“You could have blamed it on Lucy,” Brady pointed out again. “But no. You sang like a canary!”

“No way in hell was I going after Lucy. This was before our growth spurts, remember? She might be my little sister, but the girl had stilts for legs even then. She would have squashed us.”

Brady tried to hold his grouch face a little longer but couldn’t help but laugh at that. Lucy lived in Washington, DC, with her Marine boyfriend…who she was still taller than. Aside from her height advantage in life, she also had a streak of fire in her. She could cuss you under the table while drinking you there at the same time. The side effect of being raised around a bar her entire life, no doubt.

“Fine. I’ll tell Santana,” Brady said after he finished off his water. “But no one else, okay? Not even your dad. The fewer people who know we’re faking it, the better.”

“All right,” Dixon consented. “But just remember, if you’re going to pull this off, you need to focus on Sloane and not your ex during this wackadoodle lunch. That means pay attention to her. You know, arm around her shoulder. Tell some jokes, laugh at hers. Pull out her chair.”

Brady snorted. “Wait a minute. Are you telling me how to flirt?”

“I’m telling you that you’re voluntarily walking into a very awkward situation, so you at least better make it count.” Dixon went back to his chips but tacked on one more question. “Does Sloane even know about you and Felicity?”

“Everyone in Arbor Bay does. The dating pool is only so deep around here.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Brady had a feeling Sloane had no idea. He pictured her face going cherry red as he added on the little tidbit of info while rubbing elbows in the famed Robertson garden. He didn’t know a lot about the woman, but he had picked up how easily flustered she seemed to get.

It was cute.

Dixon must have sensed Brady’s hesitation without turning around. He chuckled. “Dude, this is all going to go so south.”

Brady scooped up his keys and dropped a punch to Dixon’s shoulder as he moved past the couch and to the apartment’s front door.

“Hey, if I can survive that time we did open-mic night with Stanley talking about his cat for an hour straight, I think I can survive something as simple as a lunch. Ex or no ex.”

Dixon kept on chuckling.

“Nothing is ever simple when it comes to women!”

With that, Brady agreed.