When I come out,she’s “waking up.” She’s stretching and yawning and it’s actually a pretty good performance, if I didn’t know better I’d totally buy it.
“Morning,” she says, voice slightly rough from sleep.
“Hey. You sleep okay?”
“Fine.” She’s already up, grabbing clothes from her perfectly organized suitcase. “I’m going to shower.”
She disappears into the bathroom and I hear the water start. I get dressed and check my phone. Messages from Almardon asking how it’s going, one from my mom asking about the wedding, three from the team group chat that I ignore because it’s probably just them being idiots.
Nothing urgent. Just a Wednesday morning in Toronto where I’m fake-dating the girl I’ve been half in love with for five months.
Normal stuff.
Juliette emerges twenty minutes later, hair damp and twisted over her shoulder, wearing jeans and a sweater. She looks perfect and put-together and like she definitely didn’t spend the night using me as furniture.
“I was thinking we could grab coffee,” I say. “There’s a place that has thousands of five-star reviews so it can’t be bad.”
“Your family seemed nice last night,”I offer after we’ve ordered and settled at a small cafe table.
“They liked you.”
“Everyone likes me.”
“You’re very confident about that.”
“It’s not confidence if it’s just facts.” I take a bite of my breakfast sandwich. “Your sister seems really excited about the wedding.”
“She’s been planning it for almost a year. Everything has to be perfect.”
“Sounds stressful.”
“That’s Olivia though. She wants everything to be exactly right.” Juliette takes a sip of her coffee. “She’s always been like that. Even as a kid.”
“And you?”
“What about me?”
“Were you always the serious one?”
She thinks about this for a second, her nose scrunching slightly. “I was always the one who had to be responsible. Olivia got to be fun and spontaneous. I got to be the one who made sure things actually got done.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“It was fine.”
“Was it though?”
She looks at me over the rim of her cup, steam rising between us. “What are you, my therapist now?”
“Just making conversation, JuJu.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“You love it.”
“I actually do not.”
But she’s almost smiling again.
