“Nora, would you help me chop some vegetables for the salad? I was about to get started on dinner before you arrived. I assume you two will be staying for that?”

Anne looked at her daughter expectantly, and Nora nodded and headed over to the fridge to get out some salad ingredients.

“Would you like some help?” I asked.

“I’ve seen your coordination. Nora’s right, you’re a baboon,” Roy said with a grunt. “You’ll slice your hand open. Why don’t we go sit down with a beer instead?”

“But thanks for the offer,” Anne added with a smile.

Roy grabbed me a drink from the fridge. I went and joined him in the living room, where a football game was being televised on a big screen. Roy muted it, then turned to me and held his beer up. “Cheers, Jacob. Thanks for coming. Anne was starting to think Nora was completely making up this boyfriend of hers.”

“Well, I’m definitely real,” I said with a grin.

“That you are,” he replied. “So you’re a big movie star, huh?”

“I guess I will be once Fourth Down is out.”

“Yes, I’ve heard it’s going to be huge when it premieres. How’s Nora doing on it?”

“Very well. Your daughter is great at her job.”

He nodded. “We’re very proud of her,” he said, leaning closer. “And we’re very protective of her too.”

The message was clear: Don’t mess with Nora’s heart.

I didn’t intend to. I never wanted to hurt her. Ever.

“That’s good,” I replied. “Nora is very lucky to have so many people watching out for her.”

He nodded, seemingly satisfied with my response. “Want to come help me grill some steaks when the girls are finished making the salad and potatoes?”

“Sure. Don’t think I can injure myself too badly doing that.”

“We’ll see,” he said with a chuckle.

We sat and watched the game while we finished our beers, and then I followed Roy into the kitchen. It was a huge room with a large island counter and one side which seemed entirely devoted to barbecuing. I helped Roy season and sear some steaks as Nora and Anne set the table in the next room.

“Thanks for staying for dinner,” Nora whispered as she brushed past me with some utensils.

I winked. “No worries. Kinda had to, seeing as we got here so late. What’s happening with Oscar, though?”

“I texted Angie earlier. She’s got a spare key to my place, so she’s stopped by to feed him and let him out for a while.”

“Cool.” I missed that gorgeous mutt of hers. Almost as much as I missed seeing her in lingerie like I had that first night.

When the steaks were done, Roy and I took them into the dining room. Nora was clearing up the far end of the table to make room for an enormous salad bowl.

“What’s this, Mom?” she asked, holding up a white card with ‘A+’ printed on it. “You going back to school?”

Anne looked over at her, eyebrows raised. “What? Oh, no, we went to donate blood yesterday. Apparently that’s my blood type. Just give me that. I’ll stick it in the drawer.”

There was another card underneath the first one which read ‘AB+’. Anne quickly filed the cards away in a sideboard on the other side of the room before returning to the table. “Dig in, everyone.”

The evening passed at a leisurely pace. During our extensive conversation at the dinner table, I realized I was already totally comfortable in Nora’s childhood home despite the fact that we were tricking her parents into thinking we were together. I felt bad for that, but if I ever managed to get Nora to be with me for real, then it wouldn’t be a lie, and her parents would never need to know of the deception.

I could only hope.

“I hear you two got a dog,” Roy said as we dug into dessert later in the evening.

“Oscar? He’s Nora’s dog,” I said. “I love that boy. Sweetest little thing. But yeah, he lives with her. Not me.”

“Ah. So you’re not shacking up yet,” he said, flashing Anne a conspiratorial glance.

Nora threw a balled-up napkin at him. “You two are so obvious. You could’ve just asked us if we’re living together or not. We’re not, by the way.”

“I have my own house,” I added with a chuckle.

“Well, it’s getting quite late. Jacob, you’re welcome to stay here for the night, so you two don’t have to make the drive back to LA at this time of night,” Roy said.

Nora looked horrified. “No, Dad, it’s okay. It’s not that late. It’s only seven-thirty.”

“I don’t like these roads when it’s raining at night, and this recent weather has been godawful,” Roy said. “Your mother and I didn’t come down in the last shower, so we know you two will want to share a room. That’s fine. Your old room is all made up.”

Nora’s eyes were getting wider by the second. She looked like she was about to go into cardiac arrest. “But…”

“No buts. We don’t want either of you on the road while it’s raining. We’ve got new toothbrushes upstairs for any guests. You know where it all is, sweetie. And your brother still has a lot of his old clothes here. They’re all clean, so Jacob can borrow something to sleep in.”

“Thank you,” I said. ”That’s very nice of you to offer.”

