“Great!” The butterflies were back with a vengeance. She was actually going through with this. “I’ve never faked a relationship before, and it’s been ages since my last real one. So I guess we should get our story straight. There’s going to be a ton of people.”
“United front, got it. Any crazy exes I should be aware of?”
“No, you?”
“Nope. My last girlfriend was in college.”
“How old are you? I feel like we should know that.”
“Twenty-seven. You?”
“Twenty-four. Favorite color?”
“I don’t pay too much attention to color normally. But red and white were my school colors in college.”
She chuckled. “That’s funny, red’s my favorite. Where did you study?”
“University of Nebraska. I went on a football scholarship.” He sipped at his coffee, his back relaxed into the chair. “You?”
“University of Maryland. Should we tell people we met at the convention?”
“I’d rather not mention that at all, if we can help it. The guys would never let me live it down.” His eyes darted nervously from side to side. “Can we stick to meeting at work?”
Olivia bit back a sigh, his comment rubbing her the wrong way. “Sure, that’s fine. For the record, it’s not like my family doesn’t know I’m into anime.”
“It’s not you or your family I’m worried about, Princess.” His voice was soft, and he licked his lips before he continued. “It’s the media. I have to be Mr. College Football on camera and I’m not established enough to fly my nerd flag.”
“But some day?”
“Maybe.” He took another sip of his coffee. “I’m not ashamed of you if that’s what you’re thinking.”
Heat rose to Olivia’s cheeks to match the intense smolder in his eyes. She’d never had a guy look at her like that before. He was a man in the desert looking at a bottle of water.
“What should we say our first date was?” he asked, bringing her back to the present.
She gestured around them. “We’re kind of on it now, right?”
He shook his head. “Nah. I can tell you don’t actuallylikelying, so how about I pick you up for dinner next Saturday? We can use the time to get to know each other a little better so we can sell it. Then when anyone asks, we can honestly say that was our first ‘date.’”
Olivia found herself smiling. “I think that sounds great.”
She was officially crazy. She was taking a hot football anchor to her family reunion. And she wasn’t even dating him.
But she found herself wishing it wasn’t fake.
