She’s talking about this whole fake relationship thing. English might not be my best subject, but even I know the definition of “fake.” Whatever I think is happening in the sanctity of Crew and Harlan’s apartment is just a figment of my wildest dreams.
I don’t know if Staten can really see anything in the obscurity, yet I feel a frown stretch across my mouth. “No, it’s not.”
It was an innocent question. I shouldn’t feel…disappointed…by it. And I’m about to ask Staten a follow-up before I hear the slight rumble of a snore. Despite the dehydration and the light sensitivity and the nausea, she finally felt safe enough to fall asleep.
I don’t intend to wake her.
I also don’t intend to hold her again, because it will be too hard to let her go.
13
ONCE MORE WITH FEELING
STATEN
In some freaky turn of events, Knox Mulligan is coming over to my house for a tutoring session. My small, ramshackle house that probably costs less than one wing of his assumed mansion. I never let people see my home.
The sound of rain slapping against the pavement peals throughout the kitchen, and my shoulders levy a millstone-sized weight that won’t hesitate to fall if his meticulously planned ambush goes off without a hitch.
I don’t know any place more intimate than someone’s house. The privacy, the vulnerability of my childhood bedroom, my slightly shameful collection of plushies. It’s not on his level cost-wise. I mean, he already knows I’m dirt poor, but still.
And to make matters worse, he’s coming with a delicious bribe to get on my mother’s good side.
Anxiety froths in my belly like spume gnawing on a tide’s edge as I set the last cloth napkin on the table—an illusion of luxury only brought out to impress guests and subliminally distract them from the fact that the paint on our walls is chipping. If this dinner goes well, I wouldn’t put it beyond Knox tomake a copy of my house key so he can drop in at random like a one-person elite tactical unit.
Weareboyfriend and girlfriend, after all.Fakeboyfriend and girlfriend, but I digress.
Considering my friend circle has only consisted of Leif and Hassie for years now, it goes without saying that my mother is more than ecstatic that I’m bringing a boy home. Hell, she even got one of her coworkers to cover her shift at the hotel tonight.
This is all getting too real. The thought of Knox Mulligan being more than just my study buddy calcifies in my brain with a permanence that can’t be uprooted. The thought of the whole school knowing we’re together? The thought of our artifice going statewide? If I’m not careful, our little white lie will do more harm than good.
The weather rages on outside, responsible for slamming cambered tree branches against the windows as beads of moisture slide down the reticulated veins of wet, paper-thin leaves. The moon is missing from the onyx sky, submerging the basin of Maple Grove into a well of evanescent darkness. The only luminescence is provided by sporadic flashes of lightning which create a vignette behind a conglomeration of charcoal-daubed clouds.
My mother irons out the wrinkles in her best dress with shaky hands. “Do I look alright?”
I sigh, staring down at my sweater and skirt combo that a high-end clothing store wouldn’t be caught dead carrying. “You look beautiful, Mom, but you don’t need to impress him. It’s just dinner.”
She shushes me. “Stop that. This is the first boy you’ve ever brought over. This is important.”
Damn. I really do sound like a virgin loser.
I can’t stop thinking about what Leif said to me—about Knox and I being incompatible. He isn’t necessarily wrong, buthe was so harsh about it. In that single moment, I wanted to stand up for Knox.
No, Staten. Bad. Think about the end goal here. You and Leif, happily married. Two little girls running around the house barefoot. A golden retriever that you brought home one day under peer pressure. A log cabin overlooking a lake. Knox so far gone that you don’t know whether he’s alive or dead. But that’s expected, isn’t it? Someone like him—with his star quality and skirt-chasing tendencies—never sticks around for very long.
Before I can dispute my mother’s well-intentioned remark, there’s a knock at the door, and my body can’t decide whether to freeze or flee for the nearest exit…which would be the window to my left. So, in theory, Icouldmake a great escape into the forsythia bushes to elude my unmenacingly slow pursuer. And maybe I would have if it wasn’t for the rain.
Dragging myself over to the door at a snail’s pace—worry elongating over my heart like vines of ivy reclaiming an abandoned city—I inhale before opening the partition.
The now-ajar entrance sucks all the warm air out like an oversized vacuum, and my antithesis stands on my doorstep, dripping wet, holding out a casserole dish with some aluminum foil wrapped over the top. Droplets of dew frost his hair, his six-foot-something silhouette limned in broken bursts from the lightning.
He doesn’t try and budge his way inside. He just waits, squinting from the cascades of rainwater that run over his rocky bone structure and down the canyon in between his brows. “I brought mac and cheese,” he shouts.
Every time I see Knox, there’s this animal inside of me that wants him—that attempts to chew a hole through the barbed wire fence separating civility and debauchery. A creature that’s been repeatedly reprimanded for its actions but couldn’t care less.
I take the glass hardware from him—still warm—andwelcome him inside, closing the door quickly to conserve the house’s heat.
“Thanks for the food,” I say very loudly, proving to my mother that I can play nice.