Roy looked satisfied and started talking to Anne about where the guest towels were. I leaned over to Nora. “Don’t worry, I’ll sleep on the floor.”

“No, I will,” she whispered back. “I’m the one who got us into this mess in the first place.”

“I will. I insist.”

She gave me a tight smile. “We’ll figure it out when we get upstairs.”

We went into the living room and watched a movie with her parents. By nine-thirty, Roy was yawning. “I think it’s time we called it a night. Been up since six,” he said, slinging an arm around Anne’s shoulder. “We’ll just go clear the kitchen up, and then we’ll see you two in the morning. Nora, show Jacob around upstairs, will you?”

“Sure.”

“All right. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” Nora and I replied in unison.

We trudged upstairs. Nora pointed out the bathroom before ducking into her brother’s old room to grab some spare clothes for me.

“I’m so sorry about this,” she said a moment later, handing me a small pile of folded clothes. “You must’ve had other plans for tonight, right?”

“It’s fine. Nothing special. Just some premiere event I was invited to. Probably wasn’t going to go anyway.”

“You didn’t have a date or anything?” Nora asked.

I grinned. She wasn’t exactly being subtle about prying for information on my love life, but I didn’t mind. I liked that she was curious about that aspect of my life. It gave me hope. “No, no date planned,” I replied. “Like I was saying, I probably wasn’t going to go anywhere tonight.”

She didn’t respond and simply led me farther down the hall. When she finally opened her bedroom door, I stepped in, grinning as I took it all in—the sports posters and memorabilia, the photos, the old stuffed animals sitting on a shelf.

“So this is your room, huh?”

She gave me an embarrassed smile. “Yeah. Anyway, while you get changed, I’ll go get some blankets from the linen cupboard and lay them out on the floor to sleep on.”

“You really don’t have to sleep on the floor. I’ll do it,” I said.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. Can’t let a lady sleep on the ground. That’d just be wrong,” I said with a roguish wink.

I expected her to laugh, but she blushed instead and ducked her head down as she slipped out of the room to grab the extra sheets and blankets. I quickly changed into the T-shirt and boxer shorts she’d just given me, and then I left the room too, suddenly thirsty.

I bumped into Nora in the hall. “I’m just going to grab a glass of water,” I said, trying to ignore how damn sexy she looked. At some point in the last couple of minutes, she’d taken off her sweater, and the cool air in the hall was making her nipples stand to attention under her thin shirt.

“Okay,” she said softly. “I’ll see you back up here in a minute.”

I trudged downstairs and quietly padded toward the kitchen, where I could hear Anne and Roy speaking in hushed voices. I assumed they were just clearing up like they said they were going to, but as I drew closer, I paused. Their conversation sounded quite serious, and it seemed to be about Nora.

“She could’ve easily found out. You saw how close it was earlier,” Anne said.

“It wasn’t close. Don’t be silly, darling, we’ve been doing this for almost twenty-five years. She’s never going to know, and she never needs to. I thought that’s what we agreed.”

Anne sighed. “I know, but now that he’s actually… well, you know what I mean. I just feel like we should come clean.”

“We decided it was best not to for a very good reason. What she doesn’t know can’t hurt her. Do you really want to risk hurting her?” Roy said gently.

“I suppose not,” Anne said with another sigh.

“I’m just trying to protect her. And you too, honey. I know this bothers you sometimes, but I do think it’s for the best. Sometimes it’s better for people to not know the whole truth.”

“I know.”

I coughed to announce my presence nearby. Then I stepped into the kitchen. “Sorry, just need to grab a drink.”

“Oh, of course, Jacob,” Anne said, scurrying over to a cupboard to get me a glass. “We weren’t being too loud, were we?”

She looked anxious, and I knew what she was really asking in polite code. She and Roy wanted to see how much I’d overheard.

I smiled. “No, I didn’t even know you two were still in here until I walked in,” I said. Their faces fell with relief.

Yup, they’d definitely been talking about Nora. If it was anyone else, they wouldn’t have cared so much if I overheard. But seeing as they thought I was her boyfriend, they didn’t want me knowing anything about their subject of discussion in case I passed it on to her, as boyfriends tended to do.

“Thanks for the drink,” I said once I’d downed the water. “I’ll just put this in the dishwasher.”

“Thanks, Jacob. Hope you sleep well,” Roy said, patting me on the shoulder.

I bade him and Anne goodnight and headed back upstairs, intent on telling Nora about the odd exchange I’d inadvertently overheard. I never got the chance to do so, however, due to the sight which greeted me as I swung her bedroom door open.

Nora was standing in the middle of the room… and she was buck naked.