Page 9 of Rafferty

“No.”

“Have you ever wanted to be in a serious relationship before?”

“No.”

“That’s why,” I say with a firm nod. “But it only took you a few weeks and a one-night stand with Tansy, which I obviously forgave, and you begged me to take you back.”

“Jesus,” he mutters, giving me a sheepish smile. “You’re enjoying this.”

“A little,” I say, holding my forefinger and thumb close together.

“Fine,” he concedes. “That story works, but just know that I didn’t move to Pittsburgh until September, right before training camp.”

“Got it.” I reach for a breadstick and nibble on the end. I’m not a huge bread lover, but again… starved. “So, what’s your background? Where are you from? What’s your family like?”

“I grew up in Calgary, started playing hockey around the time I started walking.”

“Really?” I ask, astounded they start so young.

Rafferty laughs, shaking his head as he takes a breadstick. He waves it at me. “No, not that early, but it was funny watching you fall for that. It wasn’t much longer after I mastered walking that my dad put me in skates. He was a youth team coach, so it was just sort of natural that I’d play. Apparently, I had some talent and now here I am.”

“Parents still back in Calgary?”

“Yeah… my dad is vice president of operations at a bank and my mom is a veterinarian.”

“Very cool. Siblings?”

Rafferty nods, his expression softening. “Yeah, I have a younger sister—Farren—she’s twenty-three. We’re pretty close. What about you?” he asks, turning the conversation back to me.

“I’m a senior at William and Mary but I’m taking a semester break right now,” I say, choosing not to dive into the reasons why. “Staying with my mom and my younger brother, Cooper, who’s thirteen.”

“How old are you?”

“I’ll be twenty-two in January.”

“And your dad?” he presses tentatively, I’m assuming since I didn’t specifically mention him.

“The best thing I can say about him is he successfully deposited healthy sperm into my mom when they were married. He left when Coop was three, I was eleven, and never came back.”

“Well, fuck,” Rafferty mutters, his eyes awash with sympathy. “I’m sorry.”

I lift a shoulder. “It is what it is. My mom gave me and Cooper everything we needed, so I can’t say I feel like we missed out on much.”

“She sounds like an amazing woman,” Rafferty surmises and he’s not wrong.

“The absolute best,” I murmur, but I don’t want to delve too personally, and besides… I think his need for me to be a fake girlfriend is going to be all about action and not so much an interview by Tansy. “So for this photo shoot, what do you want me to do?”

Rafferty’s smile goes positively wolfish, and admittedly, it causes a fluttering in my belly. “Basically, fawn all over me, act like the sun rises and sets on my shoulders. Stuff like that.”

Laughing, I dip my bread in marinara. “You must do the same with me if this is to be believed.”

“Got it. Plenty of PDA in both directions. Can I kiss you again?” he asks, eyes flashing with humor.

“Sure.” My tone is light, breezy, but damn if my pulse isn’t pumping a little faster at the thought.

We talk more about the details we’ll need for the photo shoot, the little touches that will make our relationship seem real. Our food comes, and we continue to iron out how we’ll behave so we don’t come off as fake. During the meal, we learn more about each other in a rousing game of twenty questions. I know Rafferty’s favorite food is buffalo chicken wings—he can apparently put away twenty in one sitting—and he knows my favorite movie isA Time to Kill. If this hadn’t been a business meeting, which he confirmed he’ll hand over a thousand dollars in cash at the end of the photo shoot, it would have felt like a date. Which is fine. We are trying to be authentically a couple, but I wonder what it says that the nonstop conversation flowed so well, we sat in the restaurant for two solid hours. I realize I’ve spent the evening peeling back layers of a man I thought I’d figured out in minutes, only to find depth and sincerity.

Rafferty pays the bill and walks me to my car, a beat-up Honda Accord with over two hundred thousand miles on it. “Thanks for dinner.”

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