He nods. “Okay. I can do it.”
“Good. Now, finish your soup before it gets cold.”
Chapter Four
OLLIE
SURVIVAL
“Do I look okay?” I ask, not for the first time tonight.
“Would you relax?” Hunter smacks my hand away from my tie so I won’t keep messing with it. “You look great.”
“Really?” I adjust my glasses, looking down at the white shirt with a festive tie and my standard black jacket.
“Promise.”
“I worry people are going to take one look at us and realize I’m lying,” I confess. “I feel like it’s written all over my forehead.”
“Hey.” Hunter grabs my bicep, pulls me off the sidewalk, and presses me up against the side of the building. “No one is going to know this isn’t real unless you blurt it out to them. We’ll go in there, have a few drinks, and chat with your coworkers before going home.”
“You know I’m prone to blurt things, right?”
He smiles at me. “I know. But if you think you’re in danger of saying anything, just say eggplant.”
“Eggplant?” I laugh. “Really, Hunter?”
My shoulders release the pent-up tension I’ve been carrying around since he picked me up earlier tonight.
This close, I can see Hunter’s playful brown eyes. A shudder racks my body at how they are fixed solely on me.
Wait,what?That’s a new feeling. Hunter has looked at me thousands of times, probably hundreds of thousands of times since we grew up together, and it’s never elicitedthiskind of response.
I ignore the feeling. It’s not what I need to be worried about right now.
“Got you to relax, didn’t it? Besides, we’re friends. People aren’t going to question how well we know each other.”
“You haven’t met Sharon. She’ll want to know everything.”
“Then it’s a good thing I know everything about you, Ollie. You can quiz me if it makes you feel better.”
I pin him with a look that says I want to do this but don’t want to say it because I don’t want to insult him. Like saying it is going to make it even more apparent that we aren’t dating.
“Fine,” he says. “You’re Ollie. We met when we were babies at the hospital because our moms were best friends. You’ve had glasses since second grade and you’re a superhero movie junkie. Soup is the only food group you care about, and though you won’t admit it, you love watching the gardening channel because it calms you down, despite having a black thumb.”
I straighten. “Okay, I guess we’ll be okay.”
“I told you we would.”
Hunter winks at me before stepping back onto the sidewalk and heading toward the restaurant. I can’t help it—my nerves are still on edge. Mainly because of how he made me feel.
Sound filters out from the bar. Music. Laughter. The happy chatter of voices. I wish attendance at this holiday party wasn’t required. It’s probably because people like me would choose to stay home.
Even though I love my job, I don’t like being social with people I don’t know well. And after all these years, I still consider my coworkers just that—coworkers.
Hunter holds the door open and sweeps his arm out in front of me. “After you.”
“Wow. You really know how to play up this whole boyfriend thing.”
