My best friend ropes me into some pretty outlandish shenanigans, but tonight’s one for the record books. Up to her usual mischief, she dares me to hit up a random stranger at a bar--and tell him only lies.

I’d rather hide behind a book than flirt, but inventing a fictional narrative gives me the nerve to saunter up to a magazine-gorgeous blond and say, “Hey!”

When he turns his pretty green eyes on me, eyes framed by dark bookish glasses--my kryptonite--I panic.

“I was in your class with, uh--” I snap my fingers, hoping he’ll play along with some vague long-lost connection, out of politeness if nothing else.

At first, the sexy librarian only squints at me, then his camera-ready smile widens. “Lizzy Graham?”

Oh, my god. He’s not supposed to believe me. I want to bail, but a dare’s a dare.

As we catch up, I suspect Evan’s pranking me right back. I tell him I’m a zoologist who speaks Latin to pigs. He claims to be a TV weatherman from Indiana. Sure.

He’s funny and cute, and I wish I hadn’t promised to lie to him. I want him to know me. The real me. So when the bar closes, I come clean and, assuming we’re on the same page, invite him to my place.

When he doesn’t contact me for weeks afterwards, I feel like the dupe.

Just as I’m getting over the mortification, who should show up at my workplace as the new face of weather at six and eleven?

I might be frosty, but he’s even icier because somehow he’s only just discovered I’m not the person I said I was.