If I had known, maybe I wouldn’t have done it. Maybe the fear of finding myself with so many eyes on me would have been enough to stop me. So I’m glad I didn’t know.
I don’t say any of that to Dottie, but there’s a knowing gleam in her periwinkle eyes. Maybe her years have alsotaught her the ability to see beyond what is said to what is meant.
That, I’m afraid, is a talent I’ll never have.
Dottie raises a finger to the corner of her mouth and taps it. She opens her mouth to speak, and I ready myself to hear something of great profundity.
“Dear,” she says, “you have a little something here.”
CHAPTER SIX
NORA
“Well, I say it’s a beautiful solution to your problem,” Hannah says with a grin. “Pansy Pants is satisfied, and you and Cormac might actually stop bickering. Are you going to start sucking face with him the way Sophie did withherfake boyfriend?”
“Oh my God, no,” I say. After executing an eye roll to teenage-angst perfection, I glance around at my friends. Hannah, Briar, Sophie, and I are sitting at one of the little round tables in the tasting room. Most of them are empty now that Garbage Fire is playing crowd favorites to the guests gathered on the dance floor.
“Don’t knock it until you try it,” Sophie says with a satisfied smile, lifting her glass of Ginger Ever After.
Her diamond engagement ring sparkles in the light streaming through the windows. She and Rob surprised us all last month by announcing they’d gotten married—not just engaged,married—last month.
Sophie hadn’t wanted to go through the whole wedding to-do after breaking her previous engagement. There was also some unpleasantness with Rob’s family, given Rob’s shitty half-brother, Jonah, is the waste of life who brought all of us ladies together by dating us simultaneously.
Yes. She got with the brother of the man who did her wrong. Needless to say, I have given her all kinds of high-fives for being a legend.
Briar and Liam just got engaged last night, the next two dominoes to fall, and Hannah and Travis have been looking very marriage-y lately. It’s only a matter of time before I’m the last single lady left standing in our little group, but that’s okay. My brewery is better than any romantic partner. It only requires my complete, devoted attention and every second of my free time.
Besides, the fact that I was willing to actually marry real Marco to make my life easier is probably the red-flag indicator that I should never be in another actual serious relationship.
I wave at Sophie’s ring. “Sophie married her fake boyfriend. My situation is purely for Pansy Pants’ benefit. No kissing will be allowed.”
Still, I run a finger over my bottom lip, and my mind skips back to that almost-kiss from earlier. It didn’t mean anything, but it was sweet, the way Cormac came to my rescue. It was probably also undeserved.
I’ve put him in an uncomfortable position.
Sure, he doesn’t know José or Pansy, so lying to them shouldn’t matter to him. But he’s an honest person. It’s one of the things I like about him. He’s honest to the point that one would almost wish for a touch of dishonesty, but excessive honesty is preferable to casual, easy lies.
He’s a better person than I am, for sure.
I sigh and stuff a bite of cake into my face. After the chicken-surprise dinner, I didn’t have high hopes for dessert, but the three-tier mocha cake was made by Dottie’s partner, Bear, who runs a local bakery. Maybe it’s hunger that has driven upthe cake’s rating to eleven out of ten stars, but either way, it’s top-notch.
Turning toward Briar, I pointedly change the subject. “You just got engaged. Let’s talk about that instead.”
I had a front seat to the start of her relationship, partly because she came to me for advice about dating a co-worker. Liam’s the brewmaster at her brewery, just like I’m the head brewer at The Ginger Station. I told her it might get messy, but it’s worked out for them. It doesn’t seem to matter that Briar is Liam’s boss; they have the kind of supernova spark that makes everything else fall into shadow.
Is dating your subordinate awkward? Absolutely. But who cares when you can have hot sex in the barrel room?
In fact, if Liam hadn’t left a while back to deal with some minor but annoying issue at Silver Star, Briar probably wouldn’t be sitting here right now. They’d have snuck off to a closet or one of those hammocks.
“Yeah, we’re going to be sister wives.” Hannah grins as she nudges Briar’s shoulder.
“Very funny,” Briar replies dryly before shifting her attention back to me. “I don’t think this is the solution to your problem. If you play along with this, you’ll have to lie a lot, and so will Cormac. No one likes lying.”
I wave my fork at her, a few chocolate crumbs tumbling onto the table. “Oh, some people definitely like lying. Look at my dad.”
Thinking about him steals my appetite, and I push the delicious cake away.
The plate it’s on looks familiar, so I lift it up at an angle and snort when I see the stamp on the bottom.
