“You’ve been not answering her a lot.”
“She has been saying things I don’t want to hear a lot.”
His expression shifted, the playful edge dulling. “About Vale?”
“About everything.” I turned my phone face down. “About how I embarrassed myself. About how I should have tried harder. About how girls like me don’t get unlimited chances to marry up.”
Drew’s jaw moved once.
I did not know why I said the next part. Maybe because the rules made this feel safer. Maybe because fake dating gave us permission to tell each other real things as long as we pretended they were strategy.
“She doesn’t want me happy,” I said quietly. “She wants me settled. Protected. Polished. Chosen by the right kind of man, in case my father’s investments don’t work out. Or he trades her in.Whatever comes first. Do you know why I’m an only child…? She didn’t want more stretch marks on her body or to “ruin” it again growing a human.”
Drew’s face changed in a way I could not read.
Then he leaned forward, forearms on the table, and said, “And what kind of man am I?
The question should have been easy.
Loud. Cocky. Impossible. Football famous. Dangerous in corners. Built like a problem. A man who ate three cheeseburgers like a competitive sport and made my pulse trip over itself with one thumb on my wrist.
But underneath all that, I knew what he was really asking.
Was he the rebound?
The weapon?
The public answer to private humiliation?
I looked at him, and for once, I did not know how to make my face smooth enough to hide behind.
“You’re the kind of man who makes everything harder,” I said.
His mouth tilted, but the smile did not fully land. “That the best you got?”
“For now.”
“Good.” He sat back. “I like a challenge.”
“Of course you do.”
“Speaking of challenges,” he said, too casually, “Thanksgiving is coming next month.”
I narrowed my eyes. “That transition was suspicious.”
“My dad wants me home.”
“Congratulations?”
“He also wants me to bring you.”
The fry stopped halfway to my mouth.
“He already knows about me?”
“Yep. But I left out the ‘fake’ part when saying I had a girl.”
Drew watched me carefully now, the humor still there but thinner around the edges. “He saw the training room thing. Or someone sent it to him. Doesn’t matter. He thinks you’re good optics.”
