Chapter Three
“Code red!”
Topher muffled a shriek as a hand reached out from Danny’s bedroom door and hauled her inside.
“Danny! What the hell?” Topher was starting to think she’d never make it to the peace and sanity of her assigned room.
“We have a problem.” Danny shut the door and started pacing, yanking on his hair and making it stand up in wild peaks. “A serious problem.”
“Nope.” Grinning, Topher plopped down on the bed and bounced a few times. “I overheard your mom and uncle when I went back for my purse. They really don’t like me.” She figured it wasn’t really a lie, since James and Julia hadn’t said they liked her. They’d said they loved her.
“Really?” He stopped pacing for a moment and then shook his head, his tortured expression reappearing. “Never mind that. We have a real problem. A real, huge, enormous, monumental problem!”
Topher raised a brow at him. Despite the fact that she was the actress of the pair of them, she was beginning to realize that Danny was a much bigger drama queen than she could ever hope to be.
“Barb’s coming. Tonight.”
Okay, so that’s a problem. “Shit.”
Dropping down onto the bed next to her, Danny fell onto his back and spread his arms. “Exactly.”
They were both quiet for a few moments.
“I can’t believe you called your girlfriend enormous,” Topher finally said.
“What? I didn’t—”
“And huge.” She shook her head. “You’re kind of a rude boyfriend.”
“Stop.” Danny shoved her hip. “We have to decide what we’re going to do. Barb’s coming with her parents!”
She stared at him. “The cement-shoes parents?”
“Don’t call them that!” Danny paused. “But yes. Barb’s parents.”
“I don’t get it.” Topher swung around so she could sit cross-legged on the bed facing him. “Why would Barb and her parents visit her ex-boyfriend? Or pretend-ex, I suppose. Won’t this tip off your mom and uncle that we’re not really a thing?”
He looked uncomfortable.
“Unless...” She drew an imaginary line across her throat with her finger. “Do her parents really think you broke up with Barb? Is this the end for you, Danny Boy?”
“No! Of course not. It’s just that...” The rest of his words faded to mumbling.
“Huh?”
“Barb doesn’t actually, well, know about this whole thing.” He waved a hand between the two of them. “I’d forgotten Mom had invited them here for Christmas, like, months ago.”
“Dude.” She stared at him. “Barb doesn’t know you’re fake cheating on her? Whoa. You are so dead.”
“I know! That’s why you need to focus and help me think of a way to not be dead, okay? Besides, you’re the fake new girlfriend, so you’ll be just as dead as me.”
“Hold on!” She sat back. “Deadness is so not part of our fake-girlfriend contract, Danny Boy.”
“Then quit bitching and start helping, Coco.”
She stared at him, dead-eyed, until he flinched and looked away. “Maybe I’ll just kill you first, Danny, and leave your corpse for Barb to run over multiple times with her car.”
“Tooopher...”
She gave a huff. “Fine.”
They were both quiet for a few moments.
“Is it too late to tell Barb the whole plan?” she asked. “It won’t help with fooling James and Julia, but it might let you stay, you know, alive.”
He shot her a skeptical look. “How am I supposed to explain this? ‘Barb, sweetie, my family hates you so much that I’m pretending to date someone really, really obnoxious so you’ll look better in comparison.’ Yeah, that’ll go over well.”
“Told you it was a stupid plan.”
“Hey, you agreed to do it!”
Topher sighed. “I know. Let me think... Okay, so can we abandon the plan? Get me out of here before they arrive, tell your mom and uncle we had a huge fight, broke up, and you and Barb are back together?”
He stared at her. “In less than an hour, we broke up, you left, I reunited with Barb, and she and her parents are coming to visit? They’re supposed to believe that?”
“You can tell them the truth, have someone drive me back to the airport, and Barb will never know.”
Danny actually pouted at that one. “I don’t want to tell them. James will never let me live it down. He might even cut me off for lying to them. He has this thing about lying—hates it. Besides, Mom and James will never keep their mouths shut about you. They can’t stand Barb. They’ll love the opportunity to throw you in her face.”
Flopping back on the bed, Topher covered her eyes and bit back a scream of frustration. “How about partial truth? I get the hell out of here, and you tell your family you didn’t mention the break-up to Barb and now she’s coming and to please keep their mouths shut about me because you don’t want to die?”
“That might work,” he said slowly after a pause. “Except...oh, shit.”
She uncovered one eye so she could glare at him. “No more oh-shit moments please.”
Pointing toward the window, he just shook his head.
Topher followed his pointing finger and bounced off the bed. “Snow! Look how pretty it is.” She moved toward the window and looked out at the falling flakes. “Wow. It’s really coming down.” A gust of wind blew hard against the glass. “Um...and sideways. This is kind of a blizzard, isn’t it? Oh, shit.”
“Yep,” Danny agreed, still slumped on the bed. “You’re not going anywhere. Barb told me they were just a couple miles away when she called. I guess the roads are so bad they’re barely moving.”
“Maybe they’ll get stuck in a snowdrift?”
“Topher. Not helpful.”
“Fine.” Still watching the snow swirl outside, she tapped her bottom lip and thought. “Just because I’m here doesn’t mean I have to be your girlfriend.”
He grunted skeptically. “So why are you here?”
“Friend of the family?” she asked hopefully, but then scrunched her nose. “Frick, that is pretty weak, isn’t it. Some kind of employee maybe?”
“You’re too pretty,” he said, shaking his head. “No matter who we say you are, Barb’s going to take one look at you and see you as competition. Her competition. And Barb does not handle competition well.”
