Page 24 of One Week Wingman

“I don’t snore!”

“You’re right,” he says cheerfully, stealing my coffee cup and taking a big gulp. “It’s really more like a train honking. I’m surprised you didn’t wake the whole neighborhood.”

He grins at me over the rim ofmycoffee cup. I glare back.

“What would you like for breakfast?” my mom asks. “I could make my famous omelets—”

“We’re going out!” I blurt.

“But the omelets,” Seb protests.

“You can try them another time.” I try to convey with my eyes that this is an order, not a suggestion. “I want to show you around town.”

And get him away from my family ASAP.

Luckily, he gets the message. “Sounds like a plan,” Seb says brightly. “You look like you need more coffee.”

Coffee, and bacon, and the best pancakes the Ashford Diner has to offer. Once we’re seated in a booth by the window, and I’ve inhaled half my weight in maple-syrup-drenched carbs, I begin to feel more human again.

“I can’t get over this town of yours,” Seb says, looking out at the town square, where members of the Ashford Falls Beautification Committee are up on ladders, adding extra autumn foliage to all the streetlights. “How is this place even real? It’s like Disneyland. OrThe Truman Show.”

“Oh it’s real,” I reply with a wry grin. “I have the emotional scars to prove it. And I don’t need any more, so can you please cool it a little with your whole Stefano thing.”

He quirks an eyebrow at me, confused. “Isn’t the reason you called and begged me to come out here thewhole Stefano thing?”

“Well, yes,” I admit. “But you’re taking it way too far! My mom is smitten, she’s one more compliment away from leaving my stepfather and running off with you, and you’ve only been here five minutes.”

He laughs. “Imagine what I could do with ten…”

“I’m serious!” I protest, waving my fork at him. “Well, OK, half-serious. But there’s no need to lay it on so thick. I just need you to stay for a couple of days, and then you can get called away on urgent business, never to be heard from again.”

“Do I die in a fire?” Seb grins, reaching over to steal bacon off my plate. “Fall down a well? Am I crushed by an avalanche, heroically saving an adorable puppy?”

I lightly smack his hand away. “I mean, that could be arranged.”

“Funnily enough, you’re not the first woman to make that threat.” He pauses to take a gulp of coffee. “How did you get into this mess anyway?” he asks, looking across the table at me. “I wouldn’t have thought you were the kind of woman who likes to fake anything.”

I roll my eyes at his double entendre. “I don’t. Usually. But my family has a way of making me feel like… a disappointment. Dropping out of law school, winding up working in a bar,” I shrug, self-conscious. “I just wanted to be a success in their eyes, for once.”

“But you’re one of the most confident women I know,” Seb says. I wait for a quip or a joke to follow that up, but none comes. “You don’t give two shits what anyone thinks about you. Pardon my French,” he adds, to the passing waitress.

I pause, touched by the compliment. “Most of the time, I don’t,” I agree. “Until I cross the county line back here. And then… I don’t know. Somehow, I feel like I still have to prove myself to everyone. Show that I’ve got my life together, despite all the wrong turns I’ve taken. Hence, Stefano.”

“Well, that’s fucked-up,” Seb says. “Imaginative, but fucked-up.”

“I’ll work on my boundaries and self-esteem later,” I tell him. “For now, I just need to make it through this reunion week, and then Stefano and I will sadly go our separate ways.”

“Into an avalanche,” Seb grins.

“Exactly.”

“Your mom will be heartbroken,” he notes. “She wants me for a son-in-law.”

“She’ll be fine,” I wince. “She’ll get Jason soon enough. Complete with a sponsored destination wedding, and custom hashtag, and a hundred thousand likes on all her amazing perfect posts.”

Sebastian studies me. “You’re jealous.”

“I’m not!” I protest.

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