An hour later, Violet says goodbye to the final customer, waving and blowing a kiss. “One more picture?” the brunette with a short blunt cut asks as she stands in the doorway.

“Of course.” I drape an arm around my pretend girlfriend.

The woman giggles and points upward. God bless mistletoe.

I drop a kiss to Violet’s cheek for the camera. She turns and plants one on my lips, and that’s like a shot of lust straight to my groin. To my mind. Through my whole body. This whole pretend girlfriend ruse is pretty awesome if it involves so much kissing for random cameras. Then I remember, Violet isn’t into me. These fake kisses can suck it.

She breaks apart and says goodbye to the brunette. As soon as she’s gone, Violet yanks down the blinds, locks the door, then breathes.

“So . . .”

“So . . .”

“You want to start?” I ask, as I park myself on the leather couch in the front of the shop. “Because it’s a helluva lucky break that we both need a plus-one.”

She sits next to me, crossing those lovely legs of hers. “I had the meeting with the landlord. He basically said he has offers left and right for a higher fee on my space. And my lease is up in a few months. Which means he’ll be jacking up the rates.”

“What an ass.”

“But, if I can keep up this kind of business, then I can make the salon more popular, and I can afford the increase. So that’s why I was calling you earlier. To see if you’d be amenable to pretending to be mine.” She fiddles with her bracelets. “I don’t want to put you out, though. I know last night was an exception, and if you have dates or whatnot planned with other women, or if this will cramp your style . . .”

I laugh loudly, setting a hand on her arm. “It’s all good, and I don’t have a style.”

She knits her brow, speaking softly. “You kind of do, though, don’t you?”

“Maybe I did, but I’m all about football this year,” I say, pointing straight ahead. Eye on the ball.

“And that means you’re a monk?”

“Took my vow before the season opener.”

She tilts her head. “Jones was serious when he said you kept your . . .?” She lets her question trail off, not repeating the phrase my buddy used last night.

“Snake in a cage?”

“Yes. That.”

“I took my vow of chastity at the start of the season. He doesn’t come out to play.”

She arches a skeptical brow. “For real?”

I nod. “Yeah, for real. I did that for me, to keep my focus on the game. Then it became part of this informal pact between the four of us once we started playing well—Harlan, Jones, Einstein, and me. As soon as we had a winning record, we figured we needed to maintain our superstitions, so we’ve kept them up.”

“And why that one for you?”

“Two reasons. First, my right hand still works. Like, really fucking well.”

She laughs loudly.

“Oh wait. I forgot. No monkey-spanking comments in front of you.”

“Please. That applied to my brother. It doesn’t bother me if you mention it.”

“Good. Feel free to talk about your solo habits, too.”

She rolls her eyes. “Keep dreaming.”

“I will.”

“Is pretend-dating me going to be a problem for your monkhood?”

I laugh. “Since it’s pretend dating, no.”

“What was the second reason for the vow?”

“I just figured focusing on football only would be best for my game, and I need my game to be excellent.”

She nods, taking it in. “Hence, the vow of chastity.”

I pat the belt loops on my jeans. “Here’s my chastity belt.”

She slams a hand on her thigh, laughing. “Oh, Coop. I think your chastity belt was broken a long time ago.”

I laugh with her because that’s the thing about best friend’s sisters. They know your dirt. They know who you were when you were six, moving to a new town with next to nothing. They know who you were when your face was covered in zits and your voice seesawed from high to low during the most awful time of life ever—puberty. They overheard you telling your buddy about the night you spent with Katrina Smith your junior year of high school, and how quickly you came when you lost your virginity with the head cheerleader. Violet knows who I am. She knows who I’ve been. But there’s something I don’t know about her. There are parts of her that have simply been private.

“When was yours broken?” I ask, curiously.

A pink blush spreads across her cheeks. She lets her hair fall over her cheek. I can’t resist. I brush it away. “Tell me,” I say softly. “Was it Jamie? The guy I filled in for at prom?”

“Actually,” she says, taking her time with her words as she folds her hands in her lap, “that’s why he broke up with me. Because I wouldn’t sleep with him.”

My jaw falls open. “Wow. He’s a total ass.”

She nods. “He said if I wasn’t going to put out, he didn’t need to shell out for prom.”

“Ouch,” I say, cringing.

“Needless to say, I wasn’t terribly interested in putting out for anyone after that.” She meets my eyes. The look in hers is shy. “I lost my chastity belt when I was twenty.”

I try not to imagine her soft, sensual twenty-year-old body, but it’s a futile effort. Just talking about sex and virginity has me undressing her in my head, and that’s the shit I need to stop.

Instead, I reassure her that I don’t think it’s odd she took her time. “Nothing wrong with waiting, Vi.”

“Yeah?”

“Absolutely. Better to wait until you’re ready. Until it feels right.”

“I believe that, too,” she says, and for a flash, I wonder if it would ever feel right to her with me.

Then I reroute the conversation for real this time. I glance around her shop, gesturing from her to me. “It’s kind of ridiculous that something like this—us supposedly being together—makes a shop more popular.”

She pats my arm. “Sometimes, I think you don’t realize the effect you can have on people.”

