He’d spent the past few days inhaling Chelle’s first book in between work meetings. He was so caught up in an epic battle between warring satyr families and wondering if his phone would melt from the fuck-ton of sex everyone was having that he’d missed his initial third-date reminder ping, and his second, and his third. By the time he’d gotten in his much needed ice-cold shower, he was already running late. Then, faced with the decision of what to wear out on his third date with the woman who’d managed to get him to read his first book in years that didn’t have the phrase “steps to success,” “quantitative growth,” or “good to great” somewhere in the first chapter, he’d lost his nerve.

And that’s why he’d called in his sister.

“Thank God you FaceTimed me because there is no way you can wear that sweater on a food truck crawl,” Bristol said, wrinkling her nose in disgust.

He looked at himself in the mirror. Okay, the cuffs on his cream-colored sweater were a little frayed, but it was December. “Why not?”

His sister lifted an eyebrow. “Do I need to remind you of the ketchup incident?”

“That was one time and I was fourteen.” How was he supposed to know that the top on the squeeze bottle had been loosened—except for his brother Macon who thought he was the king of pranks.

“Then there was the cherry pie—”

There was no way that should count. “It was a speed-eating competition. Of course I got messy.”

“The mint chocolate shake incident,” she said with a smirk he would have heard even if he couldn’t see it on her face.

“Have you ever tried to drink a shake using a narrow paper straw? There was a chunk of mint chocolate stuck in the straw, and I had to get it out. I probably shouldn’t have blown so hard.”

“And then there is my personal favorite, the gyro.”

Nash didn’t have an excuse for that one. He’d been watching out for Macon while his mom and sister were looking at the Dylan’s Department store Christmas window display and didn’t realize, until it was too late, that the tahini sauce had dribbled out of the aluminum foil he’d failed to wrap properly around the bottom of the gyro. It had landed on his black fleece in three blobs like a delicious snowman.

He did not want a repeat of that when he was still hoping Chelle would say yes to changing their no-sex agreement. She already thought of him as a puppy. The last thing he needed was to look like he’d been rolling around in some deer poop out in the woods. Not that he would roll around in shit. It was a metaphor. Or a simile. Or a whatever the fuck she as a writer would know it was.