This was spiraling out of control faster than a barrel going over Niagara Falls. He held up both hands. “Stop. Everyone stop jumping to conclusions. Let me explain.”
“Oh, this oughtta be good.” Everleigh strolled in, kicking the door shut behind her. Her hair twitched in the same rhythm as her hips. “Did I miss anything?”
With a one-shoulder shrug, Amelia said, “Just Alex turning as white as marshmallow fluff.”
“Good. Then it’s not too late for me to weigh in.” Standing shoulder to shoulder with Amelia, she squint-glared at him. “You said we couldn’t have sex for a year. A year, Alex! Yet somehow in five days you managed to leapfrog through hooking up straight to an engagement? Because none of us believe you’d put a ring on it without a test drive.”
True. Not a deal-breaker, but definitely nothing he wanted to discuss with his little sister and her BFF.
Not that he’d wanted to discuss any of this with them. Because there wasn’t supposed to be anything to discuss!
“I said stop,” he bellowed. “I’m not engaged. I haven’t had sex. And for God’s sake, Teague, we’ve been talking about going to New Orleans for our bachelor parties since we turned twenty-one. Of course we’ll do it. Together.”
“Then I’m good.” Teague leaned back, propping his elbows on the stairs above and stretching his legs out. “But I’m staying put, because I can’t wait to watch you squirm your way out of this firestorm.”
Evidently the ‘having his back’ portion of the day had concluded.
Alex jumped down the three steps to the floor. “Amelia, I’m sorry you heard about this from somebody else. But I swear it isn’t true. It’s a fake engagement. As a favor.”
“A favor? A fake engagement to a stranger is one step below donating part of your liver. If you felt an impulse to do something good, you should’ve left your change in the tip jar at the gas station. That’s what we call a proportional response.”
She wasn’t wrong.
Rather than trying to explain more, Alex jumped ahead to the point that ought to absolve him. “It didn’t seem like a big deal because I didn’t think anyone would find out.”
Amelia pinched together her thumb and forefinger. “We live in a town the size of a microchip. Of course news like this would spread.”
He hadn’t accounted for that. They’d lived here for five freaking days. It wasn’t like he was in sync with the town yet, after only talking to less than a dozen people.
However, it was obvious that he should’ve picked his head up out of the to-do list and paid more attention to their new ecosystem. Alex pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes.
“Sydney, over at the Mercantile, told her dying grandmother right before an operation that she was engaged. To make the poor woman feel better. Except it turns out that she’s not dying anymore. Daisy is going through chemo, though. Which is hard, to say the least. So Sydney needed a fake fiancé. I just walked into their sightline at the wrong time and ended up getting cast in the role.”
Everleigh wrapped her arms around herself and swayed side to side. “Alex Kirkland, that is the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard. Of course you had to say yes. You stepped up. I’m so proud of you.”
That was a far more exuberantly positive reaction than Alex had expected. Or probably deserved. But he wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. “Thanks. Don’t give me too much credit, though. I figured it would be an ‘in name only’ sort of thing.”
Mostly.
Except for that kiss that’d knocked him back with its equal parts heat and sweetness. He didn’t know what to do about it.
Hope for another? Or acknowledge it was eight kinds of trouble and hope there wouldn’t be another?
Alex closed the gulf between him and his sister. Her gaze was locked on a knot in the floorboards. Aka, studiously not on him. She’d been riding the wave of red-headed temper when she stormed in. His explanation appeared to have stripped that down to the pain underneath.
Hell.
That was a million times worse than her anger. When Amelia still stayed silent, he pulled her into a tight hug. “I’d never hurt you like that. Not on purpose. Or keep something this big from you.”
“But you did,” she said in a small, quiet voice that pierced his heart.
“This engagement—it was a nothing. It didn’t matter. It wasn’t real. Unimportant. But what is important is that I did hurt you,