Single And In Love With My Fake Boyfriend (Single Girls Club #1)

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Callie

Just as I come home from work the next day, my phone rings with a video call from Lincoln. A swarm of butterflies attacks my stomach. He and I texted throughout the day, so things felt like normal, but it’s completely different speaking to him face to face.

After greeting my friends with a wave, I walk into my room and shut the door, dropping down on my bed and accepting the call. My whole body fills with warmth when his face pops up on my screen. I don’t know what it is, but when I see his face, everything feels perfect. The world feels complete. Which I know makes me sound selfish because there are so many problems going on. But Lincoln makes all of that disappear. He makes me feel like I can do anything I set my mind to.

“Hey, Lincoln,” I say with a smile.

His face softens with so many emotions as he returns the smile. “Hey, beautiful. How was your day?”

“It was good, but what made it great was all the texts you sent me throughout the day.”

“I hope I didn’t disturb you at work. I just really missed you.”

More warmth engulfs me. “I missed you, too. And no, you didn’t disturb me. I love getting texts from you.”

“Same here.” He shifts in his seat as his expression grows more serious. “Callie, I want to apologize for last night. The date was…well, I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable. I was so nervous and—”

“You don’t have to apologize for anything, Linc. Things were a little strained and awkward, and yeah, it worried me a lot. But I talked to my friends and they made me realize that everything is different between us now. We’re no longer pretending to be together—we’re together for real. And that made things so much more nerve-wracking and stressful. We both want to like each other, which means it’s harder to be ourselves. But I don’t want you to be scared to be yourself. I love the person that you are and I want you to be comfortable to be that person around me. So we just need time to get used to this new dynamic. But based on how our conversation is going right now, I think we’re starting to get past it.”

Lincoln nods. “You’re right. The fact that we’re talking about it openly and honestly will help us get past this new hurdle. I want you to be one hundred percent yourself around me, too. I love everything about you and accept you wholeheartedly.”

“Even if I trip over my feet, knock into you, cause you to knock into a waiter, who spills water on a VIP at a super fancy restaurant, and then they sue our butts?”

Lincoln’s eyes widen at my ridiculous scenario, but he laughs with a nod. “That would just make me appreciate you more. Because it would take a lot of talent to pull off something like that.”

His words make me laugh. And they make me feel really good. Lincoln accepts me with all my awkwardness and clumsiness. I can already feel us knocking down that thick wall.

“So I was thinking,” he says. “We probably put way too much pressure on ourselves when we went to Royal Oasis. We should have had a more casual first date. How do you feel about doing something fun tonight?”

“I would love that a lot. What do you have in mind?”

He reaches for a notepad and scans the items. “I wrote a list. Tell me which you would like to do.”

He starts reading them off. Going out for ice cream, roller skating, rock climbing, visiting a museum, catching a movie, going to the arcade, and many more.

“Visiting a museum or the arcade sounds fun,” I say.

“Nice. Museums are closed at this hour, so maybe we can do that another time, but the arcade should be open. I’m game if you are.”

“I totally am! And by the way, the fact that you wrote a list is not only impressive, but it’s pretty cute, too.”

He gives me a playful, cocky grin. “What can I say? I’m just that perfect.”

I laugh. “You definitely are.”

“Not as perfect as you.”

“Well, duh,” I joke.

We both laugh.

I breathe a sigh of relief, and it looks like he does, too. It seems as though we’re getting past that awkwardness we felt last night. Maybe all we had to do was talk it out like we just did. The fact that we can be so open and honest with each other means we’re heading in the right direction.

“There’s a pretty good arcade here in Spring Falls,” I tell him. “We can go there, unless you’d rather go to one in Atlanta.”

“Oh wow, I remember the arcade in Spring Falls. I used to go there all the time when I was a kid.”

“I would go here and there. I mostly stayed home reading.”

He winks. “I know. So I’ll pick you up in an hour?”

“Yes! I can’t wait.”

“Me, either.” He waves and ends the call.

I race out of the room, announce to my friends that I’m going out with Lincoln, which gets me cheers and whoops, and then rush back into my room to figure out what to wear. This date is going to be very casual, and I want to dress comfortably so I can have tons of fun with my special guy. I settle on a cute yellow top and jeans, then pull my hair into a ponytail.

I hang out with my friends, talking books, of course, until the doorbell rings. Lincoln comes inside for a few minutes to say hello to my friends. Now that he and I are dating for real, they want to get to know him better, and he does, too. They grill him for a few minutes on his thoughts about the romance book he read and they seem very satisfied with his thoughts. Alex subtly sends me two thumbs up.

