“Seriously? You’ve never played two truths and a lie?”
He shook his head.
“It’s easy. You tell me three things about yourself—two truths, one lie, obviously—and I have to guess the lie. If I’m right, you have to drink. If I’m wrong, I have to drink. And then it’s my turn. We go back and forth until we exhaust ourselves or one of us passes out stone-cold drunk.”
“I like it. I just don’t know if I can think of three things.”
“The trick is not to overthink it. Just toss something out there. Oh, and don’t do what I do and talk so much that the lie is obvious.”
He liked her sense of humor, her style of being. He especially liked her blue eyes and her smile. “Got it. So who goes first?”
“I’m thinking of a number between one and ten.”
“Eight,” he said automatically.
“Correct. You first.” She grinned, her eyes dancing with amusement.
“Wow. I was just had and I never saw it coming. Let me think.” He stared at the fire for a few moments. Amy started to hum the theme fromJeopardy!Everything that popped into his head sounded inane. What did he have to say about himself? He couldn’t think of one single interesting thing. “Okay,” he said. “I ran into my parent’s neighbor on a beach in Fiji.” He held up a finger. “I had two scholarships for college—one for golf, one for physics.” Two fingers. “I have hiked to the top of Kilimanjaro.” Three fingers.
The sparkle in Amy’s eyes went deeper. “How interesting,” she said. “Wait…where is Kilimanjaro again?”
Harrison blinked.
Amy laughed roundly and pointed at his glass. “Drink up, cowboy. And next time, don’t make the lie so obvious.”
“Obvious?I think I’m insulted. Why is it obvious I haven’t hiked to the top of Kilimanjaro? I mean, besides not knowing where it is?”
“For starters, by your own admission, you play golf all the time. When are you going to have time to train for a climb like that? Second, mountain climbers usually mention that in the first fifteen minutes of meeting them. You know, like runners mention their personal best. And three, you were smiling when you said it.”
“I was?”
“Like, so hard,” she said, and laughed at his crestfallen look.
He sighed, sipped his drink. Itwasa stout one. “Okay, your turn. Two truths and a lie, Miss Mountain Climbing Expert.”
“Sure! I took ballet until I was eighteen.”
Harrison nodded. Sounded entirely plausible. Didn’t all girls try on ballet at some point in their lives?
“I uncovered an embezzlement scheme in our office a few years ago.”
Bingo. She’d said she worked in human resources, he was fairlycertain. That didn’t sound like the sort of job where you looked at finances. “One more,” he said, gesturing for her to go on so he could astound her with his perceptions.
“I took a class on how to be a private eye.”
Harrison snorted. “You’re pretty easy, too, you know. Ballet seems like a no-brainer. The private eye thing, you were probably just bored. The obvious lie is discovering an embezzlement scheme at your work.” He pointed to her glass. “Bottoms up.”
“That’s so cute,” she said. “You’re so sure you’re right.”
Harrison’s grin faltered only slightly. “I see what you’re doing right now. You’re trying to make me second-guess myself.”
“I never took a class on how to be a private eye, although now that I’ve said it, I think I will. Doesn’t that sound fun?”
Harrison’s smile morphed into a frown. “Come on, that can’t be the lie.”
“Why not? I took ballet until I was eighteen at the insistence of my mother. I hated it. Maybe I should have added that in.”
“Wait…you caught someone embezzling from a company? From your human resources job?”
