A Lie for a Lie (All In) - Helena Hunting Page 0,48
how it is with bunnies. They’re just in for the fuck and the ride, right?”
“But she’s not a bunny, so I’m not getting why it would matter then.” He looks confused more than anything.
I sigh, aware explaining my rationale isn’t going to be easy. “I wanted to be normal for a few weeks.”
Violet squeezes her way between us, snatches Alex’s cup, sniffs it, and raises an eyebrow. “Seriously, Alex? You better be careful how sauced you get. Your parents said they’d have a sleepover in the pool house with Robbie, and you know how I get in my second trimester.”
Alex grins and bends to whisper something in her ear. She hands him back the cup, turning her attention to me. “I assume you’re coming out for drinks after this shitshow.” She motions to the table of children shoveling cake into their mouths.
I rub the back of my neck. “Uh, we’ll see.”
“Rook’s trying to hook up with the tour guide,” Alex supplies.
Violet grins knowingly. “You mean the poor woman who was trying to hide that huge dolphin dick?”
“That’s the one,” Alex replies.
She gives me a light punch on the arm. “My respect for you just went up a few notches. I had no idea you were into the nerdy chicks.”
“She’s not nerdy,” I say defensively.
Violet gives me a look. “Uh, she knows an insane amount about aquatic animals and can rhyme off statistics like a Beat poet. Also, as a nerd, I can easily identify other nerds—and she is definitely one. It’s too bad they can’t put her in something other than beige, because she’s also super gorgeous. You should invite her along. Introducing her to your friends will go a long way toward getting you into her pants—if that’s your plan, anyway.”
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
“Why not? When was the last time you went out with someone, Rook?” Violet looks like she’s about to start in on me about dating. It wouldn’t be the first time in the past year.
At one point Violet and the rest of the girls mentioned setting me up with one of Poppy’s massage therapist friends I’d been interested in back when I first came to Chicago. But I wasn’t in the right headspace, and I didn’t want to make things awkward or mess up a friendship if things didn’t work out.
“Nerdy tour guide is the Alaska girl from last summer.” Alex passes me the flask behind her back.
“Wait, what? She’s Alaska girl? That’s so awesome!” Violet jumps up and down once with excitement. It quickly turns into a grimace, and she grabs on to her boobs. I look away because Violet, for being as small as she is, has a huge rack, and she’s currently wearing a shirt that shows off a significant amount of cleavage, and all the jumping and self-groping only draws more attention to it. Also, I don’t want Alex to catch me looking.
“Yeah, I don’t know if awesome is how I would describe this situation.”
“Why not? It’s like fate.” She grabs Alex by the shirt and tips her head back so she can look up at him. “Just like when you accidentally let your nerd hang out when you mentioned how I was reading Fielding at a hockey game. My beaver took the reins that night.”
He gazes down at her, wearing a half smile, all the fucking love in the world oozing out of them like freaking rainbows. Actually, I think he might be looking down her top. “Best damn night of my life.”
I’m about to ask them if they want some privacy, but Violet returns her attention to me. “You have to go talk to her.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Of course it’s that simple. Why wouldn’t it be?”
“Apparently he lied about his job,” Alex tells her.
Violet frowns. “Why would you do that?”
I shrug. “Because I’m an idiot. She didn’t know who I was, and it was kind of nice being a regular guy for a few weeks, you know what I mean?”
“So what kind of job did you tell her you have?”
“I told her I was an alpaca farmer, which would’ve been true if I didn’t play professional hockey.”
Her frown deepens. “That’s an oddly specific lie.”
“My parents were alpaca farmers.”
Her nose wrinkles. “Really. How did I not know that?”
“It doesn’t come up much in conversation, I guess?”
“Okay, so you lied about your job—no big deal, right? Unless you lied about something else?”
I scrub a hand over my mouth and mutter, “My name.”