“Sorry if they were too much,” I say as he and I head to his car. “We’re all just a bit too obsessed with books.”

“No, they’re awesome. It’s great to be passionate about something. And I know they’re protective over you, so I expected to be grilled.”

I slide my hand into his. “Thanks so much for being so cool about everything.”

“Of course. I know how important they are to you, and I want to be best friends with them, too.”

Tears fill my eyes. How could I have landed someone so perfect for me? I used to be depressed in high school because I wanted to be with Lincoln so badly, but I can see now that it wasn’t the right time. Now is the right time.

The drive to the arcade isn’t long. The place is somewhat full, but there are a lot of machines and enough room that it’s not so bad.

“What do you want to do first?” I ask him.

“I’ve always had pretty good luck with that wheel machine thingy.”

“Lead the way,” I say.

We head to the machine and Lincoln offers me the card to swipe. I shake my head and push it back to him. “I have such bad luck with these things.”

“Let’s see if I still have my mojo.” He grabs the wheel and gives it a spin. He used so much power that it doesn’t look like the thing will stop anytime soon. Seriously, it feels like we’re standing here forever.

“Maybe lose some of those muscles?” I tease.

He lifts a brow. “Is that what you really want?”

“No. I love your muscles.”

He flexes and then kisses his bicep, which has me giggling. Then my mouth falls open when the wheel lands on five hundred tickets.

“Jackpot!” Lincoln raises his arms and cheers. “Still got it.”

“No way. This thing is rigged.” I take the card from him, give it a swipe, then spin the wheel. Of course I don’t use as much power as him, so the wheel slows down pretty fast. It lands on four tickets. My mouth falls open again. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Beginner’s luck? Let me go again.” He spins the wheel, although a lot softer so it doesn’t spin for eternity, and it stops on a thousand tickets.

“Jackpot again!”

“You’re cheating somehow!” I joke. “You’re totally hiding a rigged card behind that one.” I reach for the card, but he plays along and holds it high above my reach. I stretch my hand as much as I can, standing on my tiptoes as I try to snatch the card away. But I end up losing my balance and fall onto him. He locks his arm around my waist and spins us around before he loses his balance, too.

I find myself staring into his spellbinding eyes, and he stares into mine, too. I don’t know how long we stay like this, but like all the other times, it feels like forever. He smiles and dips his head to give me a quick kiss on the lips. I want to grab the back of his head and give him a proper kiss, but we are at an arcade with many kids around. I don’t want to drive them away.

“You still cheated,” I joke, tracing his lips with my finger.

“You’re still as beautiful as you were the day I first saw you,” he murmurs.

I slowly lift my eyes to his as heat engulfs me. “Do you really mean that?”

“I do.” He caresses my cheek with his finger. “You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in my life.”

Gazing into his eyes, I know how sincere he is. He’s not just saying that because he thinks it’s what I want to hear or because he thinks he’s supposed to. He really does mean it.

“Screw it,” I say before closing my lips over his.

At the back of my mind, I know we might get asked to leave. After all, it’s pretty selfish for us to publicly display our affection when there are kids and families around. But how can I not kiss this guy after what he said? Maybe we should find a private room…

“You have no idea what you’re doing to me, Callie Richards,” he murmurs when we force ourselves to stop.

“You have no idea what you’re doing to me, Lincoln Walker.”

“I think I do,” he continues to whisper as he sweeps his lips across my face. “I can feel it when I kiss you and the way your body responds.”

“You’re making me melt.”

“I know.”

It takes everything I have to peel myself off of him. “We need to take things slow,” I remind him. “I don’t want to go too fast and ruin everything.”

He nods. “You’re right. Let’s find more games to play.”

When it comes to the games of chance, Lincoln has all the good luck. But when it comes to the ones that require skill, I do better. But we’re both pretty bad at them.

Then we come face to face with a dance game. I raise my chin. “How about a friendly competition?”

He grins. “You’re on.”

Since he’s in better shape than I am, he doesn’t get as winded as me. But I’m better at remembering the steps, so we kind of have an even game. And then I totally smoke his butt.

“Nice!” He wraps his arms around me and spins me around. “You were amazing.”

“Best of three?” I ask.

“You’re on again!”

I know that Lincoln is pretty competitive—he is a football player after all. But I’m surprised by how competitive I am. He wins the two other games, mostly because I get way too exhausted, but they were pretty evenly matched.

