“Ohhh.” A twinge of sympathy flutters in my chest. “I’ve invented a few fake boyfriends when a dude is too pushy at a club. Like that?”
“Kind of. Except what if you also lied to your parents about a relationship because they were sitting right there when you were trying to get off the hook with Presley?”
“Josh . . .”
“You sound disappointed.”
“I only said your name.”
“In a disappointed way.”
I stifle a laugh. “Do you hear your name in a disappointed way often?”
“You have no idea.”
It’s hard to imagine this cookie cutter corporate lawyer disappointing people often.
“I especially heard it a lot from myself today while I lectured me on being an idiot.”
“And a liar.”
“Wow, Sami. Thank you for the assist there. I would definitely have forgotten I’m a lying liar without it.”
I scoot my chair closer to his side of the balcony. “You better tell me about it, so I can decide if I’m judging you harshly enough.”
I listen to his dramatic re-enactment of dinner with his parents and the scheming Presley. Josh is a good storyteller and pokes plenty of fun at himself, so I don’t have to.
“And that’s how I invented a girlfriend I have to produce by dinnertime tomorrow or I’ll break my parents’ heart again,” he concludes. “Unless. . .”
His tone carries a heavy note of suggestion. “No way,” I say, even as I wonder about that “again.” “I’m not being your fake girlfriend.” I can think of four hundred other ways I’d rather spend an evening, including cleaning the baseboards in our condo with a toothbrush.
“Way to jump to conclusions, Sam I am,” he says. “I was about to ask for your nurse knowledge in thinking of sudden onset viruses or injuries that would keep me from dinner tomorrow night. Is ebola still a thing? Is that too over the top?”
“It is, yeah. Maybe stick with flu.”
“Would flu also keep me away from Sunday family dinner after the Reillys leave? Because we’re having brisket.”
“Yes. And so would ebola.”
He gives a long sigh.
“Or—and hear me out because this is wild—you could tell your parents the truth. Brisket is even better with a clean conscience.”
“No way. If you met Presley, you’d understand. Nothing short of a fiancée will stop her, and maybe not even that.”
“Guess you’re going to have to hire a call girl.”
He makes a choking sound before he manages, “What did you say?”
“Call girl. Have her pretend to be your girlfriend. I heard about a couple of girls putting themselves through college that way. You don’t have to sleep with her. Just request a smart one and pay her to be your date. Then it won’t even be fake.”
After a pause, he says, “I can’t decide if you’re serious or not.”
“I’m not.”
“Good. Because it wouldn’t work anyway. Dinner is at my parents’ country club, and there’s a pretty good chance that a not-small number of the men there would recognize any, uh, ‘pro’ that I hired. Besides, there’s another complication.”
“All you’re doing is looking for obstacles and not solutions but go ahead. Lay it on me,” I tease, tilting back my chair.
