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He held up his hands, palms facing me, in mock-surrender. “I’m just trying to answer honestly.”
“What is the longest relationship you’ve had?” I got specific.
“Nothing has made it past six months.”
If I had water in my mouth, it would have been a spit take. “Six months?”
He nodded.
That made sense. He got bored and moved on. It was one of the many reasons I’d never taken him seriously. He was a flirt. Not unlike Ryan Gosling’s character in Crazy, Stupid, Love.
“Okay, well then, congratulations, this is officially your longest relationship.”
The backstory I’d created had us starting to talk at his brother’s wedding last summer. We spoke that night, it was right after me and Kenny broke up. It had us getting serious over the holidays, which would put us past the six-month mark.
We were nearly at the entrance when a cold, rational thought sliced through my confidence. I hadn’t considered the most obvious variable. The one thing that could blow up this entire operation in under thirty seconds.
“Wait.” I sucked in a sharp breath as I gripped his forearm. He barely flinched.
He blinked at me, unbothered, as if being ambushed by emotionally charged interrogations was his preferred pregame ritual. “Everything okay?”
I’d been so laser-focused on the contract, the performance, and the logistics of what we were about to do that I hadn’t even considered the most obvious threat vector. I’d built an entire mythos around us—how we started out as friends, how the chemistry was always there, how it finally boiled over after too many late-night calls—but I’d skipped the part where our timelines might fail a basic audit. Like, by an actual human being who could count months on their fingers.
My head was starting to pound. “I forgot something. An important something.”
“Are you going to share with the class?”
I made a sound, kind of a low, frustrated groan, and glanced over my shoulder at the tent. “The story doesn’t add up unless you’re a monk, and I know you’re definitely not a monk, so enlighten me.” I jabbed a finger into his chest, which felt like prodding a slab of marble. “When’s the last time you hooked up with someone?”
Damon didn’t even blink. “Define ‘hooked up.’”
“Damon,” I said his name like a warning.
He tilted his head, considering. “Are we talking just the act or the intention? Because sometimes people—”
“Sex, Damon. The last time you had sex with someone, or even made out with someone. We’re about to walk into a room full of my family who missed their calling as gossip columnists and commercial spies, and if word gets out that you were making out with a bridesmaid—”
He held up both hands, palms out. “I get it,” he said. “You don’t want any surprise witnesses contradicting the official narrative.”
I nodded, almost violently. “Exactly. The last thing I need is, hey girl, DMs.”
“Hey girl, DMs?” he repeated slowly.
“Yeah, you know when a girl messages you and says, Hey girl, I just wanted you to know that your man and I have been hooking up, here are our texts.”
“That’s a thing?”
“Yes, so why don’t we just say it was casual until recently. Like this weekend recently.”
His large, work-roughened hands wrapped around my shoulders. His touch was warm and soothing. “We don’t have to change the story.”
My eyes widened. “Yes, we do. I said that things had gotten serious during the holidays, that would make it over six months that we’d been together.”
“I know.”
“You haven’t hooked up with anyone in over six months?” That was impossible.
I’d heard plenty about Damon Lockhart’s reputation. He wasn’t a man who went to bed lonely.
