie Richards’ self-help satire. It makes me laugh, and I nudge into him. “Quit it.” His eyes flash with the joke as he bumps back into me and puts the dumb thing back. “How to Fake Date Your Grumpy Boss?” Mom asks, skepticism inside her voice as I discover she’s standing right next to me. My lungs collapse. “It’s our inside joke,” Levi responds. “I bought Rose a copy because it was so ludicrous. She still hasn’t read it. So I guess we’re real dating.” Mom plucks the thing free, scanning, turning, growing more disdained. “It seems like a waste of time.” “Perhaps for someone not in such a niche situation.” Levi’s tone teases with a lighthearted humor that makes me feel warm and okay. He’s handling Mom’s ire with such flawless skill.

Levi tucks it into his arm and continues, and my monkey brain darts to he’s getting it; I can ask to borrow it glee. Mom snips, “You’re getting that one?” “Yep.” “It doesn’t seem like you’re the target audience?” Mom queries, crafty as ever in her word choice, priming for exactly how she’ll convince him to change his mind. “What an interesting thing to say.” Levi picks up another book that I’d just about lick if I were allowed. It’s got a cartoon cover. I want it. I want— It goes on the stack. Yes! Mom’s judgment heightens. “Are you getting those for Rose?” Levi’s eyebrows lift. “I think Rose is perfectly capable of getting the books she wants on her own, though I would carry them for her. I’m getting the ones I don’t have.”

“Three stars. It wasn’t ‘I’m going to throw this across the room’ bad, but there were some serious plot holes I’m surprised no one saw.” “I saw,” I whisper, barely a hiss of words beneath an exhale of breath. Levi hears me. “Of course you did, kitten. You’re brilliant.”

The kind of transcendent connection with strangers that books can bring about is a special kind of magic.

Mom’s silence speaks just as many volumes as Levi’s muted huh when he picks the book up and adds it to his stack. I opt to hone in on Levi’s unspoken words rather than Mom’s. “The author’s really nice. She’s going to be getting me the next book in February.” “You know the author?” Mom asks, and there’s something else in her tone then. Something…good? Surprised? I dare to glance over my shoulder at her. “Not personally, but when I reviewed this book for her, it was a corrected ARC. Um. Advanced reader copy, so I sent her a couple missed typos, and she asked me to beta read for her on the next one.” Levi stops short, turning in a whirl while I’m attempting not to have a panic attack over the way Mom’s looking at me like she doesn’t even know me, like she taught me better than this, like— “I’m sorry. You’re beta reading for this author?” Levi asks. “Yes?” Levi’s eyes get huge. “Kitten, that’s incredible.”

“That’s you?” I bite my lip. “Yeah.” “You’re so fu…” He slams his lips together against his smile and corrects himself, “You’re so incredible, Rose.” I needed this like air.

A breath like a laugh pours out of his lips as the joy Mom stole returns in breathless bits and pieces. His eyes—twinkling and intent and so dang beautiful—fix on me, softening into puddles of molten warmth. “And my girl, my girl, gets to be a part of the next one.” I have chills, and Levi’s gone blurry. Tears fill my eyes, overflowing, and I lose myself into a gurgled sound as the drops fall down my cheeks, racing for the books in my arms. I hold them away to keep them safe as I sniffle, trembling. It’s the my girl. It’s the pure, uninhibited joy that I’ve never seen swallow Levi up like this before. It’s the fact that joy is for me. It’s the fact my mother is standing behind me, her usual beacon of disapproval, and I’m actually proud of myself despite it. I croak, “Yeah.” Levi’s mouth breaks into a full, toothy grin as he throws his fingers into his hair, tousling the dark strands silly before he throws his arm around me and pulls me, sobbing, in against his chest. His lips dapple across my head and temple. “I’m so proud of you.”

His fingers comb through my hair as he sighs, barely giving those words a second to ruminate. “My beautiful, incredible girl. I’m so dang happy for you, sweetheart.” I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy in my entire life. I want to be an author. I want to be a part of the actual creation of the stories I love so much. That’s what I want. And I know I want it. Because I feel it in every chill that runs through my body now as I’m curled in Levi’s arms, listening to him murmur his congratulations. For an instant, everything in the world is correct.

