Trouble with the Fake Boyfriend (Rock Bottom #3) - Holly Renee Page 0,16

side-eye as he merged onto another interstate.

“No. I’m not scared of my mom. My mom is the best. She just has really high expectations for me, is all.”

That seemed sweet, really. My mom didn’t expect much out of me at all. She had one philosophy in life and that was to use her beauty and the thing between her legs to get ahead in life.

“And what exactly is the story here?” I waved back and forth between us. “We better go in there with it straight or I have a feeling your mom will see right through us.”

“Shit. You’re right.” He looked like he hadn’t really thought this out. It was a good damn thing I was here. “We’ve been dating for two months.” He sounded like he was speaking more to himself than to me. “You’re madly in love with me, but who could blame you.”

I smacked his arm, and he looked shocked as he rubbed it with his opposite hand. “You can’t hit the driver.”

“Then tell the driver not to be an asshole.”

This felt awkward. I had been around Liam too many times to count, but never quite like this and definitely not after what happened. There was always some other element involved, some other friend. If it ever seemed like we were crossing the line, one of our friends would be there to throw us right back into reality.

“Okay, okay. But we do have to pretend to be into each other. My mom’s not going to fall for it if you’re smacking me or giving me your evil eye the whole time.”

“What evil eye?” I acted offended.

“That evil eye.” He pointed toward my face. “It scares me enough. I don’t need you putting my mom through it too.”

I rolled said eyes before looking out the windshield. “So, how did we meet?”

“My mom’s seen you before, Brooke.” He looked over at me then back at the road. “We met when I moved in next door to you. We need to keep things as close to the truth as possible.”

“And then from there?” I looked over at him skeptically. His nonplan was not a plan at all, but this was his rodeo. I was just here for the show.

“We’ll play it by ear.”

And a show it was going to be.

“And what about your friends? Are we going to see any of them while we’re here? What are you going to tell them?”

He scratched at the slight scruff on his face. “We will. We’ll see Jase and Sophie and Ryan and probably a few others from my high school days.” I could tell he was thinking long and hard as he slipped his bottom lip between his teeth. He looked so incredibly sexy when he did that, but I had no room for those thoughts anymore. “We should probably just stick with our lie across the board. I don’t want to slip up and something happen in front of my parents.”

“Okay.” I nodded my head. Not only would I be putting on a show for his parents but the whole damn town.

“You can tell Sophie the truth if you want to though. Just tell her to keep it between y’all.”

I smiled because he knew Sophie was my girl even if I rarely got to see her. Sophie was Tucker’s little sister and the girlfriend to one of his best friends, Jase Hale. Jase was a walking sexual fantasy.

He knew it. She knew it. We all knew it.

And then there was Ryan.

“So let’s get these rules straight before we get there.” I started ticking them off on my fingers. “No tongue kissing. No sleeping in the same bed. This goes without saying, but no sex.”

“Well, this is going to be a fun trip.” He chuckled, but I knew we were both on the same page. Those things weren’t on the table before, and they definitely weren’t on the table now.

“I talked to the owner of the Marshall building, by the way.”

“Oh yeah.” I don’t know why this surprised me so much, but there was something about this entire thing that seemed too good to be true.

The thing I had been wanting for as long as I could remember, the thing no one else besides Kennedy believed I was capable of, was being dangled right in front of my face. And all I had to do was pretend to be his girlfriend for a week?

I’d believe it when I had some sort of contract in my hand. Or you know, the keys