Hell, I shouldn’t even be hooking up with him. It can only lead to problems. But my ability to say no to him—which wasn’t high to begin with—has decreased drastically since we started this fake relationship. And when he’s asking to get his hand on my dick? Well. What the fuck do you expect me to do?

Moving to the counter, I’m greeted with a giant pile of crumpled napkins that someone left all around their empty plate. I grumble internally about the wastefulness as I pick them up and toss them in the trash.

Then the bell on the door rings, and Evelyn Morris walks in, making her way right for me as quickly as her seventy-two-year-old legs can carry her. I brace myself for whatever it is she wants, because knowing her, it could be anything. Yelling at me for the hundredth time about how I don’t serve grapefruit juice, asking me to clean out her rain gutters, or wanting to know why I won’t be having a booth at the spring festival, even though I’ve never once had a booth at any of this town’s crazy events.

“Travis Reed,” she says, tone scolding. “Have you been keeping secrets from us?”

By “us” I’m assuming she means her and all the other busybodies in this town. And I wince, because, yes, I’ve been keeping secrets for a long-ass time. But I hope she’s referring to something inane, rather than the biggest secret that I like to sleep with men. Or damn, she couldn’t know about me and Brenden pretending to date, could she?

“What do you mean?” I hedge.

She wags her finger at me. “You know very well what I mean. I heard you’ve been spending quite a lot of time at a certain Brenden Sanderson’s house lately. What’s going on there?”

Crap.

“We’re friends,” I tell her, which is true enough. “He’s just needed my help with some things around the house.”

“Oh, but I still haven’t gotten you to do my rain gutters. I see how it is.”

I resist the urge to ask this woman why she feels entitled to my time just because she’s known me since I was born.

“Anyway,” she goes on, “are you sure it isn’t more than that? Because Brenden is a lovely man, you know. And he’s gay as can be.”

“I’m not—Uh—We don’t—”

Fucking hell, make a sentence.

Why is she bringing this up with me? She doesn’t know I’m gay. She can’t possibly know. Nobody knows but Brenden.

“Relax dear,” she says, shaking her head. “I know you don’t swing that way. I’m only saying...”

“What?” I ask, though I’m afraid to know.