Levi is reading the book I enjoyed while we cuddle, and it sounds like he’s enjoying it, too. Is this a dream come true, or am I just dreaming? I shift against him, letting my legs flop over his thigh and my ear press against his chest. The steady thumps of his heart create a background tempo to the words, and this is just about everything I want out of life.

Levi closes his book, without even putting a dang receipt or piece of lint in there to hold his place, and answers, “You see, sir. These books are largely written by women, which means they share the inner workings of the female mind. In my studying these hallowed pages, I can better understand the woman psyche. The simple wants and wishes and expectations become clear, and that helps me be a better boyfriend. And also a better person.” It’s the classic Levi dead serious tone that has my body quaking with silent laughter and my face buried in my own book to hide my expression. It’s his, “Stop laughing, kitten,” that sends me into audible peals. He pinches my thigh, and I wriggle, whining, “Noo. Pinching me is not in those ‘hallowed pages.’ I know. I read them.”

I’m so glad Levi came with me. I’m so glad I tripped into him and opened my stupid mouth to spill stupid book trope solutions.

Mom jumps when I burst out the back door and find her spraying the tomatoes with an all-natural pesticide. Her wide brown eyes fix on me, then she shifts a little. “So your father opened his big mouth.” “What genre? What length? What format?” I blurt, then I gasp. “I can get you a signed copy from one of my favorite indies if you want to read paperback. She writes closed-door comedies.” “Closed…door?” Mom asks, like I’m giving her a word from a new language. I don’t know what possesses me, but I say, “No sex on the page. And generally an opinion of no sex until marriage.” I’m rambling. I can’t stop rambling. “I love closed-door rom-coms because they’re upbeat and the stakes normally aren’t too high. Oh, but that doesn’t mean they’re just fluff. This one author I’m talking about puts some deep topics into their work, and it’s just done so well. They have a new book coming out soon. We could totally buddy read it. If you’d like. Then we can talk about it together?” My eyes water and overflow, and I startle, taking a step back when I realize my smile is wobbling. “Crap,” I whisper, lifting the collar of my blouse to wipe my eyes. Then my nose starts to run. Mom watches me fumble for a few long moments. Then, slowly, she sets down her spray bottle and wraps me in a hug. “Sweet girl…I’m sorry.” The floodgates open, and I wail.

Without much warning, a picture of me reaching past a crowd of shoppers in a desperate attempt to get a bag of on-sale chips appears first on the screen. The caption reads: My girlfriend, the vicious Black Friday warrior. He swipes down, and there’s an image of me sitting at the table during Thanksgiving. My face is packed with one of my grandmother’s butter rolls, and other than me, everyone else in the frame has their faces blurred out. The caption? My girlfriend is storing up for the winter. My face goes red as he continues down to an image of me lining up a shot at the Cat’s Cradle bar. My tongue is poking out of the corner of my mouth as I concentrate. Levi’s caption this time? Why so serious? (She’s losing. :P ) I don’t know what’s worse. The fact he got secret photos of me and put them online, the completely dorky captions, or the hundreds of comments and thousands of likes.

He turns the phone back to himself and taps through a few things. “I got a couple others, but I didn’t think they were appropriate to share.” His attention softens, and a slight smile lifts the corner of his lips. “This one’s my favorite.” I brace for a horror when he shows me. It’s both of us after I talked to my mom yesterday. I’m on the couch with him, asleep and clinging to his shirt. My book fell from my hands at some point between when I returned to his lap and when I fell asleep. The tears took a lot out of me, and when my body returned to its safe place with Levi, it collapsed beneath years and years of pain culminating in hope for change. Levi isn’t smiling at the camera, because of course he isn’t, but the heat in his eyes as he captures the way he’s got me protectively wrapped up against him is unmistakable. “I’m thinking about making it my phone background,” he says once he pulls the image away. His…phone background? The one he’s never once changed? That phone background? “Why?” I ask, my voice a frail whisper. “Why?” His head tilts. “I like it.”

I wonder if anyone else in this entire world knows him as well as I do right now. I wonder if it’s wrong that I don’t even want to share his autobiography with anyone.

