A slow smile dawned on Josh’s face. “You want to teach Hailey a lesson?”
The hair on the back of his neck stood up. His body suddenly felt charged and alert. “Man, we haven’t done the switcheroo in ages.”
Josh’s eyes gleamed. “You go on the sweet-girl-from-book-club date; I’ll go out with Hailey as you and show her she really does like slumming with me.”
Jake frowned. If Josh actually did like Hailey, this seemed like a shitty thing to do to her. On the other hand, maybe if Josh went out with Hailey on a real date, it would end this weird brownie/cash dance they were doing.
“I’ll tell her at the end of the date who I really am,” Josh said, answering his unspoken objection. “I just want to, you know, open her ambitious eyes.”
And yours. “She’s gonna be pissed.”
“I’ll deal with Hailey. And your girl won’t care. You’re just the warm-up to dating again. Can you stay until Tuesday?” Josh suddenly looked more awake. “We’ll do the date on Monday at the same time so they don’t have a chance to talk to each other about it.”
Jake considered his role in this. He’d never had a blind date.
“Come on. You know you love it.”
He did. It was freeing to be someone else. And it had always been easy to step in for his twin. They knew each other as well as they knew themselves. And it might be cool to see how the other half lived. What his life would’ve been like if he’d stayed back east and had hometown roots like Josh did. A casual no-stress lifestyle sounded fantastic. A sweet small-town girl too, like the kind he’d grown up with.
“I’m in,” Jake said.
They grinned at each other. “Awesome,” they said in unison.
“Who gets the brownies?” Jake asked.
“Me.”
“Hey,” Jake protested. “Why do I get the blind date, no cash, and no brownies?”
“World history.”
“Come on. That was high school.” Josh had taken Jake’s place for a world history final exam senior year because Jake had stayed up all night playing poker in a friend’s basement. Fortunately, they’d been in two different classes, so the switcheroo worked.
“You graduated, didn’t you?”
“What about Sherri Wexton? I took her out while you were busy with Tanya what’s-her-name.”
Josh smiled in memory; then he countered with, “Missy Pardo.”
“Bah.” They could do this all night with all the trading places they used to do, usually involving keeping a bunch of girls interested and not pissing any of them off. Not one girl had ever noticed which twin they were with. Most people couldn’t tell them apart. Except family and the rare few who really got to know them.
“Fine.” Jake put a hand over his heart. “I’ll do it out of the goodness of my heart. Only because you’re so twisted up over Hailey.”
“I’m not twisted.”
Jake raised his brows.
“Shut up,” Josh said and headed to bed.
Chapter Three
Jake waited in the gravel parking lot by the Saugatuck River in Greenport for his redheaded mystery date in Josh’s black board shorts, white tee, and beat-up rubber sandals. Josh would be wearing Jake’s custom Italian suit. He’d left a few suits at his dad’s house in case of some celebratory occasion. He’d given his twin a wad of cash to take Hailey out to a top Michelin-rated restaurant in the city and arranged for a private room in a nearby bar if they wanted to extend the evening. He suspected Josh would. Of course, that depended on Hailey being cool about the switcheroo when Josh did the big ta-da reveal at the end of dinner. He kinda wished he could be there for that. For himself, his true identity didn’t matter. It was a onetime thing.
No one else was here, except for the old guy sitting in the nearby boating rental shed. At least it was one of those Indian summer days, eighty degrees. Perfect. Jake figured they could do some paddleboarding before their hike and picnic. The trails were right across the street. He loved paddleboarding, and the river was nice and calm, even a beginner could handle it. His gaze caught on the approach of a woman, her head ducked shyly, her face in shadow, with a tan baseball cap pulled down low and large round sunglasses. She had straight red hair that ended just past her jaw. It must be her.
He strode toward her, quickly remembered he was Josh, and slowed it down to a laid-back amble. Besides the cap, she was all in black—black tank top, black shorts, black flip-flops. The hot rush of lust caught him by surprise. Her tank was modest, but her breasts were full, her waist narrow, her hips a sweet curve down to trim, toned legs. His gaze took the return trip back up to her face, which he still couldn’t get a good look at. Nothing about her said look at me, yet he couldn’t look away. He found the modest shyness appealing. This woman was as far from the glamorous superficial women he’d dated as you could get.