He told them about Big Silas’s medical scare. They then informed him that they’d booked a last-minute cruise out of Galveston that was leaving the Monday before Thanksgiving.

“So you won’t be here for Thanksgiving? When were you going to tell me?” Jamar asked.

“Today,” his mom answered. “After I finished thanking your dad for the cruise. That’s what you interrupted.”

“That’s it, I’m out.” He pushed up from the sofa.

“Oh, stop.” His mom laughed. As if any of this shit was funny. “You really need to lighten up,” she added.

So now he was a prude. Great.

He hugged them both goodbye and left the house, wondering why mind bleach wasn’t an actual thing.

For the entire drive home, all Jamar could think of was how messed up it was that his fifty-year-old dad was getting laid more than he was these days.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

What if it was wrapped in bacon?”

Jamar sat back in his chair and casually traced his finger along a crude drawing of the Longhorns emblem someone had carved into the table’s scarred surface.

“Nope,” he answered, failing to suppress his grin.

“Bullshit!” Taylor’s indignation was genuine as she held up her fork. “You’re telling me you wouldn’t eat this if there was a thick, crispy, perfectly cooked slice of bacon surrounding it?”

“Regardless of what most people think, bacon doesn’t make everything better. I would not eat a brussels sprout, even if it was wrapped in bacon.”

“You don’t know what you’re missing,” she said, slipping the fork in her mouth.

“I don’t mind not knowing everything, especially when it comes to those little baby cabbages.”

She rolled her eyes in that way Jamar had come to expect when she couldn’t force him to see things her way. Sometimes he only pretended to have an opposing view in hopes of eliciting that pout. He fucking loved that pout.

It killed him that she had yet to acknowledge their kiss on Mount Bonnell. He’d lost count of the number of times he’d had to stop himself from forcing the issue this past week, but what would he say? I know we agreed that this whole dating thing was just a ruse, but you’re funny, and you sincerely care about other people, and you’re hot as fuck, so why don’t we just forget about pretending?

Yeah, that would go over real well.

Taylor stabbed another brussels sprout and pointed it at him. “You never told me about Hou—”

Her words were drowned out by an eruption of cheers.

Jamar glanced at the fifty-two-inch flat screen mounted above their table and discovered why. He took a long pull on his beer, washing down the mix of longing, nostalgia, and jealousy that collected in his throat as he watched UT’s running back eat up yardage on his journey to the end zone.