JJ hadn’t meant for it to go this far. Not when he first threw on that button-up and told the bar manager his name was Jackson Mayfield. Not when he pretended the silver rings on his fingers were heirlooms instead of stolen junk, or that his tan came from Malibu—not the marshes behind the Chateau.

And definitely not when he leaned over the bar that first night and made her laugh.

She’d ordered some fancy cocktail with a name he couldn’t even pronounce. JJ had butchered it, spilled tonic all over the bar, and called it “vaguely citrus disappointment with a twist of pretension.” She’d laughed. Hard. Stayed longer than she meant to. Came back the next night with a weak excuse about “grabbing a takeout soda for her brother.”

Then the night after that.

Now it was weeks later, and she was behind the bar with him. Hired part-time for the summer. They made drinks, bickered, flirted. Wiped down counters with sticky hands. Laughed at stupid things. Sometimes, when no one was looking, she kissed him—quick, soft, sweet. But enough to make his heart kick.

And it was all fake.

Not her. She was real. Too real. Real in a way that made JJ want to be someone better. But him? Jackson Mayfield was a lie. He wasn’t a Kook. He wasn’t new in town. And he sure as hell didn’t have an uncle who owned the bar.

He’d built it all on this dumb idea that she’d bail if she knew the truth. That if she found out he was JJ Maybank—Pogue, dropout, public menace—she’d vanish like the rest of them.

Now she was standing next to him, glitter on her nails, elbow-deep in the ice machine, talking about some beach party one of her Kook friends was throwing.

“Maybe we could go together?” she said, almost shy.

JJ blinked. “Like… together together?”

She shrugged, suddenly pretending not to care. “Only if you want to.”

His heart did that dumb thing again—skipped, stuttered, climbed halfway up his throat. But all he could think about were the Kooks who’d recognize him. And not in a good way. He was infamous in Figure Eight for all the wrong reasons—usually involving a fight, a golf cart, or someone’s dad threatening legal action.

But she was looking at him like he was someone worth bringing.

And he couldn’t ruin that. Not yet.

So he grinned, leaned against the bar, and said, “Yeah. Sure. Sounds fun.”

Even though his stomach was in knots.