A/N: Forgot to cross-post this from my ao3 account.

Disclaimer: If I was Jim Butcher there would be more stories about Camp Kaboom.

Title: a murphy family picnic

Word Count: 431

Summary: Harry was hoping for this to end in a Fake-Out Make-Out.

Murphy had her legs dangling over my lap.

It was an innocent enough gesture, but I was wearing shorts and the whole skin-to-skin contact with our legs touching was causing my mind to wander too much. It felt like no matter where I looked, I could always find myself catching the muscles in her thigh flexing, a flyway strand of her honey-colored hair curling near her neck, the light spray of summer-warm freckles dotting her pale skin in random places—the curve of an elbow, a dot or two under her chin —

"Would you like another burger?" Missus Murphy asked. A plate of them hovered under my nose, distracting me with an entirely new need.

Gosh, if I couldn't drool over one of my best friends, food would have to do in the meantime.

I flashed her a smile. "You're a saint."

Ms. Murphy patted me on the head, and then went to go see if others at the picnic wanted more food.

Balancing my burger in one hand, I tried stretching my long arms behind Murphy's head to reach for the ketchup. She noticed this and laughed.

"Aren't you lazy enough to use magic?" she asked, handing me the bottle.

"I think I have enough low standards." I caught her sudden expression—a frown and a flash of something in her blue eyes."What's up?"

Murphy shifted her weight, her legs curling. "I need you to pretend we're dating," she said in a low voice.

My burger ended up all over the front of my shirt.

"What? Dating—Mph!"

She stuffed a hamburger bun in my mouth. "Look to your right," she said in my ear.

I looked and saw her sister and ex-husband, tan and glowing from their recent vacation, showing off to a small crowd of relatives the pictures that they took. There was a ripple of laughter in the crowd.

Ouch.

I managed to chew and swallow the hamburger bun, and thought about the natures of egos and annoying younger siblings. I knew Thomas could be a bastard, but even he drew the line despite his preternatural nature.

"Got it, sweetheart," I sad cheerfully.

Murphy raised an eyebrow.

I tried again. "Sweet Pea?"

"Gigantor," she said back to me.

"My Amazon goddess," I said, smiling. "The badass of my life, and the ninja in my soul." I looked at her again, my smile growing at hearing her laugh.

We heard her mom sighing dreamily nearby. "Oh, aren't they romantic?" she asked no-one in particular.