Eat your heart out, David Copperfield. I bet you couldn’t do that.
Mom’s cheeks heated, and she actually looked flustered for a second. “Great. Awesome. Fantastic.”
My eyebrows shot up, and she glanced at me before turning and flouncing away.
Adam chuckled.
“Did you just flirt with my mom?” I asked him, putting my cup down with a clang.
He shook his head. “I charmed her.”
“Same difference. The last time she got that flustered was at a Pink Floyd concert, and if my dad didn’t have photographic evidence, I’d swear he was lying.”
“I’m not Pink Floyd.” He laughed. “I figure it doesn’t do any harm to get her to like me.”
“What? Like you’ll still be my boyfriend this time next week?”
“No. But unless you want her to catch you out in your lie…”
I pointed a crispy rasher of bacon at him. “Don’t go there. I don’t want to play that game. I’m already flirting with the stakes as it is.”
“This isn’t poker, Red.”
“No? It may as well be. My sister and future brother-in-law know this relationship is a sham. My mom is virtually Sherlock with a pair of breasts, and the moment my dad questions this? I’m done for. So yes, yes. This is poker. This is Dunn Family Poker, and the only person getting poked in this is me.”
Slowly, his lips curved into the widest, sexiest smile I’d ever seen. “I’m trying to take that as you mean it, but I admit, I’m struggling like fuck.”
What?
I stared at him and then, it dawned.
He was technically poking me, too.
Oh, God.
“I don’t want to have this conversation,” I mumbled, reaching for my coffee cup. “It’s too early for it.”
“No, it was too early to discuss how you could slip on dry land, never mind in the shower.”
I rolled my eyes. “Whatever. Are you going to do the cocktails with me or just lunch?”
“I’ll do both.”
“Why? So you can sweeten up my mom?”
“No, because I’m your boyfriend and I should spend the whole weekend with you.” He didn’t move a muscle—his lips didn’t even freakin’ twitch.
“I don’t know how you just said that with a straight face.”
He cough-snorted. “Neither do I, but it’s pretty convincing, huh?”
“If I didn’t know you were more full of shit than a pig farm, sure.”
Adam reached over, grinning, and snatched the last piece of bacon from my plate.
“You know,” I said, mimicking his previous straight face. “That’s the fastest way to get your ass dumped.”
“You won’t dump me. I’m a rich, handsome, famous hockey player, remember?”
I slid my gaze toward the three teenagers sitting two tables away from us. Adam followed my eyes, shooting them all a smile. The boys both grinned back before they whispered to each other, and the girl blushed before she picked up her phone.
I sighed. “Actually, I think that’s the perfect reason to dump you.”
“Yeah, well, you’d actually have to be dating me first.”
I threw a clean napkin at him. “Shut up.”
***
Rosie: I HAVE HAD ENOUGH.
“Oh no,” I said, lifting up my sunglasses to see the screen properly.
“What?” Adam turned his head toward me, using his arm to block out the sun.
“Remember how my mom said she needed to speak to Rosie about the seating plan?”
“Yes…”
“Bridezilla has woken.”
He rolled over onto his stomach like I was and leaned over onto my towel, tilting my phone. “How do the words, “I have had enough” equal Bridezilla?”
“It’s probably not too much of a stretch to imagine that we have completely different temperaments.”
“What? You mean she’s not fiery and sarcastic and borderline bitchy like you?”
“Do you want me to bite you during a blow job?”
“Depends. How hard will you bite? I don’t mind a little teeth, but there’s definitely a line.”
I glared at him under the rim of my glasses as my phone buzzed in my hand.
Rosie: I MEAN IT POPPY. I’M GOING TO KILL HER.
“Oh, no,” I said. “She’s still all-capsing me.”
“Is that a word?”
“My docile, patient, tolerant sister is all-capsing me how she wants to kill my mother. And you’re worried about whether capsing is a word?”
“It’s a real concern.”
“Hockey boy, you’re one more sentence from being on my shit list,” I warned him.
“I’m not on your shit list? You’ve thrown some serious snark my way this morning, Red.”
“That’s my generally delightful personality. You’ll have to pretend you like it since you’re my boyfriend and are determined to sweeten my mother up.”
“No offense, Red, but you’re not gonna do that anytime soon.”
“Of course I’m not. My relationship with my mother is based upon mutual tolerance and a somewhat unhealthy love of peanuts. I can’t be both nutty and sweet, Adam.”
“I have no idea how to respond to that.”
“You do what all good boyfriends do. You smile and nod like you understand, then grab my ass.”
He smiled at me, nodded, then reached out and grabbed my ass. He smacked it, too.
He learned fast.
I nodded once. “Better. You’re learning.”
“I’m learning?”
“Yes. You’re learning. I like my boyfriends to be slightly possessive assholes so I can tell them off. That’s how I get my kicks.”
“I don’t know if you’re fucking with me now or not.”
“She fucks with everyone. That is how she gets her kicks,” my sister snapped, walking up to us. “Why aren’t you answering my texts?”
My eyes widened, and I immediately dropped my sunglasses.
“Why are you hiding your eyes?”
“Sun’s in them,” I lied.
“The sun is behind you.”
“It’s reflecting off your watch. Who are you? The sunglasses police?”
“Poppy! This is serious!” She dropped onto the sand in front of me. “Did she tell you that she changed my seating plan?”
I locked my phone and put it into the flimsy material that made up my preferred beach purse. It wasn’t expensive, but the lining prevented sand getting in it, and since my screen was a tiny bit cracked… It spoke for itself.
“She told me she was looking for the wedding planner,” I admitted wearily.
“You didn’t stop her?”
“Hey! I’m not a sumo wrestler. I told her you handled the seating plan personally and it was nothing to do with the planner, but she didn’t care.”
“Great.” Rosie ran a hand through her hair and dropped her head forehead. “Poppy, do you understand how much of a mess this is? She’s meddling in things she has no business meddling in!”
I wanted to quote Harry Potter, but I decided not to. I didn’t think it would go down well.
“I understand,” I replied. “But really, what can I do? Stop her from finding the wedding planner?”
“Yes!”
“I was eating my breakfast!”
“And food is more important than my wedding?”
“When I’m starving and have been made to wait for this guy to take a run and shower? Yeah. Sorry, Ro. Nothing is more important than food.”
Adam cleared his throat. “In my defense, I didn’t make you wait.”
“You shut up.” I pointed my finger in his face. “You’re on my side.”
My sister groaned and flipped her hair as she sat up. “You’re supposed to be on my side.”
“No, he’s my fake date. He can’t be on both our sides.”
“Poppy!”
“Rosie!”
“You have to do something about our mother!”
I stared at her for a second. “I can hire a hitman.”
Adam choked on the mouthful of water he’d just taken.
“I don’t want her dead,” Rosie said. “Just…sedated.”
“You could get her drunk,” Adam suggested.
Rosie’s eyes lit up.
“No!” I scrambled and sat up on my towel. “No. I’m not getting her drunk. No way in hell am I doing that.”
Rosie grabbed my hands and leaned forward. “Pleeeease, Pops. Please. I need her to go away for a few hours. She’s driving me crazy.”
I looked her dead in the eye and said, “You’re driving me crazy.”
“So? Get Mom drunk, then I’ll stop being crazy.”
“I witnessed your sweet sixteen. I should have known to be sick the weekend of your wedding.”
She pouted. “You’d never miss my wedding.”