Page 4 of On the Line

“Who’s getting here tonight.”

She drops her face into her hands. “Yes.”

I grin. “This keeps getting better.”

“For you, maybe.” She peeks at me through her fingers. “What am I supposed to do now?”

“Tell them you lied.”

“Absolutely not. I have pride.”

“Not a ton of it, apparently.”

She kicks the leg of my stool, and I laugh. She takes another long pull of her margarita and thinks it over. “Maybe I’ll say we broke up on the drive here.”

“That’s dark.”

“He cheated on me.”

“Darker.”

“With my dentist.”

“So, he’s a masochist?” I joke, earning another laugh. I like the sound of that way too much.

I should leave her alone. I don’t even know her name, and none of this is any of my business.

Then I think about tomorrow morning. Me, by myself, in a boat, because Joel would rather pick out tomatoes at the damn farmer’s market.

I turn on my stool to face her. “I’ll do it.”

She looks over. “Do what?”

“Be your fake boyfriend.”

For the first time since she walked in, she’s got nothing to say. She stares at me, then at Mikki, then back at me. “What?”

“For the weekend.”

“You’re offering to pretend to be my boyfriend.”

“Sure.”

“Why?”

I think about lying and decide against it. “Honestly? I’m bored.”

She laughs so hard she nearly chokes on her drink. “Because you’re bored? Worst pickup line ever.”

I grin. “Hey, I don’t need a pickup line if I’m your fake boyfriend. We’re already at the so serious I’m meeting the friends stage of the relationship, remember?”

She studies me, and I let her. I’m thirty-four. I’ve got a job, all my own teeth and a reasonably clean truck. She could do worse.

“You could be a serial killer,” she says.

“I’m not.”

“Which is exactly what a serial killer would say.”