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“Are we playing some sort of game I’m unaware of where you give me as little details as humanly possible until I spontaneously combust?”
I reach out and boop his nose. “Are you pouting? You’re so cute when you’re flustered.”
“I’m gonna need more details, Mack. You’re killing me.”
I wave him off. “He had this whole spiel about how we’d been keeping our relationship a secret so I could bolster my reputation based on my own merit or something. Honestly, it was prettyconvincing. He even had themapologizingfor invading our privacy by the end of it. It was honestly amazing.”
“And they actually bought that?”
Another shrug. “I guess so, since we signed a disclosure.”
“Jesus, Mack. Have you even thought about what your—can you please stop?”
I pull the candy bar from my mouth. “What?”
“Stop scraping the toppings off with your teeth.” He grimaces. “It’s disgusting.”
“But the cookie is my favorite part. You know that.”
“It doesn’t make it any more of a pretty process to watch. Plus, I don’t want your icky chocolate fingers all over my desk.”
“Did you just say ‘icky’?”
“I swear to all that’s holy, I will boot you out of my cube.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I return to what I was doing. “They should sell the cookies by themselves then.”
“Whatever. What about Moira? You think your gran is going to buy that you’re suddenly mated?”
“Just dating,” I clarify.
“What?”
“We’re mated here, but dating with Gran.”
It’s a subtle distinction, but an important one.
Parker snorts. “Oh, so now you’ve got multifaceted deceptions going on? Whipping ourselves up a tomfoolery tiramisu, are we?”
“You’re ridiculous. It’s going to be fine,” I assure him. “Just think. A nice long stretch of not having to pretend to give a damn about some guy’s fantasy football league.”
“I would say that’s a victory—except now you have to spend time with Noah fucking Taylor.”
“I don’t think that’s his actual middle name.”
“Are you sure?” Parker throws up his hands. “How would you know? You lumped yourself in with his little conspiracy plot without knowing a thing about him!”
“I didn’t have a lot of options.”
“Why didn’t you ask me?”
“Because we’ve been friends since middle school?”
“Haven’t you ever read friends to lovers?”
“Haveyouread friends to lovers?”
“I am not going to justify my literature choices to you.”
