“What?”
I hold the open text thread in front of his eyes. “Summer clearly still wants you to come.”
“You’re reading my texts?”
“Not on purpose. She sent a picture.” I shake the phone. “Throw the poor girl a bone.”
“I’m working.” He swipes the device away from his face. “Besides, I already made things right with her. She’s fine.”
“She’s not fine. She’s trying to get you to come withouttellingyou to come.” My eyes drop to the picture. “I feel bad for her.”
Summer seems like a nice enough girl. She deserves more than Justin’s indifference while he decides whether or not he wants her.
“You know, you could solve this if you wanted. You could go to the party for me.”
“Not this again.”
“I don’t know what the big deal is. You used to love swapping. You thought it was funny.”
“It’s been a decade since we’ve done anything like that.”
“That’s not true. What about last year when your passport expired, and you couldn’t get one in time for your international flight?” I roll my eyes but don’t say anything because I know he’s nailed me on this one. “You made me drive to Aurora, pose as you, say I had urgent travel—”
“Filming in Austria was urgent. We had a small window of time I could climb that particular mountain.”
He gives me a sharp look before continuing. “Then overnight it to you in Wyoming.”
“Montana,” I correct.
“Whatever. The point is, I missed work, dropped everything, lied on an official US document—I could go to jail, by the way—all for you, and you can’t go to one stupid holiday party for me? I thought you wanted to work on our relationship.”
“No, I said I wanted to hang out, reconnect. Posing as you doesn’t fall under those categories.”
“Oh, come on. Just do this one thing for me. It’s not like you have anything else going on tonight. Plus, it will appease Summer’s family and make them not hate me as much when I show up for Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow night.”
“They’re still going to hate you,” I tease with a smile.
“Butless.”
“You’re forgetting one major detail: Summer doesn’t want to do this.”
“Summer doesn’t know what she doesn’t know. Shethinksshe doesn’t want to do this, but after she sees how well it works, she’ll thank us for getting her family off her back.”
“I don’t know.” I shake my head. “I still don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“Why?
“Posing as you for her family feels like leading the poor girl on even more.”
“I’m not leading her on. I’m still deciding. But if her family hates me, then she’ll break up with me before I do decide. What if she’s the love of my life, and this one little holiday party ruins everything? Do you really want to have that on your shoulders?”
My eyes pin him. “You can’t manipulate me.”
“Fine. Then just do this for me because I’m begging you to.”
“I don’t know. It’s weird.”
“What’s weird?”
