I'd hoped that I would see Nick again before he went back to LA, but I hadn't exactly expected him to come waltzing into my store the next day while I was on my lunch break. What was it with people and ignoring my lunch break?

I swallowed the piece of peanut butter sandwich I had in my mouth and got up from my chair. There was some light fall drizzle going on outside and Nick shook his head as if to shake the rain drops out of his light brown hair. I kind of wanted to sit him down and offer tea or coffee, but I doubted he'd come here for that. He was holding my book in his hand, though, which made me wonder about the reason for his visit.

Did he like the book?

Or was he horribly offended that I'd given him such drivel?

Finally, he looked at me. “Eating on the job?” he asked, pointing at the remainder of the sandwich in my hand.

To counter that, I pointed at the sign on the door behind him. “We're closed.”

“Oh.” He scratched the back of his neck. “You should really lock the door when you're closed.”

“Yeah, I know. I keep expecting people who come to my bookstore to be able to read. My mistake.”

“Oh, burn! Okay, you win this round.” He licked his lips, as if he was nervous about something. For a few seconds, he did nothing but stand in the middle of my store like he didn't know what to do with himself or how to start the conversation he obviously wanted to have. After another moment, I took pity on him, even though he had interrupted my lunch break. He was Nick. I could never be mad at him. Not for long anyway. When he looked like he was uncomfortable, I wanted nothing more than to change that.

“Did you like it?” I asked, nodding at the book in his hand if only to get the conversation going again.

“Oh.” His gaze snapped to the book as if it reminded him of why he was here. “I haven't read all of it yet. Dude, it's only been a day.”

I refrained from telling him how many books I could read in a whole day. “But you've read some of it?” I asked instead.

“Yeah.” He shrugged to downplay this fact. Then he walked deeper into the store until he was just a step away from my desk, but the piece of furniture was still between us. For a second, he seemed lost again, then a sense of determination settled in his eyes. I knew that look. I hadn't seen it in over a decade, but by God, I knew that look.

It had gotten me in trouble often enough.

I had to admit it appeared a bit different on adult Nick than it did on child Nick, but the effect was the same. I couldn't tear my eyes away from his.

“You have some sort of crazy idea you want to tell me about, don't you?”

Nick's lips curled up. He didn't seem lost at all anymore. No, before me stood an omega ready to take on the world. I would continue to deny this, but I'd always liked Nick's crazy ideas and his will to follow through on them. He made life... interesting. I would never forget the time we snuck out of our parents' houses after curfew to stow away on one of the ships in the harbor. We never made it far before getting caught, but at ten years old, I was totally ready to run away and go explore the world with Nick by my side.

I'd grown up since then, of course, but part of me still felt this pull to give in to whatever madness the omega in front of me had planned.

Someone needed to watch out for him, after all.

But I was getting ahead of myself.

“What is it you got in mind?” I prompted.

In response, Nick put the book aside, stepped around my desk and fell to one knee beside me. What? The obvious confusion on my face made Nick smile as he grabbed for my hand. He was messing with me, wasn't he? “Alexander Cornelius Kerner,” he addressed me all formally, “would you like to be my fake husband?”

What?!

Had I heard that correctly?

“Are you serious right now?”

Nick's grin only grew wider. “As a heart attack.” He rose to his feet again, but he didn't—as I noticed—let go of my hand. His fingers were warm, as if he hadn't just walked through the rain. He smelled like rain, though. No, not like rain. Like the air after the rain, when the sun broke through the clouds and the world was new again and full of possibilities.

I'd missed that smell.

But I couldn't linger on that now. I needed to figure out what had gotten in Nick's head. “You want to get married?”

“Of course not.” He looked at me as if I was being silly. “Weren't you listening? I said fake.”

“Yes, but you also said husband and my brain sort of shut down at that point. My apologies.” And I was still no closer to understanding what he wanted.

“I thought you'd get this.” He let go of my hand to pick up the book he'd discarded earlier. “You gave me this book. You've read it, right? I'm sure you've read all the books in here.”

I glanced around the store. “Not quite, but close.”

“Yeah, anyway, so my point is, the characters in this book get into a fake relationship to fool their parents. I want to do that too, but not so we can fool our parents but so we can get into the gated community where my brother lives.”

“Your brother?” There was so much information coming at me that my brain wasn't sure what to process first. I knew giving him that book had been a bad idea.

