Trouble with the Fake Boyfriend (Rock Bottom #3) - Holly Renee Page 0,14

what was left of our friendship after we almost fucked it up.

We relied on each other when we needed to, but we never really talked about it.

Hell, come to think of it, we didn’t really talk about anything. Not anything that actually mattered.

Not unless it had something to do with Kennedy or Tucker.

“Uh huh.” She opened the door a bit more, allowing me to come in, and I was overwhelmed by the smell of her as I stepped into her apartment. It wasn’t perfume. At least I didn’t think it was. The scent was soft and feminine and fit her perfectly.

“How was work today?” I sat down on her couch and looked around the room. It looked so different in here since Kennedy moved out. I mean, it was almost the same, the furniture, the walls, but almost every hint of Kennedy was gone, and this place was all Brooke now.

“Sucked.” She plopped down on the opposite end of the couch and tucked a pillow against her chest.

“That sucks.” Obviously. But I couldn’t think of anything else to say unless I wanted to blurt out that I really needed her to come home with me and meet my parents.

“What do you want, Liam?” Her fingers were playing with the edge of a pillow as she spoke.

“Who said I wanted anything?”

She wasn’t buying my shit. She never really had. She just stared at me with a bored expression on her face and was waiting on me to answer her honestly.

“Okay.” I turned on the couch to face her. If I was going to ask this of her, really, truly ask her, then I should at least be man enough to ask her to her face. “I’ve been thinking a lot about what Chloe said last night, and I think you should come to Tennessee with me.”

She seemed shocked those words actually came out of my mouth, and I couldn’t blame her because I was surprised myself.

She cocked her head to the side and studied me before replying, “Have you been drinking?”

I chuckled because she looked so damn cute when she was being so serious. “No. I’m serious. I think it’s a great idea.”

“A great idea?” She repeated my words back to me as soon as I said them. “You think it’s a great idea for me” —she pointed to her chest— “to come home with you?” She flipped her finger around in my direction. “This has got to be a joke.”

“It’s not.” I couldn’t stop smiling at her and the face she was making.

“So, you need someone to come home with you.” She starts ticking things off on her fingers. “Lie to your parents, pretend to be your girlfriend, and spend a whole week with you without any reprieve, and you really thought I was the girl for the job?”

“Yes?” Now I was starting to second guess my decision to come over here.

“And what’s in it for me?” She stretched her legs out in front of her, and I knew that she meant business. But the only thing I could seem to think about at that moment was her long perfect legs and how good they felt in my hands when I was driving her crazy from behind.

“A week vacation in Tennessee. A week away from your job.” She didn’t look impressed. “Obviously, I will pay for everything.”

“Obviously,” she said sarcastically.

“If a weeklong vacation is all I needed, I would find myself a temporary sugar daddy.” She laughed at her own joke. “You’re just going to have to be honest with your mom and actually tell her the truth.”

I knew she wouldn’t say yes so easily, but I didn’t think she would play hardball. I knew the way to her heart.

“What about that building on Main Street? The Marshall building?”

She narrowed her eyes at me, and I knew I was playing with fire. “What about it?”

“You have been eyeing that building for how long now? I heard the other day that it’s probably going to be taken off the market soon. They found a buyer.”

It was a lie, but it wasn’t. When I found out how badly Brooke wanted to buy that old rundown house to open her own salon, I called the current owner just to find out the details, and even though it had been on the market for quite some time, there was suddenly a lot of interest in it due to the revamp of the location. The perfect location. Right downtown located near our restaurant. The foot