He passes the phone back, and I accept it, my heart fluttering at his words. “Absolutely.”

I’m not sure how long he requests for his break, but we catch a ride out to this block lined with pho shops and Thai food. Drew steers me toward a little local Chinese joint, and we step inside, the smell of duck immediately falling over us.

“You strike me as the kind of person who likes exotic food,” Drew says.

And I’m not sure what’s “exotic” about decent Chinese food, but my stomach’s already rumbling just standing by the front door, and I’m too hungry to care. We get a table, and much to my delight, the menu’s full of Chinese barbecue. Can’t say I’m the best versed in Chinese food, but if it’s meat and it’s barbecue, I won’t complain.

“The portion sizes are huge, so don’t overwork yourself,” he says.

I smirk. “You underestimate how much I can eat.”

Which, yeah, I’ll go light on the duck because I’m not out to murder his wallet, but damn, my mouth is watering.

“So, should we set some parameters on this?” he asks.

I freeze, my lip rising. “What do you mean?”

“Well, if we’re gonna be building this whole fake relationship, I feel like we have to set some ground rules,” he says. “You know, like who’s allowed to know, and how we’ll behave in public, and all that stuff.”

This is a minor hiccup I wasn’t expecting, but not too hard to work around. “The less people know, the less chance the troll will find out,” I say.

He nods. “True. So that means we should probably act like a couple in public, huh?”

I shrug, but really, I’m very much okay with that. “We should make it as real as possible.”

“So no flirting with anyone else, then?” he says.

I shake my head. “Definitely not. And we should do all the things we would do if we were actually dating,” I say.

“Especially online, right?” he says. “Since the troll could be watching. Make sure to tag me in everything, and I’ll play it up from my blog too.”

I smile.

“So what are your plans for the summer?”

I pause, waiting to see if he’s going to ask me something more about our fake dating before turning back to the menu. It’s basically a full-time job just trying to keep track of all the numbers of the dishes I want to order. “Working, you know, once I find a job. Probably spending some time with my brother. I don’t really have much worked out.” And, of course, having the perfect meet cute romance, but I don’t need to tell him that.

“Where are you going afterward?”

“California.”

He grins. “Sounds cool. I’ve never not lived in Denver.”