“So, what’s our plan?” she asked, handing him his glass as he joined her in the bedroom.

“Hold on,” he said. “Toast first.”

“To what?”

He shook his head and, reaching out, unceremoniously clinked his glass to hers, which she had yet to raise before taking a sip. “I don’t know. Friendship?”

“To friendship,” she agreed, taking a tiny sip and setting the glass aside. “And to getting back to being just friends. How soon can we call this off after a fancy engagement party without it being weird?”

“The whole thing is weird.”

“Well, that’s true,” she agreed. “I still don’t understand why we didn’t tell your parents that we’d changed our minds at dinner on Friday.”

It had been bothering her all week, but with his work travel schedule, she hadn’t seen him, and it hadn’t seemed like a conversation to have by text or phone.

He settled on the foot of the bed, feet braced on the floor, staring down at the wine. The shower and shave had helped considerably in making him look more like himself, but they hadn’t erased the dark shadows beneath his eyes.

“I don’t know,” he admitted, taking another sip of the wine. “For a minute there, standing in their living room, I felt like a seventeen-year-old kid again, desperate to piss them off the way they piss me off. I’m not proud of it.”

“You know your mom only gets all up in your business because she loves you, right?”

He frowned and looked down, from side to side. “That’s odd. I could have sworn I’m sitting on a bed, not lying on a couch.”

Audrey rolled her eyes and went to sit beside him. “I’m just saying. Maybe if you tried talking to her, you could tell her you don’t want to be with Elizabeth, rather than pretending to be engaged to me?”

He took a generous swallow of the champagne. “Quick refresher, Tate. This wasn’t my idea.”

“I know,” she agreed quickly. “But it feels different now. Pretending to be engaged to get the Internet trolls off my back versus lying to family.”

“All families are not created equal,” he said, his voice a little testy. “Your family’s an upper-class Leave It to Beaver. Mine’s more like an East Coast Dallas.”

“You watch Dallas?”

“I’m very evolved. You know this.”

She smiled and looked down at her bare feet, wiggling her toes. “It’s been sort of fun.”

“What?”

“Being engaged this past week.”

“Well, of course. I’m a fantastic fiancé.”

“You’re a terrible fiancé,” she corrected. “I haven’t seen you in days. But I’d forgotten how much I’d once dreamed of being a bride-to-be. There’s a special sort of energy that comes along with an engagement, even the fake kind. Though, I imagine you’re eager to be done with it.”