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“Um…hmm.” She had a point. “I hadn’t really thought that far.”

Abigail smirked. “I knew it.”

“Knew what?”

“You’re not very good at this lying thing.”

“Some women would consider that a very attractive quality,” I noted.

“Yeah, it’s adorable.” Abigail sat back and gave me a long look. “Are you sure you want to go through with this, Rex? You really think you can keep up a lie of this magnitude for the entire weekend?”

“I think it’s too late now.” I’d already told Donny I was bringing a date. I’d told him a hell of a lot more than that, actually. And making sure that no one thought I was hung up on Blair was definitely the best thing for everyone.

Besides, Iwasn’thung up on Blair. We’d dated when I came back to town after college. She was a few years younger than me, and we ended up together when we were both at crossroads in our lives; I was trying to settle myself in town and make suremy mom and brother were taken care of, and she was trying to figure out how to start her life as an adult. We broke up because she had dreams of glitz and glamour, and I wanted something simpler. My hometown, a nice house, and someone to grow old with. We weren’t compatible. It had hurt, as any breakup did, but I’d known it was for the best.

Now, when I saw the first photo online of her and Donny together…

That had felt worse.

I’d called him, and he’d admitted they’d started seeing each other a few months after we broke up. The timeline was…hazy. Short. Awkward. Since then, our relationship hadn’t been the same. Notbad, exactly, but just not the same.

In the end, I decided that it was my job to take the higher road. I’d seen what resentment could do to a family; my father had resented being married to my mother, and it had poisoned our entire existence. I became an expert at figuring out his mood and adapting. I tried to go out of my way to be good, to keep the tattered scraps of our family together while I could. When he died, it’d been a relief. We didn’t have to pretend anymore. Didn’t have to walk on eggshells all the time.

My role in our family unit of three cemented itself. I was the glue. I held us together.

Resenting Donny for falling in love with the wrong woman would go against everything I believed in. It would go against who I was.

So I let it go.

Now I found myself needing a girlfriend on my arm to keep up appearances and to make sure that Donny didn’t think I wasmad at him or his wife-to-be. I was covering the truth with a lie, just to make sure our fraying family relationships didn’t break completely.

And I was relying on the most unpredictable, explosive, impulsive, devious woman I’d ever met in order to do it.

There was no way we were pulling this off.

Abigail glanced at me, and I couldn’t help but enjoy the way she looked in the passenger seat of my truck. Close enough to touch. “All right. Well, if I were you, I’d keep my mouth shut from now on. Once you’ve spun a web of sticky lies, it’s hard not to get caught up in them.”

I shrugged. “You’re the expert.”

Her jaw dropped. “Rude! That was sorude!”

This time, I couldn’t help my grin. “Was it?”

She frowned at me. “Whoareyou?”

I laughed. “Get outta here,” I said, nodding to her house.

Abigail shook her head, unbuckled her seatbelt, and opened the passenger door. “So we’re really doing this?”

“Yep, I’ll pick you up on Friday at six for the rehearsal.”

She smiled, and it felt like it always did when Abigail smiled at me. Like I’d just stepped into a beam of warm sunlight that was shining just for me.

“Okay. Then after this, we’re even, right? No more favors?”

“We’re even.”

Abigail hopped out of the cab. “Just so you know, this is the strangest favor I’ve ever done.”