Page 108 of The Puck Bunny

“Why? Why did you do that? Are you trying to fulfill my every fantasy? Because I don’t feel like I’m in the real world right now. I feel like I’m in some light-and-fluffy rom-com and the cameras are going to stop rolling any minute.”

“Maybe I do want to make your fantasies come true,” he says, pulling me across the console. “Do any of them involve you getting naked?” His grin goes deep and his playfulness is infectious. But we’re still in the parking lot so, when someone beeps as they drive by, he starts the car then waves.

“Luckily, this is my hometown crowd,” he says, “so they’ll leave us alone.”

“Seriously, what’s this all about, Quinn?”

“It’s about us being engaged.”

“For real?”

“Look, I know it was unconventional for me to spring it on you.”

“Almost like you took it for granted that I’d go along.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t want to take you for granted, but I thought you feel the same way I do, that you want a relationship.”

“Yes, I do. But jumping from a relationship to being engaged—I don’t know if we’re ready for that."

“Someone once told me you need to play the part to feel the part.”

“Was that someone a Hollywood starlet, by any chance?”

He laughs. “Maybe. But it’s true. Act the part until it’s not a part means the same thing is fake it until you make it. And as the saying goes, sweetheart, I want to make it with you.”

He brushes some hair off my cheek and it’s all I can do not to lean into that caress. Because I can’t. Not until I know exactly what he wants and, more importantly, why he wants it.

“But I mean this, Sara. I do want to make it with you—a relationship, a life, a family… a home.”

His voice is low and raspy and reminds me of that night. The one we spent together. The frisson of danger and excitement he generates runs through my entire body leaving me on some kind of edge, uncomfortable and exhilarating like the top of a mountain. And I only need to choose which way to go.

“You know I care about you,” he says.

I hear the vibration of emotion in his voice and my heart leaps into my throat and my insides dissolve into jelly and then hot molten lava.

“I care about you, too.” I mean the words and I think he means them, too. But I have no clue what all that meaning-the-words adds up to. Does it add up to the kind of romantic love you need to get engaged and then married? I’ve always pictured things differently, that a guy would get down on one knee and swear his undying devotion and love.

But then there are couples like Mindy and Jonas. They care about each other and I was perfectly happy to see them get married without a smidgeon of down-on-one-knee romance. Who am I to think I’m better than that?

I smile and sigh. “So we’re engaged now.”

“We’ll keep it quiet for a while,” he says.

I nod. That’ll give me a chance to fake it ’til I make it, too.

* * *

We arrive at Quinn’s mom’s house on the heels of my family to find Mrs. James already welcoming the whole clan, taking their coats and getting them drinks.

Quinn stows our coats, then introduces me to his extended family as we make our way through the dining room to the great room. The space is massive and I can see why they need it—there are no less than two dozen people there and all seem excited to meet my family.

Until we walk in.

“Everyone, this is Sara Bellagamba. My fiancée.”

That, I didn’t expect. He knew it, because he’s ready and waiting to hold me up in a standing position before I collapse to the floor in with my family and the entire James clan assembled and watching our performance.

Are we acting the role, or are we pretending, kidding ourselves into something neither of us is ready for, but too foolish and in lust to admit?