“I wasn’t the only one pretending. She paid for me to do it.” I knew that was a stupid thing to say but the words fell out anyway. I sounded like I was nine and trying to tell my parents it was Huck’s fault the cows had black spots painted on them.

“Why?” Alice asked. “Astrid’s a lovely woman. Why would she need to buy a date?”

“She’s happily single but wanted a guy to go with her to the wedding. Her ex is the best man,” I explained. “She wanted a date to be a buffer.”

“That makes sense,” Sarah said. “I mean, what better way to have confidence than having a handsome man on your arm in front of an ex?”

“Hey!” Huck muttered.

Sarah tilted her chin and gave him a look. “What?”

“Why is Thatcher the handsome one?”

Sarah rolled her eyes and laughed. “Thatcher’s a catch. For someone else,” she added, to make him feel better. The idiot. I wasn’t the Manning who’d been handcuffed to his headboard.

“You were to be her fake boyfriend for the entire weekend?”

I took a sip of water, set my glass down. “Yes.”

“A buffer,” Alice repeated.

“Yes.”

“So you buffered even when you weren’t with her ex?” Alice gave me another pointed look.

I caught the innuendo and did everything I could not to blush, or to have my dick get hard remembering all the buffering Astrid and I had done.

“Finished?” Huck asked Claire.

She nodded, then looked to Alice. “May I be excused?”

Alice’s glare dropped away and she gave Claire a soft smile. “You may.”

Claire hopped down from her booster and Huck handed her her plate to carry to the kitchen. The clatter of the dish hitting the counter was followed by her sneakered feet as they dashed off.

“I think it’s kind of cute,” Sarah admitted.

“You were at the auction,” I said to Alice. “Miss Turnbuckle’s the one who bought me. Does it make you feel any better that she was in on this whole thing?”

Alice pursed her lips but didn’t say anything.

“What are we missing?” Sarah asked. “If Miss Turnbuckle helped, then there’s got to be a good reason.”

Alice thought, then nodded in quiet agreement. No one doubted Miss Turnbuckle’s integrity.

I huffed out a breath. Where the hell did I start? “Her family’s psycho.” I hopped up from my chair and paced the kitchen. Just talking about them got me riled. “Besides Miss Turnbuckle, of course. She’s Astrid’s great-aunt. Her parents and sister, Amy, live in Cutthroat. They think she’s fat. That she plays at baking. That she should have turned a blind eye to her ex’s cheating. That if she was better at pleasing a man, he wouldn’t have cheated in the first place.”