Page 64 of Hula Girl

An engagement ring.

I can’t believe he bought me an engagement ring.

“Wait a second,” I say and stop in my tracks. We’re somewhere in the subterranean parking garage, going to his car.

“What is it?”

I hold up my left hand. “Is this thing even real?”

He laughs. “For ten grand, it better be.”

“Oh, you’re funny. That’s good.”

“No, that’s the truth. Thought it best to really look the part, you know? I mean, if I were actually to buy a ring for the woman I was going to marry, that’s the one I would pick.”

“Ford, this is crazy.”

He shrugs. “Makes me look crazy in love, at least.”

I laugh. “Don’t tell me you’re a Beyoncé fan.”

“Who?”

“Never mind.”

I hear the chirp of a car unlocking and see that we’ve arrived at Ford’s ride. It’s a BMW M3 convertible in electric blue and so not what I expected of him. His beat-up Chevy truck in Maui is much more of who I thought he was. This .... is kind of disappointing.

“This is from my old life,” he says, clearly reading the expression on my face. “You’ll need to know—for our mission—that this is my car and that I have a townhouse in Brentwood.”

I raise my eyebrows at this bit of information.

“Yeah, I know,” he says with a sense of resignation. “But I did tell you that I was an asshole for a good number of years when I bought into all this stuff.”

With this admission, he comes around to my side of the car and opens the door for me. The thing with him claiming to have lost his way is so at odds with who I’ve known him to be that it’s hard to imagine the other version of him. Although, the car helps.

He takes the bag containing my work clothes from me and puts it in the trunk before sliding into the driver’s seat.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“It’s a surprise.”

I wrinkle my nose. “I don’t really like surprises.”

He glances at me as he sets the car into gear. “Too bad, Hula Girl. I’m not telling.”

His smirk says he’s getting a kick out of annoying me this way, so I pretend disinterest in the drive and focus on his profile as he confidently steers us through the mid-afternoon traffic.

“So, tell me about your day, honey,” I say woodenly.

“My day,” he says slowly. “Well, it started all right. Woke up in bed with a beautiful woman. But then it took a turn when she told me to fuck off. Still, I went to work, got in a few hours of what I needed, and then bought that woman a ring. So, not bad, all in all.”

“I didn’t tell you to fuck off,” I protest. “I’m just trying to be realistic about who we are and what we’re doing.”

He glances at me. “It’s all good. You were right. There’s no need toinvestin each other. Our time is limited. Once we’ve gotten through my dad’s dinner party, we’ll be done.”

A rush of tears stings my eyes, and I turn away from him as I try to blink them back, confused by the sudden emotional reaction. But now that he’s made it clear that he is on the same page as me with thinking there’s no point in trying to be anything special to each other, it’s the last thing I want. Not that there is anything I can do about that.

“How was your day, honey?” he asks casually.

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