Page 16 of Playboy For Hire

“Do you actually know how to play bocce?” I asked.

“Well, no. But I don’t think any of my other family members do either. More importantly, there’s a gay bocce league that none of my family has a connection to, so we won’t have to explain why we don’t know their friend of a friend of a friend.”

“Fair enough. We could say that you kicked my ass, if you want.”

He laughed again, and the warmth of it was like wrapping up in a flannel blanket on a chilly day.

“We need this story to be believable,” he said, “and no one in my family is going to believe I beat anyone in a sporting event.”

“What do you do for work?” I asked. “We could just say that I had a summer internship with your firm or something.”

That would have been better than what had actually happened last summer. Then again, anything would have been. It was hard to imagine a bigger fuckup than last summer if I’d tried. And it was all my fault.

But Quinn shook his head. “Not unless you’ve secretly gone to law school. There are six other lawyers in the family, four of whom are going to be at the party. Unless you think you can answer detailed questions about the law—”

I held up my hands in surrender. “No, you’re right. I definitely can’t do that.” I thought for a moment. “You have any consultants in your family?”

“A few,” he said. “But no one really understands what they do, so we don’t tend to talk about it much.”

“That’s because it’s not a real job,” I told him. “But it pays extremely well. We can go with that. I know enough to fake being an entry-level drone at Deloitte or McKinsey.”

Faking it was probably all I’d ever do, considering the way my job search had been going this spring. But I wasn’t supposed to be thinking about that now.

“Alright,” I said, “I think that covers most of what I need to know. There’s only one other thing we haven’t talked about yet. How much PDA will your family expect?”

Quinn frowned. “PDA?”

Had he never heard that acronym before?

“You know, public displays of affection. Hugging, kissing, grabbing your ass in full view of your grandparents and calling you sweet pea.”

“Oh god, please don’t do that,” he said, a flush creeping into his cheeks.

“I was just joking. Well, about the ass-grabbing. But it is a genuine question. What will your family expect from us for our relationship to be believable?”

“You don’t have to worry about any of that.” He waved away the question. “I promise.”

“I’m not worried, just curious.” Was I making him uncomfortable with this topic? Or did he assumeIwould be uncomfortable talking about it? “For reference, I usually find a little bit of physical affection helps to sell the story. A short kiss or two, maybe some hand-holding. Whatever would be reasonable for the context, and your personality.”

No doubt about it, he was full-on blushing now. “I, uh, don’t have much of a track record for them to compare it to. So I don’t think you’ll have to do anything, and it’ll be fine.”

He looked down at the table as he spoke, and again, I had the urge to touch his hand and tell him it was okay. But I got the distinct impression he didn’t want his space invaded.

“Alright,” I said, pulling my hands back to myself. “Whatever you think is best. Which I guess means we’re all set. So I’ll meet you at the Dupont Circle metro at six on Friday. Sound good?”

“Yeah, sounds good.” Quinn lifted his eyes briefly to meet mine before sliding them away.

I hoped he would be a little more relaxed on Friday. If he wasn’t, he would be more likely to give away that our relationship wasn’t real than I would. Usually, you weren’t afraid to look your boyfriend in the eye. I assumed that was true of both gay and straight relationships.

I watched Quinn as we walked our empty cups back to the bar. From what he’d said, he hadn’t been in many gay relationships. And, to be honest, if he hadn’ttoldme he was gay, I would never have known it from looking at him.

“I’m sorry, did you just say I don’tlookgay?”

Quinn turned and shot me an outraged look, which was when I realized I’d spoken out loud.

Oh, fuck. So much for making him comfortable with me.

I winced. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it as a bad thing. Or a good thing. Or really any kind of thing. I was just—I don’t even know what I was thinking. I know there’s no way to ‘look gay,’ like what would that even mean? It’s probably the same as looking like a murderer.”

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