My brow pinches. “What do you mean?”

“You think just because Jeff was so popular that you can fly under the radar. That doesn’t happen anymore. Everyone wants to see you succeed because they love the team. They equate things like this—you and me supposedly being a thing”—she puts a heavy emphasis on supposedly, maybe as a reminder that it’s all trumped up—“as part of the key to success.”

“I suppose that’s true. Greenhaven certainly saw it like that, and I don’t want to rub him the wrong way. The GM basically does what Greenhaven wants when it comes to keeping players and letting players go.” I give her the lowdown on what the coach said, then on my meeting with Ford. “He made it clear he doesn’t want me backpedaling during the negotiations. It’s all very sensitive. Like a dance.”

“How long do you think they’ll last?”

I drag a hand through my hair. “I’m not sure. Sometimes it takes a few days. Sometimes it takes weeks.”

Her eyebrows inch up, and she stares at me as if I’ve done something terribly wrong.

“What?”

She leans closer. “Your hair.” Her voice is softer, like it was earlier.

I watch her lift her hand. “Sticking up again?”

“You messed it up.”

“You’re dying to fix it, aren’t you?” I ask, teasing.

She runs her teeth over her lip. “It’s taking enormous self-restraint not to.”

I throw down a challenge. “I’m not sure you can fix it without your lotions and potions.”

She lasers me with a sharp-eyed stare. “You doubt me?”

“Yes. I doubt you,” I say, loving the twinkle in her light brown eyes.

She pokes me in the sternum. “You don’t see me getting on the field and telling you that you can’t get the ball in the end zone. You don’t come into my shop and tell me I can’t fix your hair with my bare hands.”

My smile spreads. Damn, I love this feisty side of her. “It’s so sexy when you talk like that about your . . . bare hands.”

She lifts them, as if she’s Wolverine and these are her weapons. She rises to her knees, inches closer, and smooths a hand over my hair. I tell myself to be cool, to be still, to not get turned on. Like I can enter the mind-over-erection zone.

But the funny thing is, I don’t ruminate on how good it feels when her hands slide into my hair.

Instead, I study her. I stare at her neck. I’m mesmerized by the way she swallows—almost harshly as she licks a few fingers to wet them. I’m intrigued by how her shoulders rise and fall in a steady rhythm. My ears home in on the sound of her breath hitching as she slides her fingers back onto my head.

My chest burns, and the space between us falls silent. Her fingers glide through my messy hair, smoothing, straightening, taming. The only sounds are the hum of the heater and the faint sound of traffic from outside.

Her voice breaks the quiet. “I don’t think I’ve told you this before . . .”

“Told me what?” I ask, my voice raspy, and for the briefest second, I hope that she’s about to utter something magnificent like I’ve never been this turned on before or can I just rub my tits against your face?

The response to the first is me, neither, and the answer to the next one is for as long as you want to, please.

But she says something better. “Cooper, your hair is so soft.”

The emphasis is on the so. As if she’s tasting the word. As if it’s rolling around on her tongue, lingering in her mouth. And when she moves back, sitting next to me, crossing her legs, I let my eyes drift down to her neck and the exposed skin above her cleavage, flushed pink.

As if she’s aroused, too.

I raise my gaze, blinking, trying to center myself and reconnect to this moment. To my friend. To my best friend’s sister.

My voice comes out gravelly. “We probably need to let Trent know we have to keep this up.”

“Yes, Trent,” she says, and there’s nothing to kill a mood faster than his name.

I’m grateful for the buzzkill. Being this close to Violet is dangerous. Something changed last night. I’m not sure how to name it—the way I feel being near her. But I like it. I like it too much for my own good.

She calls Trent and puts her phone on speaker on her thigh. Quickly, she explains what went down with the landlord, and I tell him about Ford.

“So, we wanted you to know,” she says.

“Hey, I get it,” Trent says, because even if he doesn’t want us together, he’s not a dick. He’s a good guy. “And I’m glad this game of pretend can help you both. Feel free to tell any of your new clients, Vi, that if they want to go to the best sports bar in the Bay Area they should hit Trent’s Brew Company.”

I laugh. “I’ll always send business to you, too, man.”

“All right. Holly and I need to do inventory.”

I scratch my chin. “Why do I feel that’s code for something?”

“I wish it were. We really do need to do inventory,” he says seriously, and I meet Violet’s eyes and stick out my tongue.

She laughs quietly. “If you say so.”

“Have fun pretending, and Cooper, don’t touch my sister,” he says in a deliberately stern tone, as if he’s giving me a Very Serious Warning. He says it as if it’s a ridiculous idea, too. As if I’d never want to touch his sister.

But as we end the call and Violet grabs her pink purse, whatever shifted last night has become clear. I know how to name the feeling. I understand what it is.

I want to touch her.

I want to kiss her.

I want to taste her.

Last night, my body wasn’t playing tricks on me. It was telling a truth that perhaps has existed for some time now. A truth that was dormant and is now awakened and insistent. It doesn’t want to take no for an answer.

I’m wildly attracted to my best friend’s sister, but I have to pretend I don’t want to kiss her, touch her, fuck her, and take her home with me.

That’s where the true faking starts for me.