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“Five dollars, actually,” she chuckled back. “I usually shut them down before they get that far.”
“What’s going on?” I asked as I exited my office. With our office doors always opened, their conversation had been easy to overhear.
Cory looked over at me. “My mother is forcing me to go to some church barbecue this Saturday, and Skylar is being kind enough to go as my date.”
My stomach flipped.
“What?”
“Yeah,” Cory cringed. “My mother is on this crusade to get me married off to some nice girl, and she’s being relentless about it. This stupid barbecue is her way of throwing me to the sharks.” He smiled over at Skylar. “I convinced Sky to go with me as my date, so that my mom backs off.”
“Why go at all?” I asked, doing my best not to reach out, grab Skylar by her neck, then drag her against me, yelling that she’s mine like a goddamn caveman.
“My cousin, Janet, helped put it on, so all the family is going,” Cory explained. “I’ll look like a dick if I don’t go. Plus, I like Janet. I actually wouldn’t mind going if it weren’t for my mother and her matchmaking ways.”
“So…Skylar’s going to pretend to be your girlfriend all day long?” I asked, and I could feel my blood begin to boil. I didn’t care if this was an innocent outing or not.
“No,” Cory answered.
“Okay, now I’m confused,” I said because I was.
“She’s going as my date,” he said, and I just stared at him.
“If I go with him as his girlfriend, his mother will automatically assume that it’s serious and start talking weddings,” Skylar said, finally chiming in. “We’re going in the guise of a first date, so that she doesn’t label me as her newest daughter-in-law.”
Cory grinned. “Plus, if my mother does start acting pushy, I can tell her that she’s the reason that Skylar broke up with me later.”
“Or you could simply tell your mother that you’re a grown ass man, and that you don’t need her meddling in your love life,” I suggested.
“Yeah, right,” he snorted. “I’ll get right on that.”
“You’re really asking a son to go up against his mother?” Skylar asked, and I knew that she was doing it just to be contrary. “What’d Cory ever do to you?”
“Seriously,” Cory muttered.
I straightened to my full height, then crossed my arms over my chest. “I just think that it might send the wrong message,” I told them. “If you go out with Cory-pretend girlfriend or otherwise-then the other guys might think that it’s okay to start asking you out.”
“They already ask her out.” Cory looked over at Skylar. “Don’t they?”
“I’m not talking about playful flirting,” I clarified. “I’m talking about serious interest.”
Cory cocked his head at me. “Dude, where in the hell have you been? A few guys have already asked her out seriously. She turned them all down, but they were still interested. Hell, they probably still are.”
My eyes shot Skylar’s way. “I think we need to talk.”
“Sure, Boss,” she drawled out sarcastically, but I didn’t care.
*****
Skylar~
It sucked to discover when you were wrong, and I was wrong.
Again.
The past month had been pretty perfect by my accounts. After Landen had fingered me in the storage building, things had gotten back to normal, and I’d been under the impression that things had been going well with our arrangement.
Apparently, not.