Lincoln buys us drinks and we sit in the lounge area to rest. His hair is a little damp from all the exertion and I’m pretty sweaty, too.

“I’m having such a wonderful time with you,” I tell him after chugging down half of my water. “It was such a good call to do something fun like this. I think we really needed it.”

He puts his arm around me, tucking me close to his chest. “I agree. And I’m having an incredible time with you, too. And maybe after a few more dates, we’ll revisit Royal Oasis. And we’ll spend the entire time laughing at how awkward that other date was.”

I chuckle. “Totally.” I press my face to his chest and inhale his scent that I love so much. “Thanks for being such a great person, Linc.”

“You’re the great person.”

“No, you are.”

“You are.”

“I can argue all night,” I say.

“I can, too.”

I playfully slap his chest. “Stop trying to win every competition.”

“I can’t help it. It’s in my nature.” He brushes his lips across my temple and ear. “Callie, my mom and dad want to invite you over for dinner.”

I lift my head. “They came back from their cruise?”

“Yeah. And the first thing they want to do is meet my girlfriend in person. If you’re okay with that.”

“Of course I’m okay with that. I need to thank the amazing people who raised you to be the incredible person that you are.”

He plays with my ponytail. “Thanks.”

“It won’t be long before my parents invite us over again. It’ll be such a relief not to pretend around them anymore. That killed me.”

“Same. I hated lying to them. Well, I hated lying to everyone, really.”

I give him a wry smile. “We should have just dated for real from the start.”

“I know, right? It would have saved us a lot of trouble. But we can’t change the past, we can only change the present. And in this present, I’m going to try to be the best boyfriend in the world.”

“You don’t have to try, Linc. You’re already the best boyfriend in the world.”

Because we’re away from the kids and families and have some privacy, Lincoln and I make out for a few minutes. Okay, maybe it’s more than a few minutes. I bet people are snapping photos of us—I caught a few doing that while we played the games—but I couldn’t care less right now. I just love kissing this dude.

When we break apart, I say, “I think I drank too much water. Be right back.”

“I’ll wait for you in the prize area. Need to search for the perfect prize for you.” He winks.

“Your winks are very sexy, Linc.”

He gives me a cocky grin again. “I know.”

I playfully slap his arm before leaving to the bathroom. After I do my business, I study myself in the mirror. My hair is pretty messed up from all that dancing and my makeup is almost all gone, but I don’t really care about that. All that matters is that Lincoln and I are having a wonderful night together.

When I leave the bathroom and make my way to the prize area, I find Lincoln surrounded by a group of women. Most of them are asking him a million questions, but one of them, the one who’s dressed the skimpiest, is all over him. Literally. She’s pressing herself against his body and trying to close her arms around him as she poses for a selfie. I know she wants more than just a selfie.

In the past, that sight might have worried me. But I know I don’t have to worry about Lincoln. He could be surrounded by the most gorgeous woman in the world, and I know he’ll still only want me. Because he and I have such a deep connection, something that goes beyond this world. I trust Lincoln wholeheartedly and understand that he’ll have to deal with this for many years. He needs to be kind to them, which means he can’t push that girl away, even though I can tell from his face that he wants to.

A jealous girlfriend might march up to them and demand they leave her man alone, and a part of me does want to do that. But the last thing I want to do is ruin his career. All Lincoln needs is his girlfriend keeping his female fans away from him—that would make a great headline. Breaking News: Lincoln Walker’s Crazy Jealous Girlfriend Denies Him Access to His Female Fans. I’ll have to get used to all of this if Lincoln and I are endgame.

I focus on searching through the prizes for something to redeem for him. I didn’t win that many tickets, but we did share the card, so maybe I can use some of his tickets.

He notices me and waves, motioning for me to join him. I shake my head, letting him know I want him to spend time with his fans. I know that makes them happy.

When they finally leave, Lincoln stretches his arm around me. “I found the perfect prize for you.”

“Let’s see it.”

He leads me to an area with toy figurines. Then he plucks one off and holds it out to me. “Say hello to Doctor Horror.”

“No way. It’s the guy from the horror movie we watched?”

“Yeah. I didn’t realize how popular it is.”

“This is awesome. It’ll always be a reminder of that weekend together.”

“Yes. And also this.” He presents me with this adorable plush potato. “To remind us of the snacks we ate when we watched movies together. Potato chip…get it?”

