“Shimmer spray,” she answers with a shrug. “I’ll lay them out and do them in batches. Dries instantly, so it’ll be quick, but I think it adds a little something extra.”

It absolutely does.

“So this is the prototype. Do I have your approval?” Abi asks.

I nod. “Of course. Absolutely. They’re everything. Too bad they’re for a wedding that’s—”

She cuts me off. “A wedding I’ve been looking forward to since we were about ten years old and I saw you go gaga over Ross,” Abi says, hugging me. “However it’s come about, it’s happening. My best friend is marrying my best brother. I’m happy about that, regardless of the circumstances. Which you can thank me for later.”

“Abi, he’s your only brother,” I point out, but I still smile a little.

“So everyone keeps saying, but I keep surprising them,” Abi says with a grin, giving me another squeeze before stepping back. “So, let me punch in the print order here . . . and by the time you get done telling me about work and the wedding preparations, everything will be ready to go to the mailroom clerk.”

“How’d you know about that?” I ask.

“Well, my one and best brother might have spilled a little bit of his plans to make this whole thing easier on you when he stopped by for roses. Did you like them? They’re a special heirloom variety with a Dutch history going back centuries.” She smiles like I know what she’s talking about, but I have no idea beyond roses are pretty and smell good.

“I loved them,” I tell her honestly. I do remember to leave out the part where Ross tore the fancy flowers down to their petals for my bath, but I can feel my face heat at the memory of last night.

Abi grins big and wide, wolfishly devouring my reaction. “That look right there,” she says, pointing to my cheeks. “What’s that all about? You’re blushing, Vi, which means something happened. Spill it, girl!”

“Nothing. The flowers were just a really nice surprise, and he offered to help with a lot of the wedding prep that’s stressing me out.” Even to my own ears, it’s a weak explanation of the continually growing redness, which is creeping down to my chest now.

Abi narrows her eyes, searching mine. “You slept with him, didn’t you?”

My heart stutters and then stops. “I’m so sorry, Abi. You know I would never do anything to risk our friendship. We just got carried away and . . .”

My tumble of words dies out as she bursts out in laughter. “Fina-fucking-ly. Took you long enough. I figured you two would’ve boned that night after Club Red, but then you got pretty sloshed, so maybe my brother’s not a total Neanderthal, after all.”

My face blanks. “You’re . . . not mad? Isn’t that like some red-line girl-code thing? You shall not pass?” I intone.

Her quirked brow communicates quite easily that she thinks I’m a dolt. Droll and sarcastic, she summarizes, “Yeah, Vi. I totally hooked you up with my brother, the one I know you had a schoolgirl crush on for years . . . and the guy who quickly gets bored of vapid bank account chasers . . . for a fake wedding and at least a six-month relationship where you live together twenty-four seven . . . and thought you two would never bump uglies.”

She rolls her eyes. “What kind of moron do you think I am? More importantly, what took you so long? Is he still being an asshole to you? I’ll kill him if he is because he needs to get his head out of his ass and wake up to the awesomeness that is you staring him right in the face and figure out how to make you love him for real, forever, so we can actually be sisters.”

That’s a lot to process. Abi’s not mad. She assumed we’d have sex. She wants us to get together? For real?

Oh, my God. She is such a schemer!

“I . . . I don’t know what to say,” I stammer.

Abi is having no such tongue-tied problems, though. “So, are we talking casual, no-strings sex, or are we talking ‘I love you, you’re my sun and moon’ sex? What step are we at so I can advise accordingly?”

“Casual?” I say it as a question even though it’s what Ross and I agreed on just hours ago. What step? She thinks there are steps from casual to sun-and-moon? “That’s all this is, Abs. There’s nothing serious between us, I mean, other than the fake marriage. This is still Ross and me.”

As if that’s explanation enough.

She smiles knowingly. “Yeah, but you’ve been living together for days now, have already weathered battles against both of your families, and are planning the event of the season in less than two weeks now. And you know what?” She pauses and I shrug. “You haven’t killed each other. Oh, wait, unless you killed him with sex. Did you fuck my brother to death, Violet Russo?” she accuses.

I can’t. I don’t know what to do with her. She’s acting like this is no big deal. And that’s putting ideas in my head. Ones I don’t know what to do with, like how his smoothies are just the right blend for my sweet tooth, how he stopped at the store and picked up an industrial-sized bottle of my favorite conditioner ‘just because’, and a dozen other little things. And last night, the bath and nerf war silliness that I didn’t even know I needed. And the way he knows how to hug me, or to kiss me, or . . .

“Oh, God, Abi. I’m falling for Ross Andrews,” I say, horror-stricken.