“Not mine, obviously.” Open mouth, insert foot. Why did Perry have to be so fucking good looking? There was no way I was in his league. He was dressed in jeans that were torn in an expensive way, not a worked them to death kind of way, and a shirt that looked as soft as butter. Two-thirds of my wardrobe were scrubs. Back when I first opened my practice, I’d tried to dress normally, but there were only so many shirts I’d been willing to sacrifice after being covered in various fluids. Scrubs were comfortable and easily replaced.
“Might make it a bit awkward if you were looking for a boyfriend to take to your wedding.” Perry’s grin was impish, like he was genuinely pleased that I was flustered.
“I’ve been trying to come up with alternative solutions all morning and short of faking my death and moving to Portugal, this seems like the next best thing.”
Ethan returned and took our orders. An omelet for me and Perry ordered the waffle stack. We’d agreed to meet for breakfast because it sounded more relaxed than a lunch or dinner date. Plus, it wasn’t really a date so much as a negotiation.
“I’m glad to know that I rate just above moving to Portugal.”
His smile let me know he wasn’t offended by my remarks, so I leaned in, getting a little more comfortable with him as each moment passed.
“You do, but only just. Portugal still isn’t off the table completely.”
“Yeah, but then you’d have to move your practice, and Blue wouldn’t have a job. He’d be very sad.”
“Okay, then I guess there will be no Portugal.”
Perry grinned like he’d won something. “Looks like you’re stuck with me.”
“I don’t think stuck is the right word.”
Perry glanced down at his coffee, trying to school his expression and hide his smile from me.
“So why do you need a fake boyfriend? I know what Blue told me, but I want to hear it from you.”
“My baby brother is getting married, and he doesn’t know that I used to date his fiancé. It was never serious between us, and he broke up with me after seven or eight months. I never saw him again until he showed up on Nigel’s arm the other day. And I might have panicked. I’m not hung up on my ex, but it seemed important at the time, faced with this man from my past, that I not be single.”
“So you did what any normal person would do.”
I nodded in agreement. “I lied through my teeth. Invented a boyfriend, said I’d bring him to the wedding. Nigel looked pleased, and it’s not that I need the approval of my baby brother, but I don’t want to disappoint him. And I don’t want to have to tell him that my fake boyfriend broke up with me just daysbefore his wedding. That feels like the kind of pathetic that I can’t subscribe to.”
“Well, Blue came to the right man because I’d love to be your fake boyfriend, but I have conditions.”
“Anything.”
“First, when’s the wedding?”
“It’s in three months.”
Perry let out a low whistle. “That gives us approximately twelve weeks to pull this off. We’ll need to be convincing. I can’t just show up in twelve weeks and hang off your arm all night. People will talk, ask questions, we need time to coordinate our stories.”
“It almost sounds like you’ve done this before.”
“I plead the fifth.”
Our breakfast arrived before Perry could say anything else, and we both tucked into our food, happy to sit in silence and let our conversation rest while we ate a little and got our bearings.
“Let’s talk about those conditions.”
“Of course.”
“I want to go on dates.”
I lifted my gaze and looked at Perry. His eyes were down and focused on his waffles like cutting them was a surgical procedure instead of breakfast.
“Dates?”
“Yes, dates. At least one a week. We need to get to know each other, to get comfortable with each other. We’ll need stories to tell people who might ask. We have to craft a familiarity. We’ll have to do things like hold hands and kiss or dance. We’ll have to move like a couple, instead of a couple of strangers.”
