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“I like sweet pea better,” she responded distractedly. “Anyway, it seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“I doubt thinking entered into it. Reacting is more like it.”
“Well, making it seem as if we were involved was an easy shortcut answer to what we were doing in a bar together.”
“How about the truth, instead?”
“Not nearly as satisfying.”
“You got me there,” he conceded.
They continued to stare at each other. She was inches away, emanating a palpable feminine energy.
“You know they’re going to tell people,” he remarked. “The news is too good not to share.”
She looked worried. “I know.”
He tilted his head, contemplating her.
“We’ll have to let people wonder, and the gossip will fizzle out in time.”
He shook his head. “Not nearly as satisfying.”
She gazed at him quizzically. “As what?”
“As making it seem as if we really are a couple.”
“What?”
Her voice came out as a high-pitched squeak, and he had to smile.
“Now that the cat is out of the bag, we’ll need to keep up the ruse for a while in order to keep the fallout from hurting both our reputations.”
“But I just explained it’ll fizz—”
“Not fast enough. People are going to conclude we were trying to get back at our exes.”
She looked stung, but then her expression became resolute. “All right, but we keep up the charade only until the fund-raiser. That should be enough time for this to pass out of public conversation.”
He thought she was deluding herself about that last part, but he let it go. “Sal must really mean something for you to have pulled that stunt.”
He wasn’t jealous, just curious, he told himself.
She shook her head. “No, it’s more about being dumped for someone who looked like a better bet.”
“Vicki?”
“I can’t believe you dated her,” she huffed.
“Hey, you’re the one who went so far as to get engaged—” he jerked his thumb to indicate the back of the bar “—to that.”
“The correct pronoun is him. To him,” she responded.
“Maybe for school, but not in hockey.”
“Why do men—athletes—date women like Vicki?”
He flashed his teeth. “Because we can.”
