“Are you ready for this?” Cole asked Rhett after he'd stowed his suitcase in the back of the car. Rhett slid into the passenger seat with a tiny oomph, and his eyelashes fluttered before he managed to make eye contact.

“I mean, I've got to be,” he answered.

“The flight shouldn't be too bad. The seats are two in a row and we have the back so no one will really be able to see us.”

“Unless they turn around.”

“Well, that would be just sort of rude and creepy, don't you think?” Cole questioned.

The airport was close and he drove them to one of the on-site, long-term parking lots. Once parked, Cole pulled his and Rhett's suitcases from the trunk and wheeled them toward the entrance.

“I can carry my own bag,” Rhett offered, but Cole shrugged him off with a tip of his chin.

“If you were really my boyfriend, I wouldn't let you.”

And that was the truth. Rhett's bag was heavy as fuck and Cole wasn't convinced he hadn't somehow packed Lucy in there, but he was raised to be a gentleman and treat his partners well.

“What if I wouldn't let you?” Rhett asked him. “What if I wanted to play the part of chivalrous and attentive boyfriend? What would happen then?”

“Are you the chivalrous and attentive type?” Cole responded, very aware that he needed to know, for reasons far beyond maintaining the charade.

“I'm attentive,” Rhett responded, his voice noticeably scratchy. “I like to make sure my partners have what they need.”

Cole hoisted their bags over the curb in silence, passing them off to a curbside porter and taking the claim tags.

“Are we still talking about luggage?” he asked.

Rhett looked the slightest bit deviant as he angled a look toward Cole. “What else would we be talking about?”

“Cole!” His mother's shrill voice echoed through the airport ticketing area. He took a deep breath and looked in the direction her voice had come from. Rhett stilled beside him.

“Where's this mystery plus one of yours? Kristen was furious when I told her, by the way. Oh, hi Rhett, you traveling today?”

“He is,” Cole answered for him, ignoring the rest of his mother’s greeting. “With me. Rhett and I are seeing each other. He’s my plus one.”

Cole stretched his fingers, grazing against Rhett's wrist. Rhett snatched his hand, quickly threading their fingers together like they'd been doing it for months.

“What?” she sputtered, eyes darting between their faces before dipping down to their now joined hands.

“Cole and I have been dating, Mrs. Mallory,” Rhett contributed, putting a dazzling smile on display.

Cole was transfixed.

When he'd spent the past week thinking about how he couldn't wait to share a bed with Rhett, he now feared it. He wanted Rhett with an unmatched ferocity and he didn't know how long he could control himself before he ruined the entire thing.

Cole made a mental tally of things he'd have to avoid over the coming week in order to not blow their cover. No unnecessary affection, no excessive drinking—for him or for Rhett. And definitely no bed sharing. Cole would sleep on the couch. Or he'd build a divider out of towels and pillows, or something, because while he knew he had to keep his distance from Rhett, the idea was completely unappealing.

“Since when?” his mother asked, brows knit in speculation.

Cole swallowed, aware that this wasn't one of the things they'd discussed. Rhett had been so intent on cataloging Cole's idiosyncrasies that neither of them had thought about coming to an agreement on the finer details that everyone would be asking them.

“Not long,” Rhett answered for him. “Only since June.”

Cole made a mental note.

“Really, Cole? Since June and you didn't say anything?” his mother balked.

“First of all, it's not anyone's business. Second,” Cole lowered his voice and turned his attention to Rhett. “We liked having it be our little secret.”

Rhett's nostrils flared and his lips parted. Cole made another note of the fact that Rhett's brown eyes looked gold in this light then he turned back to his mother.

“And, as you are well aware, circumstances now require that it not be secret. So, now you know.”

His mother looked tired.

“Circumstances require you get married, Cole, not have a boyfriend.”

“Well...who knows, Mother.” Cole's heart fluttered. “We're going to go now. Time to get through security and get to the gate before boarding.”

“I have to wait for your father. We’ll see you at the gate.” His mother glared at her phone.

“It was good seeing you, Mrs. Mallory. I'm excited for Kristen's wedding. Thank you for inviting me.” Rhett cast another dazzling smile at his mother and Cole pulled him away, their hands still joined.

“Since June, then?” Cole asked once they were through security and settled into seats near the boarding gate, but not close enough that they’d be within earshot of family.

“I just picked something plausible,” Rhett answered with a shrug.

“I know you didn't want to do the mundane getting to know you, but we should go over it apparently,” Cole reminded him.

They spent the hour wait going over anything they agreed could be a necessary piece of information in case they were interrogated separately by anyone in Cole's prying family.

After they boarded their flight, rows behind Cole’s parents, Rhett settled into his seat and rested his head against the window.

“Are you all right?” Cole asked, leaning into his space. Rhett looked…not sad, but maybe mournful? Cole couldn't pinpoint the feelings that skittered across Rhett's cheekbones. He was pretty sure if they'd been dating since June, though, he'd have been able to.

“Fine,” Rhett answered, a smile on his face that Cole was seventy-four percent sure was forced.

He knew he had just instituted his own don't-touch-Rhett-unless-you-have-to rule, but he had to. He raised his hand slowly, tracing his fingers over Rhett's cheekbone. The worry on his face melted away.

“See, I'm fine,” Rhett repeated, more convincing this time.

“Alright,” Cole conceded, relaxing back into his own seat.

After the flight attendant went through the safety checks and the wheels of the plane left the ground, Rhett pulled an e-reader out of his carry-on.

“Do you mind if I read?” he asked.

