I didn’t want to put Mariah through the heartache of getting attached to someone who was just going to run back to Melbourne in the next couple of months. I didn’t want that for me either but my baby girl was my top priority.
Zoe looked nervous as I closed the door to the granny flat. All bravado vanished from her face as soon as she was alone with the one person who knew what a big fat lie she’d just told.
“I’m so sorry, Damien!” she pleaded. “Your mum was just relentless and I know what that’s like, I get it twice a week from my mum, and so before I’d even thought about it, the lies just kept escaping from my mouth. I understand if you’re angry and you want me to move out…”
“I don’t want you to move out,” I assured her. “I’m not angry. To be honest it would be nice to have my mum stop with the constant set ups. But I am a little confused though. How will this work?”
“Ummm, I just thought that they’d leave you alone if they thought you were seriously dating someone…” she started to shrink in on herself, like she was almost expecting me to tell her it was a terrible idea.
“Yes, but now they’ll expect you at all the family dinners, Mum will drop in to see you at random times and Mariah—” I started to elaborate.
“Is old enough to understand that dating doesn’t mean forever.” Her voice was even.
I chose not to contradict Zoe, she was already upset and although I didn’t need her telling me how to raise my daughter, that was a conversation for another time.
“How do you plan to get us out of this?” I crossed my arms over my chest.
“I haven’t thought that far…” she sighed, then collapsed onto the lounge.
“Clearly,” I scrubbed my hand over my beard with frustration. “The way I see it, we can go one of two ways, either go out there and tell them that you were just trying to save me some grief or two we go along with this farce.”
“I’m all for going along with this farce, it will buy you a little time…” Zoe looked at me sheepishly. “Plus, it would get my mum off my back for a little while too.”
“What do you mean?” It hadn’t occurred to me that she would have an ulterior motive for this.
“My ex-fiancé is getting married and she just keeps pushing me to move on,” she sighed.
“Are you still hung up on your ex?” I didn’t know why I needed to know that.
“No,” she snorted. “Very much over him, just don’t want to jump into another relationship.”
“I know how that feels,” I replied. I paced the small kitchen space and looked back at her. “So we’re doing this?”
Zoe nodded, her shoulders dropping as the anxiety visibly left her body.
“If we’re going to do this, we need to sort some basics out, my mum will want to know the details.” I dropped onto the lounge next to her and we sat in the granny flat figuring out a few things so that her lie didn’t bite us both in the ass.
Chapter five
Zoe
Bella kept giving me sly looks in the salon the next day and I kept ignoring her. My boss was a shrewd woman, and I was a bad liar. The hurt look on my cousin Audrey’s face was worse though, she’d helped me so much since my break up, if it weren’t for her I’d still be living in Melbourne and watching the Christian and Holly show in real time. Even without words, I knew that Audrey felt betrayed that I hadn’t let her in on my big secret.
Each time I caught her eye, I wanted to confess that I was just a liar, liar pants on fire. I felt like I needed to tell someone, other than Damien, that this was all a big farce, but I didn’t know how. Audrey could keep a secret, I knew that, so maybe it was time to tell someone that it was fake, but from the moment I’d uttered the words to Damien’s family, a big part of me wanted it to be real.
By lunchtime and we were both in the backroom of the salon, I wasn't able to ignore her any longer, she was cowering in the corner, playing with her salad as I warmed up my food in themicrowave. The barely concealed hurt in her big blue eyes was too much to take. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Damien.”
“That’s okay.” Her voice was soft. “I understand that you wanted to keep things quiet. I mean for Mariah’s sake…”
“It’s not that, I mean yes we’ve considered Mariah in all of this but—”
“Sorry we’re late ladies!” I heard the familiar voice of Donna Steele. “Sylvia needed to see the GP, but I bought goodies, I hope you haven’t started the gossip without us.”
I looked back into the salon and Bella’s mum was walking in with Bella’s 1:00pm appointment, Sylvia Nable. Donna had been dating Sylvia’s son, Patrick, since Christmas, and while they’d been close before, there was something about their bond that had grown in the weeks since.
“This one is making me get all that paperwork done for my licence,” Sylvia pointed at Donna. “Now where is that Zoe?”
I moved forward, unsure of why she would be looking for me, Bella was the one who did her hair every week.
