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She looked at the phone in my hand, then at me. My mother had raised four sons. She could smell bullshit from three counties away. "Clearly."

She stepped into my old room, beaming up at me. "You look handsome."

"I get that a lot."

"And modest."

"Another one of my many charms."

She crossed the room and straightened my collar. I let her. There were certain battles a man knew better than to fight.

“So what’s the plan?”

“The plan?” I repeated.

"After the wedding, are you going to rack up frequent flyer miles, because last I checked that girl doesn’t live down the road?"

There it was. I knew this visit had a purpose. My mother didn't pop by my childhood bedroom to discuss the weather unless a tornado was headed directly for the house.

"Guess so."

"You guess so?" Her hands stopped fussing with my collar. “That’s your big plan? To guess?"

I reached for my tie. "Pretty sure the plan is to attend the wedding. Eat some cake. Maybe embarrass myself on the dance floor."

"Damon."

"Mom."

She gave me the look.

The one that had made me confess to breaking her favorite antique mirror when I was seven, accidentally setting the barn on fire when I was twelve, and sneaking out when I was fifteen.

For the record, it had been a very small fire.

"But you two are going to continue seeing each other? Right?"

I stared at the tie in my hands.

It was a fair question. A reasonable question. One I should've had an answer to. Unfortunately, I had absolutely no fucking idea.

Because the arrangement had an expiration date. Four days. That was what Mikayla had asked for.

Four days of pretending to be her boyfriend so she could survive her cousin's wedding without letting her cheating ex and former best friend know they'd managed to break her.

Simple. Straightforward. Temporary.

Except between the fake kisses, there were very real moments when she'd let her guard down enough to show me the woman beneath all that expensive armor, things had gotten complicated.

At least for me. I didn't know what they were for her. And that was the problem.

"Damon?"

I looked up.

She studied me. "Have you talked about it?"

"Not exactly."