Page 10 of Red Boar's Baby

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He’d had one of the interns retrieve his car from campus earlier, so he picked it up from the employee parking garage beneath the Arizona SCB’s desert facility and drove home. It was a gorgeous commute, warm and beautiful, the early evening sky painting the desert in a thousand shades of blue, pink, and gold.

Costa stopped by a grocery store to pick up a fruit plate and a medium-priced bottle of wine. He texted Auntie Lo to let her know what he was bringing, then turned off his phone to avoid the reciprocal flurry of texts that he could guess the content of by heart, namely:

- We have plenty of food. So much food.

- But can you pick up this grocery list on your way.

- Never mind, forget items 2 and 19, cousin L is getting those.

- But here are six more things to pick up.

- Are you bringing that lovely Diana girl? When are you doing the proper thing and making her your wife, Cesar Quinn?

Maybe, he mused as he let himself into his condo, he would see if Di was interested in staging a fake breakup tonight, just to get the family will-they-won’t-they dance over with once and for all. She would throw herself into the drama; he just knew it. That lovely drawling late-night-DJ voice was just as sexy when it was yelling at him, as he knew from experience.

No, if he ruined Uncle Roddy’s birthday party with a breakup fight, the aunties would never let him hear the end of it. They would probably also set out to reconcile him and Diana ... oh God. It could, in fact, be worse.

A quiet breakup with no witnesses around, he decided as he put the wine on the counter, the fruit plate in the fridge, and shed his rumpled sweats on the way to the shower. A big public blow-up would be satisfying in its finality, but unfortunately the family would talk of nothing else for years. What he wanted was for them to forget all about it, and Diana, and him.

He stepped into the shower with a groan of relief.

If Di can’t make it tonight, then let’s make this the night,he resolved as hot water sluiced the dried sweat off his skin and the soreness out of his aching ligaments. He could report the breakup tonight, and tell Diana she was no longer his fake girlfriend the next time he saw her. Yes, that ought to work.

He ignored the unhappy shiver that went through his middle at the thought. It wasn’t like they were actually together, so breaking up should make no difference; it would be more real than anything else about their relationship. But just thinking about it felt disloyal somehow.

Diana would thank him, he thought firmly. He scooped a handful of all-in-one shampoo-conditioner and worked it into his hair.

Actually no, he mused, sudsy water sluicing over his shoulders. Diana would hit the ceiling if he broke up with her without telling her. She would want a say in it, and anyway, they needed to get their stories straight.

He reached for a towel. Fine, then: if Diana couldn’t make it tonight, or even if she could, they would plan their impending breakup for sometime between tonight’s engagement and whatever family or work event fell on both of them next. Which was what, Di’s workplace’s spring greet-the-new-hires picnic, probably? It was a little unnerving to realize that he knew the date by heart.

He was halfway through shaving when there was a brisk knock at the door, and a fresh ripple of pleasant anticipation coursed through him.

Diana. She’d made it after all.

“Hang on, I’m coming.”

Half-shaved, towel around his waist, Costa went to get the door, only realizing as he reached for the doorknob that it was possible he was about to scandalize some Mormon missionary or Boy Scout popcorn-selling parent.Oh well, life’s tough sometimes.

He opened the door.

It was only once he saw Diana on his doorstep that he realized there were, possibly, some good reasons not to expose his mostly naked body to his fake girlfriend as she stared at him.

Diana was not dressed for a date, fake or otherwise. She wore her typical work clothes, a khaki Park Service shirt and a pair of extremely dusty jeans with practical boots. In fact, she was covered with dust from head to foot. Her thick dark curls were tucked under a baseball cap, spilling in a loose ponytail down her back. Her face was, as always, so beautiful he could get lost in it, a strong jaw and snub nose with a deep tan from her many hours outdoors. She was holding something in her arms, which Costa barely glanced at, a bundle the size of a large ham that was wrapped in some sort of soft fabric.

“I hope that’s a dress you’re carrying, or at least a nice blouse.”

“I—what?” Diana blinked, wrenching her gaze away from his bare chest. “I need to—come in.”

“Stop ogling the merchandise. Fake boyfriend, remember?” Costa held the door for her as she hurried inside with a furtive glance around. There was an almost comical air of nervous alertness to her, and she visibly relaxed once she was inside. “Did you steal a dress?”

“What dress?” Diana said.

“For the shindig tonight? Unless you’re planning on going as-is, which I don’t have a single problem with, but you might want to take a shower?—”

“Oh, right, that. I forgot. Look, we’ll deal with that later. I have a bigger problem.”

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