“Not at all. But you have to tell me what you're reading.” Cole grinned. He unrolled his headphones from around his phone so he could plug them into the seat back screen and watch a movie while Rhett read.

“It's a romance.”

“Are you getting ideas?” Cole asked, teasingly.

Rhett reverse blushed in that adorable way he did.

“No,” he answered quickly.

“Would you read to me sometime?” Cole asked, not entirely sure where that question had even come from.

“I mean, if you want, I guess,” Rhett stammered.

“I'd like that.”

Cole pictured a vineyard spring morning, tucked into bed with Rhett under his arm reading aloud while he drank his coffee. An impossibility.

“Sometimes they get kind of raunchy,” Rhett whispered. “Not this one, but sometimes there's, like, a lot of sex.”

Cole pictured a crisp fall evening, tossing Rhett's book aside and pounding into his plump little ass after hearing a particularly inspiring excerpt. Another impossibility.

He jammed his headphones into the jack and put the buds into his ears. Rhett seemed to take the cue for what it was, flipping the cover on his reader back and beginning to read.

Halfway through Cole's movie, Rhett's head landed against his shoulder. He arranged himself like this was a position they were familiar with and resumed his reading.

When the credits rolled, Cole pulled his headphones out in time to hear Rhett mumble, “You're such a flirt, Eroch.”

“Who is Eroch?” he questioned.

“Huh?” Rhett asked, pulling back and looking up at Cole in confusion.

“You said something about Eroch.” Cole told him.

“Eroch is a dragon.”

“You're reading a romance about dragons?” Cole asked, now even more befuddled.

“No. That's an entirely different genre.”

“I'm so confused.” Cole laughed, shaking his head.

“You're particularly handsome when you don't understand something,” Rhett whispered, dragging a thumb up the bridge of Cole's nose. “You get so squinty.”

Cole's eyelashes fluttered at Rhett's touch and he sucked in a sharp inhale.

“Sorry,” Rhett said quickly, pulling his hand away and tucking it into his lap. “That was probably inappropriate.”

The only thing inappropriate was how not inappropriate it was, but Cole kept that thought to himself.

“I feel like we should have some rules,” Cole forced himself to say. The words were bitter on his tongue, but so necessary. Rhett wanted his business and Cole wanted his vineyard, so this had to work.

Rhett looked around the first class cabin, eyes landing on Cole's parents a few rows ahead of them before he returned his attention to Cole.

“Be quiet,” Rhett warned him.

“But don't you…”

Rhett cut him off. “We don't need rules. We just need to not do stupid things.”

Cole swallowed. “You're right.”

A flight attendant appeared beside him, leaning down with a soft voice and a smile.

“Can I get you gentlemen some lunch? We have a baked chicken with pineapple and coconut or we have a steak sandwich.”

“My boyfriend is vegan,” Cole said with a smirk.

“I am not!” Rhett smacked his chest in protest.

Cole's mother turned at the commotion and he grabbed Rhett's fingers and held them against his heart. It was thundering against his ribcage and he knew Rhett would be able to feel it. He only hoped his nervousness and his want didn't read as such to Rhett.

“The steak,” Rhett ordered.

“I'll have the same,” Cole concurred, unable or unwilling to let go of Rhett's fingers, even after the attention of his mother and the flight attendant were gone.

“I never order chicken,” Rhett said untangling their hands.

“It's never cooked right,” Cole mumbled.

“Exactly!” Rhett agreed proudly. “We are a match made in fake boyfriend heaven, aren't we?”

“We are.”

They flipped their tray tables down when the attendant came back and Cole ordered himself a glass of champagne. He downed it and asked for another, ready to pace himself once the bubbles were flowing through his blood.

“I have a confession,” he said to Rhett conspiratorially.

“I do love a good truth,” Rhett remarked, licking some au jus from his thumb.

“I love wine. Obviously. But I really love champagne.”

“Why doesn't Mallory make some then?”

“Technically, champagne is only champagne if it comes from a specific region in France. Everything else is just bubbly wine.”

“Well, let's be honest. Champagne is just bubbly wine with a higher price tag,” Rhett countered, leaning over and taking a drink from his glass.

Cole noticed the imprint of Rhett's lips on the glass and he tried to not stare at it for fear of an airplane boner.

“I think Mallory Bubbly Wines has a really great ring to it,” Rhett told him.

Cole was inclined to agree. In fact, that was something he'd thought about in the past. Not specifically branding something as bubbly wine, but coordinating a marketing campaign to target his generation more than his parents’.

Mallory was a long-running vineyard and a well-established name, but wine was still widely considered too complex to younger people, the variations and types too obtuse for the normal person to make sense of.

Mallory Bubbly Wines could be the flagship bottle under a whole new branding. The wheels in Cole's head were spinning full speed.

“Have you ever been to France?” Rhett asked, breaking his concentration.

“Of course,” Cole answered with a shake of his head. He made wine. Of course he'd been to France.

“Oh,” Rhett replied, tucking into his seat and leaning a shoulder against the window. “Not all of us have had the same opportunities as you, Cole.”

Cole felt like an asshole. Well aware that Rhett and Ryan's parents had always worked. Even though they owned their rental company, their dad had thrown himself into work completely after Rhett's mom died. They'd never had the sort of wealth the vineyard and their family money had provided Cole and Kristen.

“I'll take you,” Cole blurted. “We can go drink wine in Bordeaux. Whatever you want.”

Fuck. He wanted that future. That impossible and fraudulent life.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Cole,” Rhett hissed, crossing his arms over his chest. “I'm not your boyfriend.”