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Mira jolted like she’d been stung by a bee. Yes, she knew. She knew he’d been in a long-term on-again-off-again relationship with Nancy Hayes from the all-female 90s alt rock band Asyd Nancy. She knew they’d had a daughter together. She knew he owned a recording studio and liked sunsets and had a sailboat. She knew what T-shirt he’d worn last Wednesday, and that he’d stopped in Wallace, Idaho, for a bite to eat on his drive in from Seattle. “I…may have spent some time on your Instagram.”
“Ahh, honesty. I like it. Especially since I may have done the same. Your Insta made me hungry.” Was that a purr? Did he justpurrat her? “So many cookies.”
Definitely a purr.Fucking drummers.
“Anyway,” he went on. “When Becks was fourteen, it was atime. Fifteen was worse, though, I think.”
“It gets worse?”
“I’d tell you it doesn’t, but I don’t think our relationship should be based on lies.”
“Definitely not,” she said with a laugh. And when he chuckled too, she grasped her neck, squeezing at the shiver trying to race up her spine. “Ian’s a great kid, but fourteen is such a shift. It’s like overnight he’s just…gone quiet. I swear, only a few months ago we were super close, and now I’m just Mom. No, not even that. I’mMother.”
“Mother?” He whistled. “That’s an attack.”
“Right? And he puts so much stink on it too. Might as well addfuckerbehind it.”
“He’ll come back to you eventually,” he told her. “But until then, thoughts and prayers, Mira. Thoughts and prayers.”
She grinned, leaning forward to push the window open, suddenly too warm.
“That man in the bakery, Paul, is he Ian’s dad?”
Gathering her hair over her shoulder, she said, “No. Paul and I were only together for a while a couple of years ago. But that’s over, and now he’s happily married.”
“To the woman who was with him today? Chrissy, was it?”
“Yep.”
After a beat, he surmised in brutal fashion, “So, Paul’s in town for the wedding with Chrissy, and you don’t want to look single in front of them, even though you are? Am I getting it right?”
“Pretty sad, huh?”
“I’m not judging you. At all. Believe me. Just getting the story straight so I know what to tell other people.”
Other people?Reality, the way it loved to do when things started to feel even slightly good, reared its ugly head. “Ashley and Madigan are going to know we haven’t been dating.” If anyone asked them, ifPaulasked them, she’d be exposed. A dog barked in the distance, and her shoulders slumped in defeat. “This isn’t going to work.”
“Oh, that,” he said. “Well, let’s say, hypothetically, that Madigan already knew. Would that make you feel better? Or worse?”
A surge of adrenaline kicked at her ribs. “Madigan already knows?”
Cole sucked in a breath across the line. “I’m realizing now that I probably shouldn’t have said anything to him before I talked to you about it. It’s just, Mad and I have always told each other everything, and I might not have been thinking clearly after the long drive and then getting jumped in a bakery by a beautiful stranger.”
Mira groaned, leaning back against the wall to stare up at the ceiling. “I really don’t do things like kiss strangers every day. Or ever. I swear.”
“I’m honored to be your first.”
She palmed her forehead.
“But I am sorry about telling Mad.”
“Don’t be sorry,” she said. “It’s not you. It’s me. I’m the one who put you in this position in the first place. Let’s just call it off—”
“And lose my date to the wedding? No chance. We’ve got this. I trust Mad’s discretion with my life. But we do have some details to iron out. What would you think about getting together later? I can pick you up after the rehearsal dinner. It would be like…research.”
“Research?” she repeated as a gentle breeze stirred the hairs at the base of her neck.
“If by the end of the night I haven’t convinced you we can pull it off, then we’ll at least have had fun trying.”
