CHAPTER 4
OLIVER
“This is the worst plan ever, and now we’re all going to die.” I finish unloading the absolute trainwreck that was the gala mission onto my best friend, Zara, and sink into her purple velvet couch.
I stare at the ceiling, waiting for her to yell, to panic, or to tell me I’m insane for even agreeing to something this stupid… But she stays quiet, which is extremely unusual for her… as in, it has never happened before.
I look over, half expecting her to have died from shock, but Zara is just staring at me with those intense green eyes.
Her face is frozen in complete disbelief, and her fingers have stopped playing with her golden curls.
Her lips twitch…
Oh, crap… Is she going to cry? Is she choking?
Nope. None of the above.
Instead, a snort escapes her, followed by a giggle. And then, she falls back against the cushions and bursts out laughing.
“Ladies and gentlemen, my moral support.”
“You… you’ve got to be kidding me,” she chokes out, wiping tears from her eyes. “You have to fake-fuck a spy?”
“Yes. I mean, no. Not quite fake… We’ll have to lean heavily on the PDA to keep Rafael away from us, but the rest will be fake.”
“Ugh, gross, Ollie. I get you’re always doing your best to help others, but you can’t go making out with old agents or doing something that makes you uncomfortable.”
I remember how Damián’s hands moved over my body, how his lips felt, and how my mind went completely blank the moment his tongue curled around mine.
I remember his smile, the striking shades of brown in his eyes, the delicious scrape of his stubble, and how warm and hard his body felt against me.
Hell, I remember a lot of things about that moment, but “uncomfortable” is definitely not one of them.
“Well… I wouldn’t call it uncomfortable,” I admit.
“What would you call it? Disgusting?”
“…Distracting.”
Zara sits up immediately, as if the word just bolted her back to life. “Distracting? Shut up! Show me a picture.”
“What?! Why would I have a picture? I just met him.”
Zara holds out her hand, palm up, and waits.
“Zara, I don’t have any—”
She snaps her fingers.
“Fine,” I grumble, digging out my phone. “I might have… hacked his sister’s socials. You know, before they erased any trace of him belonging to the Harknett family.”
“You hacked his sister?”
“Yeah… For operational awareness purposes, of course.”
“Right. Operational awareness.”
I unlock the phone and scroll until I see it.
It’s a beautiful picture someone took of Damián while he wasn’t looking.
He’s laughing next to a brunette woman with an adorable kid in her lap, leaning back on the pool’s edge with water dripping off his shoulders.
He is all golden skin, wet hair, and a smile so bright it feels almost illegal to look at.
I sigh, and with reluctance, I turn the phone and show her.
Zara’s eyes go wide, and after what feels like forever, she lifts her gaze from the phone to my face, and then back to the phone.
“Oh, my GOD! What the fuck!” she shrieks, even louder than she did the day we went to The Eras tour. “Oh, Oliver. You are so screwed!”
“Zara! Keep it down!”
“Screwed! Done for! Cooked! How… how in God’s name are you, an adorable, blushing virgin, supposed to play the casual hookup to a man who looks like that?”
“It’s not funny, Z!” I groan, burying my face in my hands. “It’s a freaking disaster!”
“Oh, it’s a disaster,” she agrees, breathless from laughing.
“But it’s also hilarious. Like, Ollie, you are a genius.
You’ve literally been outsmarting the most dangerous crime monster in the world since you were thirteen…
but you’re going to pretend to be this spy’s fuckbuddy?
How exactly are you going to pull that off without anyone finding out? ”
“I can do it. You know I’ve done worse to get the intel I needed.”
“Yeah… I wasn’t talking about the intel. I was talking about the fucking part.”
My face turns a shade of red that would probably make a Marvel villain jealous.
Ugh, I’m so damn lame.
“Okay, at least tell me this Damián guy knows.”
I don’t have to ask what she means… Does he know it’s all a lie?
That I don’t touch drugs, I’ve never dated, and every single paparazzi photo of my alleged hookups was staged? Does he know I’ve never actually had sex?
That, in fact, our absolutely phenomenal kiss against the bathroom wall was the first time a man’s tongue had ever touched mine?
Of course, he doesn’t.
But why tell her all that? Instead, I look away and focus very hard on a stack of Vogue magazines on the coffee table.
“Oliver, you have to tell him. That man can’t be pushing you against bathroom walls and dressers unless he knows it’s all new to you.”
“Absolutely not. I’m not telling him I’m a twenty-nine-year-old virgin. I’m already mortified and embarrassed enough, thank you very much.”
