by Mari Carr
Was Aaron talking about the video or confusion over the kiss?
Then he saw the truth of Aaron’s observation. He’d spent a week feeling like a bug under a microscope. He was miserable with the constant scrutiny. Sunnie had obviously found a way to make it fun.
Like she did everything.
Suddenly he understood why his mood had been getting progressively blacker with each passing day. He missed Sunnie.
And that’s when the answer came to him.
Sunnie had a fun-loving, larger-than-life personality. He needed her silly perspective on all of this to get him through. But more than that…he needed to erase the word single from hot cop.
Maybe forever.
The problem was Sunnie wouldn’t come around easily. So he’d have to trick her into it.
And he had the perfect plan.
Sunnie was about to pay him back for saving her from the mugger by going out with him. Having Sunnie pose as his girlfriend would hopefully get the hot-cop groupies off his back. But more than that, it would show Sunnie something that the two of them should have recognized all along.
They belonged together.
Life was about to get a lot more fun.
Chapter Eight
Sunnie sat in a booth at Pat’s Pub with a couple of her nursing friends, enjoying a Friday night happy hour, complete with big-ass margaritas. Her weekend off had just gotten extended to a week, thanks to that damn video. She intended to kick it off in style.
She glanced around the pub, looking for Landon. It had become a bad habit of hers, ever since the mugging and that kiss. Probably because he hadn’t darkened her door once in the past two weeks. The guy was a regular fixture in her life, stopping by the Collins Dorm every couple of nights. This was the longest he’d stayed away.
And it was fucking with her head.
Giving her too much time to think.
Sunnie was pretty sure when she did see him, everything between them would be cool. Same as always.
Maybe.
Shit. Hopefully.
It was the damn kisses she was fixated on. Sunnie hadn’t watched the video since seeing it on Yvonne’s phone in the kitchen. She’d pulled out her laptop at least a hundred times, intent on doing what Pop Pop suggested.
Watch it again.
Look at Landon’s face.
She couldn’t make herself do it, too afraid of what she’d see.
“Sunshine?”
Wow. It was as if she’d thought his name and summoned him. Somehow he’d come into the bar and walked right up to her table without her noticing.
“Hey, Landon,” Yvonne said, hip bumping him as she passed with a tray of appetizers for the table next to them. “Long time, no see.”
Landon grinned and said hello, chatting for just a minute with her cousin and her friends at the table.
Sunnie took advantage of the time to check him out. He looked great, wearing dark jeans and a collared short-sleeved shirt that accentuated his muscular arms. Somewhere along the line, he’d stopped shaving.
“You have a beard,” Sunnie said, interrupting him as he and Yvonne chatted about last night’s baseball game.
Way to state the obvious.
He stopped talking, and Yvonne gave her a curious look as she continued on with her tray. Landon rubbed his jaw, nodding. “Haven’t shaved since that damn video went viral. Thought it might help disguise me.”
“Is it working?”
Landon chuckled. “I’m not sure. Should we ask the fifteen women who followed me to the pub just now?”
She and her friends laughed.
Landon looked great, handsome and in good spirits. It appeared he was taking the fallout from the video in stride, handling the constant scrutiny better than she thought he was. Finn had led her to believe Landon wasn’t happy with all the photographers and women crowding the sidewalks outside his apartment and work.
Not that she was surprised. Landon had always been the quieter of the three of them, calmer, more introspective. Finn joked it was because he lacked the tainted Collins blood.
“Do you mind if I steal Sunnie for a minute?” Landon asked her girlfriends.
They both shook their heads, giving her looks that said they would definitely be demanding details upon her return. She’d already spent the better part of this week assuring her family, friends and work colleagues that the kiss had meant nothing.
It was funny that repeating that same thing over and over hadn’t convinced her it was the truth. In fact, it made her question what the kisses meant even more.
She stood up, allowing him to pull her to a table in a quiet corner of the pub.
“No work today?”
He shook his head. “Your dad made me take a vacation. Think he’s sick of the constant crowd of tabloid photographers on the sidewalk outside the precinct.”
Sunnie took a sip of the margarita she’d carried over with her when Yvonne approached and asked Landon he if wanted anything. He ordered a pint of Guinness and Yvonne went to get it.
Sunnie put down her nearly full glass. “I got the same invitation to stay away from the hospital today. My nursing supervisor said if she wanted to deal with that much paparazzi, she would have hired a Kardashian. She was joking, but even so, she was glad when the hospital granted me a week’s leave.”
“Fate is smiling on us. That’s how much time I’ve got off too.”
She gave him a funny look. “What’s fate got to do with it?”
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. “We’re going to beat this thing. Together.”
“Beat it?”
“Yep. You owe me.”
Sunnie was confused. “Excuse me?”
“I wouldn’t be in this mess if you hadn’t decided to take a walk on the wild side the other night and fought that guy for your purse.”
She matched his position, leaning toward him. “Oh no. None of this is my fault, Romeo. If you hadn’t laid that damn kiss on me in front of that reporter, that video wouldn’t have gone viral and we wouldn’t be in this situation. So really, it’s you who owes me.”
