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“I asked one of my assistants at work if she could help me pick them out. She’s got great taste in clothes, so I knew she’d do a good job. I had to guess at your size. I landed on a six. Am I close?”

My assistant, Charlotte, is never surprised at the tasks I give her. She’s sent flowers to so many women at this point that she has my order memorized. Always a mixed assortment, never roses.

Tess looks at me and laughs. “You nailed it. I'm almost always a size six. Is this another superpower you have? Guessing a woman’s dress size…”

I chuckle and shake my head. “Not that I know of. Well, anyway, I hope you like them.”

“Yeah, I can't wait to see them. That was very thoughtful of you.” She looks around uncomfortably. I hope I didn’t do something stupid by buying her dresses. I’ve done it many times before for other women and most of them seemed pretty damn happy about it. But Tess is different than other women…

The server returns with the margaritas. “Here’s to some fun this summer,” I toast, raising my glass. She clinks her glass against mine, looking directly into my eyes. Taking a couple of big gulps of liquid courage, I prepare myself for what I have to tell her next.

But before I get a chance to, she asks for some more details about the first wedding.

“So, the first wedding is coming up in two weeks, right?

“Yes, it’s on Whidbey Island. So, we’ll drive and then take the ferry.”

“And, who’s getting married?”

“Daphne and Rence. They’re really more family friends than personal friends. But there will be lots of people there that I know. And Jane and Trey will be there as well.”

“Yes, I talked with Jane earlier and she told me they’re going.”

“Oh, good, you told Jane that you’ll be my date. What did she say?” I feel nervous about asking the question. I wasn’t sure how Jane would feel about all this. Since Tess is her best friend, she might think it’s pretty weird that I would ask her.

“She was thrilled that I’d be at the weddings. She was a little confused about why you asked me though. I explained our “deal” and that made more sense to her.”

“Nothing wrong with friends helping friends, right?”

“Sure,” she says looking at me in a way I can’t decipher.

Okay, it's definitely time to let her know about the other news…the part I haven’t shared yet. I swallow hard and being. “So, there's one more thing that I need to tell you about our situation.”

“What's that?” Tess asks, thumbing her bottom lip.

“You’ll be required to drink coffee every morning with me on our wedding weekends. I can’t have a date who doesn’t drink coffee.” I try desperately to keep a straight face.

She shakes her head laughing. “You and the coffee thing. So pushy…”

“I’m joking obviously…though I will make a coffee drinker out of you before the summer is over.”

“You’ve got a tough road ahead of you, Mr. Coffee.”

“All jokes aside, I do have something to tell you,” I pause for a moment. “I sort of told my dad that you and I are, well, dating. Real dating that is, not fake dating.”

Tess looks at me with wide eyes. “I’m sorry…What did you say?”

“I told Dad that we're dating.” I feel like such an idiot right now.

“Um, okay. I thought that’s what you said.” She furrows her brow. “Why?”

“Dad was on me again about not settling down, and he was thrilled that you were coming with me, but then he mentioned that, of course, we're just friends, and I just need to double down on finding somebody and move forward. I don't know what happened. I just sort of lost it and lied.”

Tess laughs nervously. “Well, this is going to put us in a really interesting position. Have you thought about telling him that you were just kidding or something?” When she says “position”, my brain goes straight to sex. I feel my face flushing and hope that it’s not noticeable.

“I was hoping not to have to tell him that, Tess. I was thinking that maybe we can just pretend, just for these weddings, and then we'll amicably break up and let everyone know that we're still friends. No harm, no foul.”

“That seems pretty complicated. I’m not sure how we would pull that off.” Looking down at her blouse, she picks off a stray hair.