I stare at her and swallow hard. Yeah, my brain went there.

And unfortunately, my brain’s been going there all evening. Watching her eviscerate pompous Peter is the sexiest shit I’ve ever seen. She’s just so damn comfortable in her own skin. And she makes me laugh—enough to distract me from worrying about the possibility that we’re going to get caught at any moment. Every time she spoke during dinner, I wanted to throw up a little cheer and shout That’s my girl.

Except she isn’t a girl (in fact, she’d probably pop me in the mouth if I called her that), and she certainly isn’t mine. Not really. And fuck, why am I so confused?

Three more outings. With how things are going so far, maybe not even that many. That’s all I need to get through. Repeat after me, Dean: You’re not the man for Solange, and she’s not the woman for you; stoking this attraction is only going to complicate things. Keep it light. Keep it friendly. Keep any inappropriate thoughts to yourself.

With that mental reset out of the way, I pat the tops of my thighs and blow out a deep breath. “Okay, I’m going to trust you on this, but let it be known, I have my reservations.”

“Dean, at this point, I assume you have reservations about everything. There’s no need to flag them for me.”

Her voice lacks any inflection, so I can’t tell if she’s being serious or not—until she tilts her head and gives me a saucy grin. Goddamn it. I like her. But I don’t want to. Not this much.

“Thanks for tonight,” I tell her. “I literally could not have done it without you.”

She stares out the window as the car winds its way through another DC traffic circle. “You’re so welcome. It helps that Kimberly and Nia are wonderful people.”

“It does.”

She turns and peers at me. “And I must say, your performance skills have dramatically improved since this weekend. For a minute there, you had me believing you were actually smitten.”

“Gold star for Dean, then?”

“Absolutely,” she says with a wink.

It was all an act, of course, but I must admit, pretending to be Solange’s boyfriend wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be.

Solange

Sip City is the perfect place to decompress after a first fake date from hell.

“Give me every single drink in your repertoire,” I say to Brandon. “Just keep ’em coming.”

Brandon leans his elbows on the bar counter and taps my nose. “Will you settle for an experimental cocktail?” He waggles his eyebrows. “It has rum in it.”

“Is my name Solange?”

He rubs his hands together and backs away, a beaming smile on his handsome face.