This was exactly why she’d selected Will for her little fling anyway. She’d known they could both move on without losing any skin in the game.

Although when she found herself sitting across the table from the two of them and watched Lily’s hand find Will’s leg, it didn’t quite feel like nothing.

“So you guys have been dating for…a week, then?” Brynn heard herself saying.

“Technically, yeah. But I haven’t been able to get her out of my mind for the last month or so,” Will said.

Brynn’s spine stiffened and finally, finally she let her eyes meet Will’s.

They were the same, boring old blue they’d always been. Except there was a chill in them she’d never seen before. Not even during their biggest spats or their most determined stages of ignoring each other had he seemed so lifeless to her.

“Hmm, well, I can’t imagine what took you so long to give the pretty girl a call,” Brynn said in her most polite tone.

Her dad leaned in under the guise of filling up Will’s glass as he gave her a warning, Brynn, under his breath.

She ignored her father.

Will’s expression didn’t change as he met hers coolly. “I’ve been a little busy the past few weeks,” he said mildly.

“Will works like a dog,” Lily chimed in.

“Not true, Lil,” he said with a self-deprecating grin. “I pride myself on working as little as possible. Sort of a professional slacker, ya know?”

“Oh, I do know,” Brynn chimed in, giving him her sourest smile. “Still, this month must have been a new record for you. It was what, three weeks without a new girlfriend?”

She was walking on dangerous territory, and she knew it, but she’d be damned if she’d sit here and listen to him blather on about how he’d been thinking about Lily in the time he and Brynn had been together.

“Well, actually, there was someone,” he said, letting his voice go low and almost sad.

Brynn’s eyes narrowed on him. He was calling her bluff. He wouldn’t dare.

He arched an eyebrow at her and she took a quick sip of wine, angry that she’d taken them this direction. Of course he would call her bluff. He had nothing to lose.

She had everything to lose.

Well, at least her reputation. And her dignity…

“Lily, did Will tell you that he moved in next door to Brynn?” Marnie asked when Will failed to finish his sentence. “It’s so lucky for us to have our daughter and close friend so close together. Not that either has invited us over, of course…”

Lily gave her a bright smile. “I think it’s so great that you have been good friends for so long. High school, right?”

Marnie gave a nervous laugh. “Well, actually, it’s our younger daughter, Sophie, who’s always been thick as thieves with Will. But Will and Brynn were closer in age, so they’ve also been…”

Her voice trailed off as she gave an absent wave of her hand, before busying herself with passing the salad around. Apparently even Marnie’s obsession with social niceties wouldn’t extend to outright lying and pretending that Will and Brynn had ever been friends.

“So what do you do, Brynn?” Lily asked politely.

“I’m an orthodontist.”

Will pretended to suddenly fall asleep before jerking himself upright. Brynn ignored him but didn’t miss the fact that her dad was hiding a smile.

“And you?” Brynn said, stabbing a piece of cucumber and giving Lily a bland smile.

“I’m a website developer,” Lily said. “It’s actually how Will and I first met. He hired my firm a few years ago to build the Airamore microsite.”

“Airamore, that’s the virtual travel agent company you sold for an obscene amount of money, right?” Chris asked.

“That’s the one,” Will said.

Brynn’s stomach felt oddly hollow, although she didn’t know if it was from the fact that she’d wrongly assumed that Lily’s profession would be along the lines of a “dancer,” or if it was because she clearly didn’t have the faintest clue about what Will had been up to all of these years.

And apparently she was the only one.

“So an orthodontist, that’s so cool,” Lily said.

Brynn swallowed a sip of wine and gave a tight smile. Lily apparently had noticed her discomfort and was trying to draw Brynn back into the conversation. Could she be any nicer?

“It’s, um…it’s…”

Tell her that being an orthodontist is thrilling. Fulfilling. That it’s everything you ever wanted.

“Being an orthodontist is actually a little bit boring,” Brynn heard herself say.

Lily gave her a sympathetic nod, but the rest of the table had fallen silent. Brynn didn’t have to look at her parents to know that they were stunned. Brynn had decided she wanted to be an orthodontist when her recently removed braces had revealed a row of perfectly straight teeth. She had been sixteen. And never once since that day had she wavered from that course as she carefully ensured she was taking all the right classes and all the right internships to lead her in that direction.

Nobody had been surprised when she’d graduated at the top of her class. Nobody had been surprised when she’d opened her own thriving practice.

They apparently were surprised to learn she didn’t like it.

But nobody was as surprised as she was.

It’s just a phase. You just haven’t gotten back into the swing of things.

Marnie opened her mouth as though to question Brynn further, but Will was faster. Only he didn’t direct any questions toward Brynn. Instead, he directed conversation to Marnie and Chris’s upcoming European cruise.

He had saved her.

Dammit. He’d known she wasn’t ready to have that talk with her parents, and he’d helped her out. She felt a spark of anger. He shouldn’t presume to rescue her from anything. He didn’t even know her.

Except, apparently, he did. Because she really, really hadn’t meant to say that she didn’t like her job. And she sure as hell hadn’t wanted to talk about it. And he’d known that.

Brynn scowled as she mechanically shoved salad into her mouth. She did the same through the main course, speaking up only to answer direct questions, and even then, she kept her answers as short as possible.

The four of them seemed to get by just fine chatting along without her, but as Marnie dished up strawberry shortcake, Brynn’s reprieve was apparently over.

“Brynn, honey, have you put any further thought into that housewarming barbecue you keep talking about? You’ve been there a few months now, and it might be a great way to meet people…”

“Meet men, you mean,” Brynn interrupted. “I know that matchmaker tone.”

Marnie gave Lily a woman-to-woman smile. “Brynn just came out of a long relationship. We want to get her back on the horse.”

“How do you know she hasn’t already started riding again?” Will asked.

Brynn made a choking noise, and Marnie’s cheeks were definitely pink with embarrassment. Brynn’s poor father looked like he would rather be waterboarded than remain at the table.

Marnie recovered quickly. “Oh, well…you know Brynny, she’s not the type to go rushing into anything. That’s why she took some time off work. To reassesses, to heal…”

Brynn heard what her mother was saying, but she only had eyes for Will. And if looks could kill…

“Well, you know what they say about hair of the dog,” Will was saying. “If it’s a guy that did the damage, maybe it was a guy that did the repairs.”

“Will, I think maybe this is a little inappropriate,” Lily said, looking chagrined on Will’s behalf. Even Fake Boobs had more sense of propriety than Will.

But it was too late. Already her mom was looking at her speculatively. “Brynn Elizabeth Dalton, have you been seeing a man these past few weeks?”

“No!” Brynn said, feeling her face go hot. “You’re believing him?”

“Well, he does live next door, sweetie, and I can see how you might want to hide from your parents for a little while if you were having a little…oh, what do they call it…”