My sister was fully focused on us now and the Pollard brothers had devolved into conversation about some stuffy business topic, mostly ignoring us.

“Oh, I’d love to,” Dean said.

I tried kicking him under the table, but the man just gave my knee a placating little pat, and I froze like a deer in the headlights. What part of no touching did he not understand?

I knew I should just yank his hand away, but his touch was making me warm all over. The worst part was I think he knew, too. And my lady parts? I never knew they could sing opera.

With a very annoyed glare at nobody in particular, I picked up my water and sipped, forcing a smile while Dean dove into the story of how we met.

“It was crazy, actually,” he said. “We were partying at this… It was old, right?” he asked.

I stared back at him, then realized he was making sure he didn’t contradict something I’d already told Lizzie. I nodded quickly. I hadn’t gone into detail about that, but I was glad he was at least being mindful not to make the lines of our lies cross.

“Yeah, so it was old,” he continued. “Like historically old. We went upstairs to find a spare bed for the massage. I closed the door, locked it–because people would think they were walking in on something weird if they came in–and got to work. We wrapped up the session and I was packing up my kit when–”

“I thought you didn’t bring your kit everywhere?” Lizzie asked.

“Oh, I don’t. But one of my friends from massage school was at the party. We have this kind of competitive, ongoing thing. You know, he dares me to massage the shit out of him and I dare him back. It’s a guy thing, you wouldn’t understand. Totally hetero, too, not that it matters.”

If Lizzie’s eyebrows went any higher, they would’ve been behind her hair.

I was trying not to laugh, even though I was horrified at how crazy his story was getting. Was she really going to buy this? But then again, Dean had an oddly convincing way about him, even when he was spinning something so outlandish before our eyes.

“So, I packed up my kit,” he said, and now his hands were getting involved. He was pantomiming lifting stones or something heavy and putting them into a bag and zipping it. “And I went to open the door for us, but, shocker. It was locked. I mean, yes, I was the one who locked it. But now it was locked from the inside. The latch wouldn’t turn and that door was a big ass, old door. Historic. Probably a hundred pounds. There was no way I could kick it down.”

I realized the Pollards had tuned back into the conversation, probably because Dean had a theatrical way of telling his story. I even found myself getting more and more interested. How did we get out? I wanted to ask.