Page 7 of Strictly Pretend

“I don’t know yours either.”

“Emma.”

“Brooks.” He holds his hand out in a strangely formal way. I slide my palm into his and he curls his fingers around mine until we’re shaking.

“Is that your first name or last name?” I ask him.

“Not telling you. That way you can’t Venmo me.”

I roll my eyes. “I’m pretty sure I can ask Mia and she’ll tell me.”

“But you won’t,” he says, sounding completely sure of himself. I wonder what it’s like to be that certain about anything. I kind of envy him. Whatever made him spend the last few hours of the wedding in the grass with a bottle of booze doesn’t seem to have dented his self confidence.

Whereas I’m currently barefoot, my dress gaping open, and another howl away from going full-on-feral-beast.

“Why not?” I ask him.

“Because then you’d have to tell her about the shoes. And I get the impression you don’t want to do that.”

“You think you know me?” I ask him.

His eyes catch mine. “I don’t know you at all. I just don’t need to be paid back.”

I wrinkle my nose because I hate owing anybody anything. “Well thank you,” I tell him, because the fight has gone out of me. I hand him back his jacket. “I appreciate your help.”

“Anytime, Emma.” He slings the jacket over his shoulder and walks out, as I close the door to my tiny room. And then I open it again and call out his name.

He stops, turning to look at me. “Everything okay?”

“My zipper is stuck,” I tell him. “And that’s not a come-on, it’s the god’s honest truth.”

He laughs.

“What?”

“I don’t know. You’re just…”

“An idiot?” I say.

“I wasn’t going to say that.” He walks back into my room and I close the door and suddenly it feels even smaller in here than before. I can smell the whiskey on his breath, combined with the low notes of whatever cologne he’s wearing. Up this close I can see the curl of his chest hair peeping through the open collar of his shirt.

“What were you going to say?” I ask.

“You’re unexpected. That’s all.”

I have no idea what that means, so I turn around and offer my back to him. I take a deep breath as his fingers touch my bare skin right above the zipper, then pull at it with no effect at all.

“It’s jammed,” he says.

“I know.”

He tugs again, and it’s so hard I stumble against him.

“Shit, I’m sorry.”

“No problem.” I turn my head and look at him. He’s staring at the zipper, his brows dipped. Damn, he’s good looking in that all-American, rich boy kind of way.

“Did you choose this dress or did it choose you?” he murmurs, tugging again.

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