The tables of quizzers chortled. It wasn’t the first time Bill had stopped in the middle of the quiz to ask Della, whom we’d soon learned was his wife, where she’d found what were truly random, difficult questions.

“It’s like an admiration thing, right?” Elijah said, his voice low as he sat forward. “To praise a person.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” Navin nodded. “Write it down.”

Ren looked at them like they were crazy. “Are we seriously not going to talk about the fact that Parker is dating an ex-heavyweight boxing champion and didn’t tell us?”

I raised an eyebrow. “You know who he is?”

My friend glowered. “Yeah, I know who he is. As soon as you said boxing gym, I remembered why he’s so familiar. So, what’s going on? Is this why you’ve been quiet?”

My belly roiled. Oh my goodness, I did not want to lie to Ren. But if I told him I had hired Rhys to be my fake boyfriend, he would probably take a swing at Rhys, assuming I was being taken advantage of, and not caring that the Widowmaker could crush him.

“As you can imagine,” I started, trying not to lower my eyes because he’d know I was lying if I did, “I’ve been somewhat surprised by this turn of events, and I’ve been attempting to figure things out and … I honestly didn’t even know we were dating until he just said it.” I fibbed the last part.

“Do you want to date him?”

Oh boy, wasn’t that the question of the century.

“Yes,” I said shyly.

Ren studied me a second and then nodded. “Okay, then. Just would’ve been cool if you’d told us about him.”

Elijah tapped the table in front of us. “Uh, this is all very interesting but we’re missing the questions.”

“Bill asked”—Dean suddenly appeared, sitting down beside me with a beer in hand, forcing me to budge up next to Ren—“‘What is nanoscience?’ Easy. It’s the study of molecules and structures whose size ranges from one to a hundred nanometers.”

The guys all looked at him; Rhys drew my attention as he pulled a chair next to the table. “My brother’s wicked smart,” he said, straddling the chair and sipping his beer.

“We knew the answer,” Navin said, his geek pride rearing its competitive head.

Dean shrugged. “Six brains are better than four.”

“Six?” Ren shot Rhys an incredulous look, and while Rhys might have looked through my friend like his words meant nothing, anger suffused me.

I slammed my foot down on Ren’s under the table. I was still wearing my heels from work, so that had to hurt.

“Fuck!” Ren bit out. “What the hell was that?”