“Do I want to know?” She ticked her head to the side, a stray curl bobbing against her neck.
Good thing he was on a relationship diet or he would find something like that totally adorably attractive.
He gave a quick shake of his noggin. “Nope.”
“Right.” She drew a deep breath, her chest heaving with the motion. “Ollie got into stunt camp this morning, yay.”
That was a forced “yay” if he’d ever heard one.
“Congrats.”
“Yeah…okay…so…” She paused. Didn’t speak. “How do you feel about committing fraud?” she asked, totally serious.
He nearly choked on his spit even as his mouth went dry. “I feel like it’s a bad idea.”
“Okay, but hear me out…”
“Molly?” He shook his head. They should nip this one in the bud before the feds showed up and he was out of a job and a family. “I don’t commit felonies.”
“But misdemeanors are okay?”
He drew his eyebrows together because it felt a little like this was a set-up, and he didn’t like set-ups of the date variety or the criminal variety. “Prefer not to do that, too.”
She sat taller, angled her body toward him. “Hear me out.”
“I make no commitments.” He crossed his arms.
“Of course you don’t. You’reyou.” Her sarcasm was on point, but it stung a little all the same.
“Ha,” he said, rolling with it so she could spit out whatever it was she needed to spit.
“So, you know about the whole matchmaking competition for Agnes and Charlie.”
He nodded again. Yeah, he knew about it. He’d even watched her video about it and cast his vote in her favor—not that he needed to broadcast that after her commitment snark.
“I’m getting beat by a matchmaker with a partner. They’re teaming up.”
Yeah, he’d seen that, too. They made for good web-based television, but he didn’t need to point that out. Instead, he stayed silent and let her finish…
“Agnes had an idea.” She played with the strap of her purse some more, not meeting his eyes. “While I think it’s a bad idea…”
Still, he waited.
“She thinks that you and I banter well together and we should pose as a fraudulently real couple for my videos,” she continued quickly.
That was not at all what he expected her to say. Huh.
He did his very best to keep his expression neutral, but he struggled against a whole wave ofwhat the hell?
“Fraudulently real?”
“Like we pretend it’s real, but really it’s not.”
Right. Okay. He pretended like he was speaking with one of his kids. “I think fraud—of all varieties—is a bad idea.”
“I know.” Molly held up her hands. “I know. It’s ridiculous. But then I started thinking…”
Why was he worried this wouldn’t end well for him?
