“That makes me look more guilty.”
“How?”
“I’m avoiding her. If I avoid her, she’s going to think something is up.”
“Or she’ll think you’re being you. Don’t you avoid her a lot?”
“I do, but… I don’t know. I just have a bad feeling.” I stare blankly at the wall ahead, assessing every possible thing that’s about to go wrong. I mean, I don’t remember every story I’ve told them about Jake… mostly because they’re lies.
A good liar would’ve planned this out. Or maybe that’s what a crazy person would’ve done. At this point, I’m pretty sure the two are interchangeable.
My heart rate kicks up, and I stand from the chair to pace the small office space that sits on the end of Main Street. I hadn’t noticed until now that our wall calendar is outdated. I should probably get that fixed too or maybe order us one of those electronic calendars that I can update from my phone. I think they even have e-stickers I can use to decorate it with.
Yes, that’s totally what I should be thinking about right now. Wall calendars.
“It’s not a big deal,” Maya says, leaning back in her chair. “Take off now, call Jake, have a short catch-up session with him before dinner, and let the rest take care of itself.” She shrugs. “Just act super touchy-feely with each other. No one will think anything.”
I roll my eyes playfully. “Because you’re an expert at faking relationships?”
“No, but the last few months sneaking around with Holden has made me an expert at fakingnotbeing in a relationship. So, yeah, trust me. You’ll be fine. Your mom isn’t psychic. She’s just feeding off your energy. That’s all.”
“You’re right. That’s all. There’s no way she could know unless I tell her, and I’m not going to tell her, so she’ll never know.” I chew my bottom lip as my heart pounds against my chest.
“Go. I’ll close up here. Besides, Holden is stopping by in a few. We were going to put on a show, but if you’re not here, we can just… ya know.” She grins.
I have so much to say about her secret relationship with Holden, but I’ll save it for another time. A time when I’m not panicking about all the lies about to come spilling out. A time when maybe I’m not about to blow up my own life.
“Have fun kissing your secret boy toy,” I say, waving toward my friend as I step out into the cold afternoon. “I’ll keep you up to date with my crazy.”
“Love you!”
“Love you more,” I say as I step out into the brisk afternoon sun. I didn’t meet Maya until I started working for Blackrock Contracting, but it didn’t take long for us to get close. I guess working together every day will do that for you. She knows everything I like for lunch, how to soothe me when I’m frustrated, and we spend enough time together that we’re pretty good at reading one another’s energy. I can’t believe I didn’t pick up on the Holden thing.
“Hey, gorgeous.” Jake steps down out of his truck and smiles. God, he has a nice smile.How is the guy single?
“Gorgeous?” I bite back a grin, reminding myself not to take any of this seriously. “Wow. You’re playing the part well.”
“Well, it’s easy when you’re actually gorgeous. You’re not trying to run, are you?” He glances down at his phone. “It’s a little early. I was going to hang around the office for a while and do some paperwork. You okay?”
“Ugh… yeah, I’m okay.” I pause, trying to gather my thoughts away from the thing he just said about me being gorgeous. I can’t get sucked into thinking this is real. Even if he thinks I’m pretty, which I’m sure he doesn’t, there’s still no relationship here. We’re just playing pretend. “My mom called and asked if we would meet her and my sister for dinner. She wants to get to know you a little before everyone else.” I drag in a deep breath and exhale slowly, watching the fog form around my breath. “I didn’t know what to tell her. I also don’t know why I’m twenty-six years old and still terrified of my mother, but here we are.”
“No big deal. We can totally pull this off.” Jake sounds almost excited for the opportunity.
“Why do you sound like you like this?”
“I love a challenge and this is a challenge. What do I need to know about us dating? You said we’ve been together two years, right? How did we meet?”
I pinch my lips together, letting the embarrassment roll over me like a thick haze. I really want to crawl under a rock but I’m pretty sure that option has passed. “We met at the Christmas tree lighting in town. You complimented me on my Mrs. Claus sweater, and everything moved pretty fast from there.”
“Cute.” He grins. “I do love a good Christmas sweater. The only problem I can think of off the bat is that I was in prison two years ago.”
I narrow my brows toward him. “What? No, you weren’t. You were working at construction sites. I saw you.”
“I was in the work release program. I worked construction all day and returned to a halfway house at night. I wasn’t officially released until four months ago.”
My stomach tightens. Not because Jake was in jail, I knew he went to prison for some drug related stuff a while back, but because it will take my mother thirty minutes to find out Jake was an ex-con and five more minutes to tie all my lies to the truth.
What’s wrong with me? Why did I do this? Clearly, at some point this was all going to blow up in my face.
