Page 8 of On the Line

“First time we really talked,” he says, which is technically true. Then he looks at me, and I realize the whole table is waiting for more.

“He spilled a beer on me,” I say.

His eyebrows go up. “I did?”

“You did.”

“Pretty sure I’d remember that.”

My heart stops for a second. Then he smiles. “Oh, right. That night’s a bit of a blur.” He gives my friends a conspiratorial wink. “I needed some liquid courage to work up the nerve to ask Delaney out.”

“Awww,” my friends say in unison.

“But I had to ask her out,” Liam says, reaching down to my knee. “She’s so damn beautiful.”

I go completely still. His hand just stays there, on my knee, big and warm and not the least bit shy about it, and every thought in my head wanders off somewhere.

“So,” Priya says, “how long has this been going on?”

“Six weeks,” I say.

“More or less,” says Liam.

I turn. “More or less?”

He shrugs. “Depends if you count the week you pretended you weren’t interested.”

Everyone laughs. I stare at him, and he squeezes my knee. Oh, he’s good at this. He’s way too good at this.

We eat dinner out on the back deck. The house sits right on the water, and there are boats drifting around the lake and music floating over from somewhere across the cove. It’s exactly the weekend I wanted, except now there’s a six-foot-something fake boyfriend beside me with his arm across the back of my chair, and I keep forgetting that it’s fake. His fingers brush my shoulder every time I lean forward. When somebody asks me a question, he actually listens to the answer. When my wineglass gets low, he fills it without asking.

Kelsey catches my eye across the table and mouths holy shit at me. I have to look away so I won’t laugh.

After dinner everybody drifts down toward the dock. Liam stays right beside me.

“You’re enjoying this,” I whisper.

“Very much.”

“You’re a menace.”

“That wasn’t in my background check?”

The others are far enough ahead now that nobody can hear us. “You really are good at this,” I tell him, and I mean it.

He looks down at me, and the teasing slides off his face. “You make it easy, gorgeous.”

My pulse jumps. That sounded a lot less like a joke than everything else he’s said tonight.

Before I can work out what to say back, Nora spins around on the dock. “Photo!”

“What?”

“Couples picture. Come on, everybody.”

Everyone crowds together at the end of the dock, and I end up tucked against Liam’s side with his arm around my waist and mine around his. It’s easy, which is kind of the problem.

Nora holds up her phone. “Closer.”