“Babe, that man looks like he eats other spies for breakfast.” She shoves the phone back against my chest. “You need to tell him, and not just for your own sake. If you pretend to be his fuckbuddy, anyone with eyes will be able to tell how inexperienced you are the moment you start shaking.”
“But—”
“No buts, Oliver. If Rafael sees how inexperienced you are, he will know all those ‘hookups’ you had were staged. And if he realizes that part of your life is a lie…”
“…he’ll know the rest is, too.”
“Exactly. This is not a good time for him to find that out. Especially when they’re trying to find out who is leaking information to the agencies.”
“We are so screwed,” I say, closing my eyes, feeling resigned and just tired of all this shit.
“No, we are not.” Zara smiles mischievously. “You just need to change the plan.”
I open one eye to glare at her. “How? It took me six months to find an opening just to get the CIA into the house.”
“I’m not talking about changing the mission. I’m talking about changing your angle. Think about it, Ollie: what do a lifelong manwhore and a terrified virgin have in common?”
“Their love for burgers?”
“No…” She rolls her eyes. “They both look like goddamn idiots when they fall in love.”
I blink at her. “I don’t get it.”
“Your problem is that you’re trying to make them believe you guys are just having casual sex. That’s where you’ll fail because you can’t fake being a player with a guy who looks like that. Hell, you’ll probably faint the first time he takes off his shirt.”
I glare at her, but I say nothing, mostly because she is right.
“But… and there is a huge but… if you make sure everyone knows you’re serious about him, even if they see you shake or get all flustered, no one will question your supposed Playboy past. They’ll just see another manwhore who turned into a blushing mess the second he caught real feelings.”
“Okay… but how do I do that?”
“Tell the hot spy you’re changing the terms of the deal from fuckbuddies to actual boyfriends.”
“Boyfriends…” I mull the idea over, letting it take shape in my head.
Damián, my boyfriend…
The mere thought sends shivers down my spine and fills my stomach with hundreds of butterflies.
“I guess nerves would make sense if he were the first guy I actually wanted to commit to.”
She grins. “Now that is a perfect plan.”
— ¤ —
I should’ve said no, but it is too late for that now…
I should be back home; instead, I am standing in front of a grocery store in the middle of Brooklyn, clutching two sweating plastic cups, one salted caramel frappe, and my usual cold brew.
I look like a complete idiot.
Parked a safe distance behind me is a black SUV. I don’t even have to look to know Silvio and Franco are inside, watching my every move so they can snitch to Rafael.
Oh, God… I hope they don’t snitch about how dumb I look.
“This is stupid,” I grumble to myself.
The condensation from the cups is making my palms slick, and I’m way too nervous. No… the word is unsure.
I am unsure of telling him about the boyfriend thing, and when I get nervous and unsure, my brain does what my brain does best… Overthink the fuck out of this situation.
Was getting him a frappe the right choice?
Do people who are dating actually do this, or am I being too extra? How extra is extra? And why is it called extra? Isn’t extra something good? Don’t we all want a little extra of everything?
Oh, God… Shut up, Oliver.
I look at my reflection in the grocery store’s glass door. I spent forty minutes trying to make my hair look “effortlessly messy,” but now I just think I look like a Twilight vampire.
My heart is racing again, the exact same way it did when Damián’s mouth was hovering an inch from mine.
Ugh…. Why am I here? I could have sent him a message…
No, that’s stupid. I can’t leave a digital trail.
I could have waited for him to contact me… but then I wouldn’t get to see him.
I shudder.
Oh, my God… I wouldn’t get to see him again? Who are you, Oliver? I ask myself, completely disgusted by this new, cringey version of me.
No, abort mission.
Backtrack now, and let’s get the hell out of here.
I spin around, fully ready to get into my black Escalade and pretend this entire morning never happened, when the shop door jingles open.
“Oliver?”
Crap.
I turn slowly and see Damián standing there with a brown paper bag tucked under one arm. He’s wearing baggy grey sweatpants and a white t-shirt that clings to his shoulders, and wow… Who knew zero effort could look that unfairly good?
“Frappe surprise,” I offer… my voice is a pitch higher than I’d like, but at least I manage to force a smile.
He smiles back, amused. “Is that a thing?”
I gesture vaguely toward the SUV behind me, and Damián’s eyes flick to the car, then right back to me.
“I can throw it away if you don’t want it,” I say, moving my hand away, but Damián stops me.
“No need. I like it, and I am surprised.”
I hold out the drink, but before he can take it, I remember we have an audience.
If we want my family to believe I have a boyfriend, Silvio and Franco need a show. I step right into Damián’s space, my free hand reaching up to grab the collar of his t-shirt, and I pull him in to kiss him.
I swear to God, I meant it to be a peck.