“Rhys,” he explained. “I don't know if you've heard, but he's married a Vinist.”

“He did?” I hadn't heard. But how would I? I wasn't really in contact with Nick's family anymore. The only reason I'd attended Dean's wedding was because my sister had dragged me along after seeing that I'd received an invitation—and I'd only received the invitation because Dean had come into the store looking for baby books and recognized me. “How's Rhys doing?” I asked. The three of us had played together sometimes when Rhys wasn't too busy with all his self-assigned extra homework.

“I'm not sure. That's why we have to do this.”

“You're moving a little too fast for me,” I tried to slow Nick down. “And I don't just mean the fake marriage thing. What's up with your brother and why do we need to be married to visit him?”

Nick sighed and leaned back against a shelf as if he was already tired of explaining. “I know that Rhys' husband is an asshole. I mean, he obviously is. He's a Vinist. I wasn't even invited to the wedding, you know? Nobody was. And now I hardly hear from my brother anymore.”

“I'm sorry.” But I was still not quite up to speed so I shot Nick an expectant look, waiting for him to go on.

“He and his husband, they live in this gated community. They don't allow strange omegas inside. At least not unmated strange omegas, and that's where you come in.” He snapped his fingers as if to underline how brilliant this idea was. “If you pretend to be my husband, they'll let me in and I can figure out what's going on with Rhys.”

My eyes narrowed. “What do you think is going on?” I didn't know too much about Vinists. I'd read about them, yeah, but I didn't know any of them personally. I knew about their cultish religion and what they thought of omegas, though. I'd never have thought anyone like Rhys would willingly marry into that cult.

“I don't know but...” Nick shook his head. “I know there's something wrong with him.” He sought my eyes. “You have to believe me.”

“Is this your twin thing?” I had to admit, I'd always been a bit skeptical of that. There had to be some more scientific explanation for what Nick felt rather than just it's an emotional bond.

“Please, Zander. I know I'm right about this. I've got to do something.”

“Even if I believe you...” I ran a hand through my hair in thought. “Why me?”

“Because you know how much Rhys means to me. You won't end up thinking I’ve got some other motive for asking you to be my fake husband.” He grabbed my hand again as he pleaded with me. “I trust you.”

How could I say no to that? The truth was, I couldn't. Nick thought he'd grabbed my hand, but in reality, he still held my heart between his fingertips.

But I wasn't going to tell him that.

Not again.

He obviously wanted this whole thing to be purely pretend. I could do that, couldn't I? Perhaps there was some way I could also get something out of it.

“One condition,” I said.

“Whatever you want. I'll do anything.”

That got him a raised eyebrow from me.

“Okay, maybe not anything,” he corrected. “What do you want?”

“Come with me to my parent's house for Thanksgiving dinner and pretend to be my boyfriend for the evening.” His eyes widened. I gave him a smile. “You might consider it a test run.”

“Why do you want me to do that?”

“You remember how my parents make their money?”

It took him only a minute to see what I was trying to say. “They want to set you up with someone?”

“Yes, and I'm absolutely not interested.”

Nick grinned. “Is that why you like the book you gave me so much? Because you want to fool your parents too?”

“I guess you could say that.” It wasn't the whole truth, but it was close enough.

“Are they trying to set you up with some idiot?”

“I don't know who they're trying to set me up with, and frankly, I don't care. I'm simply not interested.”

“Oh. I see.” For a fraction of a second, it seemed as though Nick's face fell, but he recovered too quickly for me to tell whether I'd imagined it. “I'm supposed to spend Thanksgiving with my cousin and his family, but I'm sure I can find a way to get out of it.”

“All right. One other thing, although this is more a request than anything.”

“A request?”

“Yes, if you could, I’d like you to help me with some research tomorrow.”

“Research?” Nick shot me a skeptical look. “You know I’m not exactly the academic type.”

“Don’t worry. I’m not going to make you read anything.”

“Now you’re making it sound like I can’t read! But fine. I’ll help you.”

“Great. How does tomorrow at seven sound to you? I’m closing the store around that time, so we shouldn’t be disturbed.”

“Seven sounds fine.”

“It's a date then,” I said, trying not to sound wistful. The Thanksgiving dinner with my parents was probably the closest I’d ever come to having a date with Nick.

“Yeah.” Nick laughed, but something about it sounded off.

Probably just my imagination.

He was getting what he wanted, wasn't he?