The hardest part isn’t breaking up. It’s admitting that you fell in love when you weren’t supposed to.

His brows knit. “You’re really leaving, going back to Florida? In a matter of weeks?” It feels like the wrong answer, but I say, “Y-yes?” A muscle in his jaw ticks, and he looks away. “I see.”

His eyes close, and a strangled laugh leaves him. Smoothing his fingers over his face, he smiles at me. It’s pained. “I didn’t have anything to do with it, kitten. You’d have found your way through no matter what. Just like you found your way to Augustus in the first place. Just like you found your way to your first writing job. Just like you’ll find your way to being an incredible author in whatever capacity you deign. You were raised to obey, but you carved your own path out of immovable stone instead. And that has nothing to do with me or your parents or anyone else. That has everything to do with your own spirit. It’s contagious.” I’ve never, ever, seen Levi Danner force a smile before, but there it is—tight and awkward, like his mouth doesn’t know what to do. “I’m going to miss it. So much.” He’s going to miss me. This strikingly handsome, horribly successful, and important man is going to miss me.

Nothing will be the same. We’re never going to share a bed again. I’m never going to have a reason to curl up with him and a book on the couch again. This is something I’ve always hated about the real world. When an ending comes, it’s not so easy to turn back to the first page and live it all out exactly as it was the first time. When an ending comes, all we’re left with are vague pictures that fade, memories that rewrite themselves into different creatures. Everything from yesterday already feels like a dream. Every blissful moment with Levi that filled me to my core is little more than a blur of never again. It’s crushing me. But I force my own smile and say, “I’m going to miss you, too,” when what I think I really want to say is something else. Something a little closer to remember how I said we didn’t want to book trope our way out too completely, because that would mean I’d fall for you? Yeah. Oops.

Fake dating without developing real feelings is impossible.

I have no delusions that a hot, dejected selkie prince is going to save me from the sea and whisk me away into an underwater kingdom. Purely because I haven’t gone swimming for a while, and it’s winter. No other reason. Could totally happen if I just bothered to touch some water.

“I love to write. And I don’t just want to write about what is. I don’t even just want to write about what could be. There isn’t a single moment I can remember where words haven’t fascinated me. I love them. And I want to paint pictures with them. And I want those pictures to make people smile. I want those pictures to encourage people to be kind. I want those pictures to inspire hope and goodness and everything you’ve taught me. Even if some parts of them aren’t going to be pieces you like or agree with.” Slowly, I bring my gaze up, first to my mother, then to my father. “That’s the only way they can be mine.”

“Not we’ll see. ‘Yes, Mother. Of course you may read my books and become my number one fan.’” She lifts her brows, prompting me to echo her sentiment. I snort and echo my own instead, “We’ll see.”

She smiles back at me, and for that moment in time, I think she understands the importance of words and exactly how they can bring two people together. In a world as vast as fiction, there will always be a story that draws a connection between souls. We just need to be brave enough to find it, open the book, and turn the first page.

Kitten.

You are a good thing, Rose.

I’ve tried to tell you so many times, but I couldn’t bear the idea of you running away from me when I still had the time you’d allowed slipping like sand through my fingers. Maybe some part of my twisted soul hoped that we’d book trope ourselves to happily ever after. But maybe I’m a little naive, too.

I’m selfish and egotistical and much too brutal. I know you don’t deserve this email. I know there’s no chance you’re stupid enough to let me steal the love in your heart away from the pictures you imagined. But after reading the pages you gave me, after watching you fall in love over and over, the horrible, selfish parts of me need you to know that even just a fraction of your affection belongs to me. And it was everything. You were the change, kitten. You made my accomplishments today possible. My autobiography, the book of my life, from the start, has been about you. And even though our start was also our end, it meant everything to me. Attached is the final chapter. Yours from the moment you tripped, Puppy

There’s no question why I couldn’t see it, but now that I’ve been told? Now that I know? I can’t believe I didn’t realize it all along.

After all, I didn’t find the gumption to confide in anyone when I realized I had fallen in love. Maybe because I kept trying to keep myself from realizing it.