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Jewel seemed to think about this. “Yeah. I could see that. He’s pretty fucking smart.”

Jill nodded. “Totally.”

“I used to tell my friends that my older brother was a genius,” Jane said. “He’s like, the smartest person I know. Didn’t he skip a grade?”

“Yup,” Dad said. “And breezed through med school.”

Briana squeezed my hand again. I let a small smile crack. My parents shared some sort of private look that I couldn’t interpret from across the table.

An hour later, the night was over. Mom put Briana through only one photo album. I managed to work our catchphrase into the conversation when Mom passed Briana the Edible Arrangement at dessert and it had cantaloupe on it. I blurted, “Not on my watch!” before diving for the fruit like it was going to jump up and bite her. That was my grand awkward finale of the night.

After that, Briana made good on the promise of giving me a break and announced she had to get home to feed the cat so we could leave.

They all hugged her on the way out. They seemed to really like her, which I knew they would. So we pulled it off. At least today we did.

And I wondered how much she regretted agreeing to this…

Chapter 20

Briana

It was almost ten-thirty when Jacob walked me to my door.

“Well, that was a nightmare,” he said, slipping his hands in his pockets. “Thanks for sticking it out.”

“What?” I said, digging in my purse for my keys. “I had so much fun. And I think we did pretty well. I mean, the phrase drop was a little rough.” I pulled out my keys and turned to him. “I think you could work on your transition next time, but I still gave it a solid six out of ten.”

He looked amused.

“Also, those Halloween pictures of you were so cute. I can’t believe you were a mermaid.”

“A mer-man,” he said with mock seriousness. “I was a mer-man.”

I laughed and it made him laugh and his eyes wrinkled at the corners. I liked it when he loosened up. He seemed lighter now that the whole thing was over. He had that relieved, saved-from-a-near-death-experience thing about him.

“Thanks for the potty-training thing,” he said. “Making fun of me is part of the family initiation process, apparently.”

“Yeah, I totally made that up. But contextually it’s true. You are highly intelligent.”

“I want you to know that I have been fully potty trained for quite some time now. I’m pretty proud of it.”

I laughed again and he gave me a bashful smile.

Damn, he was handsome. It seemed cliché, but his smile really did light up a room. Bright and dazzlingly gorgeous—and he didn’t do it a lot. You really had to draw him out and earn it.

I enjoyed earning it.

It occurred to me that if this was a date, I’d be having a really good time. Like, really good. I’d go home with this one.

Why weren’t guys like this on the dating apps?

But then I knew why. Because Jacob was way too introverted to put himself out there like that. And even if he did, something told me he wasn’t the friends-with-benefits, casual-hookup type—which was the only type I was interested in. His profile would probably say he was looking for a life partner. That he wanted to get married and have kids. I would have swiped left.

But I could still appreciate the view.

“So tomorrow we tell everyone at work,” I said. “I’ll probably do lunch with Jessica to let her know.”

He nodded. “Okay.”