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I snorted. “Fair. But in my defense, I had to come up with something on the fly. Either way, though, we’re probably overthinking this. Let’s just go with the flow.” When he gave me only a blank look, I clarified. “Just be yourself.”
“Just be myself,” he repeated. “And pretend to be in love with you.”
My face heated. We’d agreed to pretend we were dating. We never said anything about pretending to bein love.
But honestly? For this to work, he was probably right.
“Um, yeah,” I said, wondering if my face was as red as it felt. “Other than that, just be yourself. It’ll be fine.”
“Famous last words,” he warned.
It turned out he was right about that, too.
•••••••
Aunt Sue was one ofthose Midwesterners who didn’t think a house was a home unless its insideandits outsidewere decorated to match the season. Of course, March wasn’t a specific season in Chicago. So other than the arbor Reggie and I walked beneath to get to the front door, which Aunt Sue had wrapped in fresh pine branches and festooned with one relatively understated large pink ribbon, it didn’t look like she’d done anything to her yard at all.
Reggie was still impressed. “Wow,” he said, stepping beneath the arbor. He peered at the pine branches above us. “Is thatrealpine?”
I was about to tell him that my aunt wouldn’t be caught dead decorating with fake foliage when he reached up and snapped off a handful of pine needles—and popped them in his mouth.
“Gross,” he muttered, shuddering a little, before spitting them out into his hand. He glared at them like they’d just hit his dog with their car.
I stared at him, incredulous. “Of course it’s gross.” Was this man an eight-year-old child? “Why the hell did you just try and eat them?”
“Ididn’t. I just wanted to see what they tasted like.” His face was still contorted in sheer disgust. “To see if they tasted different, the way everything tastes different now.”
“Different? Different from when?”
Instead of answering me, he reached out his hand.
My breath caught.
I was dimly aware he was wearing Old Fuzzy again, but my line of vision had mostly narrowed to his outstretched hand. All my thoughts swirled around the idea that I probably shouldn’t let it hang out there without taking it if our ruse had any chance of working.
I’d anticipated touching him in front of other people, hadn’tI? If we were going to put on a convincing show for my family, public displays of affection would only help.
“Right,” I said, mostly to myself.
I took his hand, interlacing our fingers. I still didn’t know what he used to do for a living, but his grip was strong, suggesting the same way his broad shoulders and slim waist did that he worked out regularly.
His hand flexed within mine, just as cool to the touch as it had been both the night we met and the night at the coffee shop. Clearly, the man ran cold. I gave his hand an answering squeeze, and he grinned at me.
Then his eyes fell to my shoulders, and to my too-thin cardigan.
He frowned.
“It’s been a very long time since I’ve done anything likethis,” he said, gesturing meaningfully between the two of us with his free hand. “But the last time I went on anything approximating a date on a chilly evening, the done thing was to offer the other person my coat.”
He began to awkwardly shrug out of Old Fuzzy. The idea of him lending that hideous thing to me like we were characters in some Regency romance novel was so sweet and absurd I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing.
“I’m not cold,” I lied. I placed my hand on his arm to keep him from giving me the jacket.
“Are you sure?”
I nodded vigorously. “Very. You can keep it. Or not,” I added quickly, because the thing really was an eyesore.
Apparently satisfied that I wasn’t about to freeze, he eased himself fully back into his coat. The right corner of his mouthkicked up into a half smile. He gave my hand another squeeze that could have been possessive in different circumstances, but I suspected was meant only to be reassuring. I refused to acknowledge the small rush of heat that gentle pressure sent through me.