I laugh as I squish it to my chest. “I love it. Thanks so much.” I stretch to kiss his cheek. “I want to get something for you, but I have no idea what you’d like.”

“It’s okay. I don’t need anything as long as I have you.”

His words turn my organs into jelly. “I feel the same way about you. But I want to get you something cute, too.”

We stroll around the prize area, looking through all the items. I’ve heard it’s hard to shop for a guy, but sheesh. Nothing seems to spark his interest.

“Maybe I’ll just go with the socks,” he says.

“That’s pretty lame.”

“But socks are practical. You can never have too many socks.”

“You can buy socks anywhere.”

“Not with those interesting designs.”

“I’m going to have a hard time shopping for you, aren’t I?” I tease.

“I’d rather shop for you.”

“Lincoln.” I take his hand and give him a serious look. “If we want this to work, you have to let me give to you, too. You have to let me spoil you. Because relationships aren’t only about giving. They’re also about receiving. Just like you want to make me happy, I want to make you happy, too.”

He nods. “I see what you mean.” He narrows his eyes at the shelves. “But I have no idea what to choose.” He raises his shoulders. “Socks?”

I can’t help but laugh. “Okay, I give up. Socks it is. But one day, I’ll figure out what makes you happy.”

After we redeem our prizes, we buy snacks from the vending machine and then decide to call it a night. Unlike the previous date, Lincoln and I don’t run out of things to talk about on the drive to my apartment. The wall is completely demolished now and we’re talking as though we’ve been together for months.

When he’s only a few blocks away from my home, his phone suddenly explodes with notifications. My phone has a few notifications as well.

He glances at it. “What on Earth?”

I dig into my pocket for my phone and scan the screen. Lincoln and I are trending again.

“Someone must have taken a photo or video of us making out on the bench,” I tell him as I click on one of the posts. “I knew that would happen—” My sentence gets cut off when I catch sight of the words on my screen. No, the post isn’t a photo or video of us making out. It’s a video of that woman who was all over Lincoln in the prize area. It shows how she presses herself to him with a huge smile, and then the video shifts over to me standing right outside, zooming in to my face. I look very hurt. The caption reads. Lincoln Walker tosses his Plain Jane boring girlfriend for a gorgeous supermodel .

“What’s wrong?” Lincoln asks.

I toss my phone away. “It’s nothing.”

He studies me for a second, probably noticing that I’m lying, and pulls the car to the side of the road. He reaches for his phone and checks his notifications. And like me, he’s brought to that post.

“Wait, what?” he asks, eyes moving rapidly across the screen as he reads the caption and watches the video. Then he raises his eyes to me. “Callie—”

“It’s fine,” I say. “It doesn’t bother me.”

He unbuckles his seatbelt and shifts over to me, taking both my hands. “I hope you don’t believe any of that. First of all, you’re not a Plain Jane. I already told you that you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met. And that woman meant nothing to me. I wanted to push her away and tell her to never come close to me again.” He squeezes my hands. “You’re the only one I care about.”

I move closer and cup his cheek. “Lincoln, don’t worry about it. I’m not upset. I mean, yeah, it stings a little, but I know you’d never hurt me like that. If I want to be with you—and I definitely do want to be with you—I’ll have to get used to this. I know that most women will keep their distance because you have a girlfriend, but the hardest part will be all those social media posts. I know they wish you chose someone better. And before you say anything, that’s not me crapping on myself. It’s me being realistic. I’m a nobody and I like to keep my life private. But you know something? You like to keep your life private, too. So we’re actually perfect for each other.”

He searches my eyes carefully. “You’re saying that what they posted doesn’t bother you?”

“Of course it does. But I don’t care what they say. I have you, and that’s all that matters. At the end of the day, they’re just words posted online by people who are bored or want to make other people feel rotten about themselves. That’s not real life. My real life has you in it. And everyone else? They can only dream of having what we have.” I move my hand to push some hair out of his eyes. “The best thing for me to do is not go online. I won’t see what they’re posting about me because it doesn’t matter. I want you , Lincoln. And I have you.”

With a relieved smile, he gathers me in his arms and cradles me close to his chest, his lips grazing my temple. “I’m so happy to hear that. I was so worried that my fame would get in the way of our relationship, but I see now that we’re the only ones who can determine if we’ll let it get to us. You’re so strong, Callie, and I want to be strong just like you. So screw what everyone else thinks. All that matters is that we’re happy.”

“Exactly.” I pull his face to mine and cover his lips with mine. “We won’t let anyone get in the way of our happiness.”