With a frustrated growl, she ran a hand through her hair and tugged on it until her scalp protested. “Okay...thinking, thinking, thinking...”
“That’s really annoying.”
“Shut it. I’m trying to keep us both alive here. You dragged me into this, so the least you can do is keep quiet about my annoying habits.”
He grumbled but didn’t say anything comprehensible, so Topher took that as a win.
“So what if I’m not her competition?” she asked slowly, the idea still forming in her mind as she spoke. “What if I’m completely off-limits to you?”
“How would you work that?”
“What if I was your uncle’s girlfriend?”
* * *
They argued about it, going around and around in circles until it was almost time for dinner. Barb and her family were due to arrive any minute.
“Do you have a better idea?” Topher finally asked in frustration.
Danny glared at her. “No.”
“Then you go tell your uncle your scary girlfriend is coming and that he needs to play along or you’ll wake up with a decapitated horse head in your bed.”
“Fine.” He was still pouting but at least he’d moved off the bed toward the door. “What are you going to be doing?”
“I’m getting ready for dinner.” She grinned wickedly. “Wait ’til you see what I’m wearing.”
His expression thawed a little and he gave an amused snort. “Looking forward to it.”
He headed in one direction to find his uncle and she went the other way to her assigned room.
“Finally,” she sighed as she closed the door behind her. Flopping down on the bed, she stretched her arms out and smiled, enjoying the peace. She opened her eyes and glanced at the clock on the bedside table. With a bitten-off curse, she bounced to her feet. There was no time to wallow in her solitude.
She yanked off her boots, hopping around the room as she tugged. Her top and skinny jeans followed. Pulling the silvery-blue dress out of her suitcase, she gave it a shake, pleased to see the silky material didn’t hold wrinkles. She slid it over her head and it slipped over her body, ending at mid-thigh. Eyeing her reflection in the full-length mirror, she resisted the urge to tug at the hem.
Twisting around to examine the back, she groaned. There were definite panty lines showing. She changed her bikini briefs for a thong, making a face as she pulled up the skimpy fabric. She hated thongs. Now she was going to feel like she had a permanent wedgie all night.
Another glance at the clock had her hurrying to the bathroom. She quickly brushed out her straight blond hair and touched up her makeup, using a heavy hand with the pink lip-gloss.
After sliding her feet into her strappy silver shoes, she took a couple of steps and then had to catch her balance.
“Maybe these are a little too high.” She glared at her feet. “Let’s see if I can make it to the dining room without breaking my neck.”
Squaring her shoulders, she headed for the door, bracing herself for another round of pretend girlfriend, this time with a different guy.
“I’m such a fake-girlfriend slut.” Grabbing the doorknob, she yanked open her door and headed into the fray.
* * *
She entered the living room cautiously, concerned that the Golfinis had beaten her to the table. When she only saw Danny, his mother and hot James huddled in an intense yet quiet conversation, she breathed a relieved sigh and clomped into the room.
“Mama Jules, Uncle Jamie!” She shouldered her way into their tense circle. “Did Dan-Dan tell you that ginger demon is coming?”
“He did.” James shot Danny a sharp look. “He was just attempting to explain why.”
“I forgot they’d been invited.”
“Don’t look at me,” Julia snapped, glaring at her son. “I didn’t know she was no longer your girlfriend until just a few hours ago.”
Feeling the seconds ticking past, each one bringing them closer to the Golfinis’ arrival, Topher tamped down her impatience and plastered on her vapid expression, adding some annoyance, as well. After all, her fake boyfriend’s real girlfriend was about to show up. If Topher had actually been dating Danny, she would’ve been rightfully pissed. “I’m like super-duper mad at Dan-Dan right now, but he said that the carroty witch’s dad might cut off his guy parts if they find out that Dan-Dan broke up with her and didn’t tell her, so I suppose we should help so that Dan-Dan doesn’t get chopped to bits. Did he tell you his genius plan?”
James was giving her the scorching look again. “Yes.”
Tossing her hands in the air, Julia groaned. “This is ridiculous. Why not tell them the truth? In order to end a relationship, both parties need to know it’s ended. You’re going to have to break up with Barb eventually, Daniel.”
“I don’t know, Mama Jules. What if she, like, rips out my hair or something?” She petted the strands. “I really like my hair. My hairdresser, Ernesto, told me it’s a work of art and should be framed and hung in the loo. I don’t know why he wanted to put my hair in the bathroom, though. Maybe so other girls could see it and be jealous?”
Momentarily distracted from the conversation, James and Julia stared at her with their usual horrified yet amused expressions.
“The Louvre.” James closed his eye for a second, as if gathering strength.
“Huh?”
“He meant it should be hung in the Louvre.” When she opened her mouth, he shook his head, cutting her off. “Never mind.”
“Mom, Uncle James, please,” Danny pleaded. “Just play along until they leave. After New Year’s, I’ll find a way to let her down gently. Sometime when there aren’t any innocent bystanders around.” He shot a look at Topher.
Judging by the expression on James’s face, he was about to object when his cell phone buzzed. He slid his finger across the screen and held it up to his ear. “Yes?”
After a moment, he gave a silent sigh. “They’re expected. Let them in.” He stabbed at the screen as if pretending his finger was a knife and Danny was the phone. “The Golfini family is at the gate.”
“Are we doing this?” Danny asked, and all three of them looked at James with anxious expressions.
“Fine.” He looped an arm around Topher’s shoulders and tugged her hard against his side. “C’mere, darling.”