Best Fake Fiance (Loveless Brothers 2)

“Minus the scurvy, I imagine,” I say without thinking, looking back at the photo, my mind utterly elsewhere.

William says nothing.

I silently scold myself for making dumb jokes to my boss.

“I’ll leave you to it,” he says, nodding once. I nod back, and William walks off to another portion of our massive workshop.

I count to ten, then put the photo down.

“I’m going to lunch, I’ll be back in an hour,” I announce to absolutely no one in particular, and then I practically run toward the door where Daniel is standing.

“What happened?” I practically shout when I’m within ten feet of him.

“C’mon,” he says, pushing the door to the outside open again and holding it for me. I step through into the sunlight, blinking, and whirl on him.

“I need a big favor,” he says, the moment we’re outside, his voice low and serious.

My heart’s in my throat.

“Sure, anything,” I say instantly.

He pauses, his hands back in his pockets, his jacket open, and he studies my face for a long moment, looking more serious than I’ve seen him look in ages.

Finally, he looks away for a moment, pushes his hand through his slightly-floppy hair, then looks at me again. Daniel’s got some of the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen, deep and clear, and they’re dead fixed on me.

He’s also wearing a suit. He never wears a suit, which is a shame, because the man looks good in a suit, which feels inappropriate to notice right now.

“It’s gonna sound weird,” he says, his voice still low.

“What happened?” I ask for the thousandth time. “Look, whatever it is, I don’t care, I’ll do it.”

“I need you to come to the next hearing and say we’re engaged,” he says.

It catches me off-guard.

I thought he’d need me to give Rusty a ride to summer camp next month, or put sugar in Crystal’s gas tank, or secretly shadow her to prove that she’s having weekly meetings with Satan. Something like that.

“To each other?” I ask, after a moment.

“Right.”

“At a hearing?” I say, still thrown for a loop.

“I fucked up,” he says, folding his arms over himself. “And I may have told the judge I was getting married. To you.”

“Okay,” I say, my stomach suddenly in knots. “Yeah, sure, just let me know when it is, I’ll take off work and come… lie to a judge, I guess?”

He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, exhales and straightens, like there’s a weight off his shoulders.

Then he grabs me and pulls me in for a rough hug.

“Thank you,” he says into my hair, which is currently piled in a knot on top of my head. “Jesus, Charlie, you’re a lifesaver.”

I hug him back, my arms around his tall, rugged form, not that I notice how tall or rugged he is.

Nor do I grab him one percent tighter than I probably should. I sure don’t think about the muscles underneath his clothes, or the fact that I’ve seen him hoist full five-gallon buckets overhead like they weighed nothing.

Most of the time I’m used to the extreme attractiveness of my tall, rugged, very handsome best friend. It’s just one of those things: the sky is blue, grass is green, Daniel is hot, et cetera. I’m over it.

The suit, though. Hello. It’s jarring enough that I’ve been jolted into noticing the rest of the hotness all over again.

It’s a long hug, not that I mind. I’m probably getting sawdust all over him, though.

“Did you just volunteer this?” I ask when he releases me. “Or was there a specific question, or…?”

For the first time since I’ve seen him today, he smiles.

“Want to get lunch?” he asks.“Holy shit,” I say. “Does Rusty know her mom got married?”

Daniel shrugs dramatically, still chewing a bite of his turkey club.

Crystal might be Rusty’s mom, but she’s not Daniel’s ex. She’s someone that Daniel got blind drunk and had sex with a few times when he was twenty-one, dumb, and going through a rough time.

He likes to make that distinction very, very clear.

“Does her husband have cloven hooves?” I ask, gesturing with my own sandwich. “Did you see an ultrasound? Does the baby have horns?”

“He’s a mining executive,” Daniel says, swallowing.

“So I’m not that far off.”

Daniel snorts, taking another bite.

“How the hell did she meet him?” I ask. “Did he seem hypnotized? Maybe under some sort of mind-control drug?”

“I don’t think Rusty knows,” he finally says, answering my first question. “She’d have told me if she did, she can’t keep secrets.”

“True,” I say.

It’s not exactly true. She probably couldn’t keep a big secret like that, but just last week I hung out with her one afternoon and we got ice cream sundaes before dinner. I’m pretty sure she kept the secret, because I never heard about this horrible breach of protocol from Daniel, and I usually do.

Also, last winter I took her sledding at Suicide Hill, the steepest sledding spot in town, and never heard about it from Daniel, even though he did specifically say we shouldn’t go there.