He shook his head, refusing to listen to her reasoning. “You kissed me at the April Fools party. We’re calling the kisses a draw.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I thought you didn’t remember the kiss at the party.”
Landon shrugged. “I lied.”
That response took her aback for a second. “I didn’t initiate that kiss.”
“Yes, you did.”
Sunnie tried to figure out how to feel about the fact he’d remembered the kiss. She really thought she’d dodged a bullet there. To find out that she hadn’t—and now he’d added his own kiss to the hot mess they were making of this friendship—was surprising…and interesting.
Landon was Mr. Rock Solid, meaning he was so reliable, so true to character, she could set a watch by him. She could pretty much predict how he was going to react to any and every situation.
Except this one.
She would have thought he’d hunker down and hide out while giving the whole viral thing a chance to blow over. That didn’t appear to be his plan. More than that, he was trying to game the system. That was a Sunnie move, not a Landon one.
“You’ve gone quiet. Not sure I’ve ever heard that lack of sound from you.” He laughed at his own joke, and her body responded to it in a very uncomfortable, hot-and-bothered way. Dammit. She’d really thought these past two weeks would help her get over all these…unwanted feelings.
She decided to hear him out, curious about where he was going with this whole “you owe me” thing. “What do you want?”
“You’re going to pretend to be my girlfriend until all this shit blows over and the lovestruck mob following me goes away.”
She shook her head. “Nope.”
“Yes. You are. This ‘single hot cop’ thing isn’t getting better. It’s getting worse. The best way to tackle it is to go on the offensive. If I’m not single, if I’m, in fact, datin
g sexy nurse, those women hovering outside my apartment will realize I’m not available and hopefully back off.”
“And what if they don’t?” she asked.
“I’m not worried about that. You’re going to be a very jealous girlfriend.”
Sunnie rolled her eyes, waiting for the “I’m just kidding” that would prove this was all some big gag at her expense. “Did Finn put you up to this?”
Landon shook his head. “No. It was actually something your dad said at work. He was the one who pointed out the appeal of a single hot cop.”
“And he suggested we pretend to date?” Sunnie felt as if she should step outside to see if a meteor was streaking across the sky, headed for their planet. Landon had studied his predictable-as-the-tide skills under her father’s tutelage, the perfect Padawan to Dad’s Jedi master.
“Of course not. He just got me thinking that the best way to combat the problem is to take the word single away.”
“So go find a girlfriend.”
He tilted his head, raising his eyebrows. “I just did. You.”
Sunnie leaned back. “It’ll never work. None of our family and friends will believe it for a second.”
“I’m not trying to convince them. Just the strangers.”
“So what are you thinking…exactly? Spell it out for me. Give me the parameters.”
“Go out with me tonight. Dinner date.”
“And?” she prompted.
“We’ll hash out the details there.”
Sunnie laughed. “So basically you have no plan.”
Landon shook his head. “I have a plan, but I’m hungry and there’s no reason we shouldn’t get this show on the road now. The sooner the better.”
She glanced over at the table she’d just left. Her girlfriends had struck up a conversation with a couple of guys at the table next to them. Neither of them would miss her. Hell, at this point, she’d be a third wheel.
“Fine.” She pointed to her scrubs. “I need a minute to change.”
“Cool. I’ll wait down here, finish my beer.”
Sunnie stood up slowly, still expecting him to spring the joke, to let her off the hook. When he simply gave her a pleasant smile, it started to sink in he really thought this was a good idea. “Okay.”
She started to turn, to head toward the stairs at the back of the pub that would lead up to her apartment, but he grasped her wrist.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” he asked.
Sunnie looked longingly at the unfinished margarita. He’d said he was hungry, so she thought that was her cue to hurry up. “Yeah, I guess—”
“Not the drink.” Landon pointed to his cheek. “My goodbye kiss.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You can’t possibly be serious.”
“If we’re doing this, Sunnie, we’re doing it right, making it look real.”
“Who the fuck are you and where did you put Landon?”
He chuckled, but didn’t relent. It was clear the man actually intended for her to kiss him. She sighed. “Fine. Whatever.” She leaned toward him and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, trying to ignore how good he smelled.
Was he wearing cologne? Did he always wear it?
The second she finished, he turned his face, his lips grazing hers in a super-fast but surprisingly sweet—and hot—kiss.
She reared back. “Kissing is part of your plan?”
He looked at her like she was insane. “Of course it is. By the way, we’re walking to the restaurant tonight, and you’re holding my hand.”
Sunnie realized that pretty much everything Landon had said to her since they’d sat down had been phrased not as a question, but as a statement.
If she didn’t know him so well, she’d think he was one of those alpha male types, but this was Landon. He was the king of manners and politeness, constantly asking others what they wanted to do and phrasing most things with “please” and “thank you.”
None of that was present right now.
Then she recalled his description of how he liked things in the bedroom. She’d had some very happy times with her vibrator the past couple of months, fantasizing about that list…while trying to forget Landon was the dream guy doing them to her.
