“You could get off your gay ass and find me something to wear,” I countered.
“Are you going to bring me leftovers?” he countered, not looking up from his Nintendo Switch.
“Sure.” I sighed.
“Steak with mashed potatoes and macaroni and cheese?”
“I can’t just order you a whole meal!” I complained.
“Order it for yourself and don’t eat it.”
I groaned.
“Or you can just show up in a T-shirt and jeans. I’m sure that will go over well.”
“Fine! I’ll order you a steak.”
“And dessert. And a bottle of wine if you can swing it.”
He rolled off the bed and sauntered over to the closet. Edward liked to pretend he wasn’t that kind of gay man. After all, he liked to hunt, shoot guns, and work on cars. I wasn’t one to reduce him to a stereotype—he wasn’t my shopping buddy, he was my friend, though he did have an eye for shape and composition.
“This isn’t a real date,” I said. “I don’t know why I’m so nervous.”
“Because he’s hot and rich.” Edward turned up his nose at all my clothes then went to his footlocker. He handed me his black leather trench coat and a shiny gold belt from a hook on the wall.
“What the—I can’t wear this!” I shrieked.
“Just do it,” he ordered.
I shimmied out of my pencil skirt and blouse and put on the trench coat. Edward belted it, fluffed out my hair, and draped gold necklaces around my neck. He handed me a pair of platform stilettoes. Then he swabbed makeup on my eyes and stepped back to look at me critically.
“I can’t go like this. I look like a prosti—”
Edward turned me around, and I stared at my reflection in the cracked mirror.
“Dayum! I look hot.”
“I want my steak rare. It needs to still be twitching.”
* * *
At the Salt House restaurant,a tall man in a suit stood just inside the doorway. He looked up from his phone and grinned when he saw me. I resisted the urge to turn and run.
“Nathan.” I squared my shoulders. He looked me up and down.
“Avery. Fancy seeing you here.” He crossed over to me and bent his head down as if he was going to kiss me.
“Nope.” I pushed him away.
“But you told your family I was the love of your life!” His eyes had that glint of crazy that I had ignored a few months ago when I’d asked him to be my fake boyfriend for a family event. I had continued to ignore it when I got drunk and slept with him that night.
“I’ve been thinking about you. You didn’t answer my calls or emails. Did you receive the gifts I sent you?”
“It was a fake relationship,” I hissed at him as the hostess gave us a questioning look from behind the tall mahogany desk. “It wasn’t real.”
“You felt very real in bed with me,” he said.
“It wasn’t.”