She belatedly crinkled her nose, pretending to think the idea of holding his hand was gross, but his smug smile never wavered.
“I’ll be right here when you come back down.”
She wished that reassurance didn’t set butterflies fluttering in her stomach. She felt like a teenager going on her first date.
Ugh.
Landon.
It was freaking Landon.
She didn’t bother to say anything else. Instead, she flipped a casual wave and walked away, deciding this plan of his wasn’t a good one.
So…she needed to form a plan of her own.
She grinned, considering the parameters they planned to set tonight over dinner. She knew exactly how to bring Landon back to his senses. She’d make a few demands of her own.
She had to.
Because Sunnie had become as obsessed with the viral kiss as those lonely hearts following him around. However, unlike those women, she had something to lose. Something pretty major.
Landon.
* * *
Landon hadn’t been alone at the table more than thirty seconds when Finn plopped down in the seat Sunnie had just vacated.
“What gives?”
He’d seen Finn walk into the pub just a few minutes earlier. Finn had stopped by the bar for the pint of Guinness in his hand. And he’d seen the kiss he and Sunnie had just shared.
Another kiss. This was becoming a habit.
“What do you mean?” Landon decided to play dumb, drive Finn crazy. He figured he had at least fifteen minutes to kill before Sunnie came back down. He might as well have some fun.
“You just kissed my sister. Again.”
“I know.”
Finn leaned back in the chair and rubbed his jaw, his expression the textbook definition of confused. “Are you two dating?”
Landon chuckled and shook his head. “Not exactly.”
He probably should have chosen his words more carefully, because Finn misinterpreted them, his eyes narrowing angrily. “You better not be fucking—”
Landon put his hands up, a sign of surrender. “Come on, man. You know me better than that,” he said quickly. “Sunnie is going to help me scare away the damn groupies.”
“How?”
“She and I are going to pretend we’re dating.”
Finn took a sip of his beer as he chewed over that piece of information. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“It’s a great idea,” Landon insisted. “The tabloids keep trying to put us together in some forbidden love affair, so we’re just going to give it to them. Hopefully, this will scare off the women chasing me. What’s more boring than a couple going out to dinner and to the movies? With any luck, this will help things blow over quicker.”
“They’re going to blow over on their own anyway. I can’t see any reason to push the issue.”
“It’s driving me crazy, Finn. I’m not like you and Sunnie. I can’t stand being in the spotlight.”
“You just have to give it time. This shit never goes on for that long. People have very short attention spans.”
Landon shrugged. “I know. And I’m going to try to make them even shorter.”
Finn ran his finger through the condensation on his mug, quiet for a few moments, before looking at him again. “Are you sure that’s why you’re doing this?”
Landon frowned. “What’s that mean? What other reason would there be?”
“You keep kissing her, man.”
Glancing across the pub, Landon tried to figure out how to explain it to Finn. God, he’d like to find a way to explain it to himself. He’d kissed her at that damn party and…God…he just woke up.
But he wasn’t going to say any of that to Finn. He hadn’t even told Sunnie that his feelings
for her had changed. So, he’d deflect. For now. “We were drunk the first time. We don’t even—”
Finn held up his hand, looking slightly annoyed. “Don’t bother trying to feed me that line of shit about not remembering. I know you, bro. Maybe better than you know yourself. You remember every second of that kiss. And so does Sunnie. We let you get away with denying it because you were both drunk, and it was an easy way to let you off the hook on something neither one of you should have done to begin with.”
Landon tried to figure out why Finn’s comment bugged him so much. Did he really believe they shouldn’t have kissed? Why?
Landon knew they were a mismatch in terms of romance. Knew they both wanted different things right now. Knew that the relationship they shared now was special and not something to fuck with. He knew all of that.
But that knowledge vanished whenever he looked at her.
“I get it,” Landon said at last, simply because it was what Finn wanted to hear. And because Finn was his best friend, he knew it was a lie.
Finn shook his head. “No. You don’t. Sunnie is a chronic dater, Landon. Her track record on commitment sucks.”
Landon didn’t think it was a commitment issue as much as bad taste on her part. “She picks gym rats, guys who can’t walk by a mirror without flexing. Personally, I didn’t mind that she wouldn’t commit to the lumberjack, Stunt Man and Naked Ned. They were all clueless assholes.”
Finn snorted as Landon listed Sunnie’s last few boyfriends, using the nicknames he and Finn had given them.
“You’re missing the point. The reason she goes for that type is because there’s no danger of feeling anything for them. She’s my sister, and I know for a fact she’s never fallen in love. Not once.”
Landon thought back and realized Finn was right. He hadn’t considered that obstacle. Until recently, Sunnie’s love life had been a source of entertainment more than something he’d seriously thought about. “That doesn’t mean she won’t fall in love…someday.”
Finn took a swig of beer, and Landon got the sense he was using the drink as a way of stalling until he could figure out how to say what he was thinking. “I really want her to find the perfect guy to fall in love and settle down with.”