Page 33 of Fake It For Him

A few minutes later, we were seated and we each had a breakfast burrito in front of us. I leaned forward, my gaze locked on hers. “What’s going on, Freya? Are you okay? Has something happened?”

My heart hammered in my chest at the thought that she might’ve come to me for help. Maybe that not trusting her thing was a knee-jerk reaction.

When she smiled, however, it was so genuine and so easy that I knew there was nothing wrong. Jim hadn’t fucked up and she wasn’t in trouble. “I just wanted to spend some quality time with my big brother.”

“Really?”

She made her eyes big at me. “Of course. Do you blame me? You never come upstate anymore and trying to see you is like pulling teeth. I miss you. I miss feeling like I know you.”

That last sentence was like a blow to the chest because she wasn’t wrong. These days, I didn’t feel like I knew her either, but I was still skeptical. I arched a brow at her, sitting back in my chair and leaving my coffee and my burrito untouched.

There was something flickering in those dark eyes of hers that looked a hell of a lot like guilt. It was the same look she used to get when she’d been a kid and I’d caught her doing something she shouldn’t have been doing.

Sneaking chocolates after bedtime. Saying she hadn’t broken something when she had. Lying about whether she’d been drinking at a party. The list goes on and on.

I kept staring at her the exact same way I used to in return, waiting for her to buckle under the pressure I knew she couldn’t take. Eventually, she got flustered under the weight of my stare, shifting in her seat and looking everywhere but right at me.

“Cut to the chase, Freya.” I shook my watch out from under my sleeve and checked it. “I don’t have time to drag this out of you, and as much as I’d like to believe that this visit is just about spending time with me, I know it’s not.”

She huffed out a breath and shook her head. “Fine. I really did want to have coffee with you, and everything else that I said is true too. I don’t know you anymore, Cal. I want to, but I don’t.”

“Agreed, but all of that goes both ways. We can try to do something about it. Maybe after the wedding, when you have more time, but for now, why don’t you tell me why you hunted me down today?”

“I’m here to do some recon,” she finally admitted. Her eyes were locked on her coffee before she slowly lifted them back to mine.

I raised my eyebrows a little more.

Freya huffed out another breath, a tormented look in those eyes now as she broke down. “I wanted to talk to you about Ella.”

I sighed. “Here we go.”

My post-workout endorphins had just been snuffed out completely and annoyance crept through me. I should’ve expected this. There was no way my family was just going to let it go without more digging about the two of us, and it made sense that they’d sent Freya for this recon mission.

She was the one I was least likely to tell to fuck off.

“Don’t jump down my throat,” she said, eyes wide. “I’m just curious, and in case you were wondering, no one sent me. This isn’t like that. I’m not here to spy for Finn or to interrogate you on behalf of Mom and Dad. This is about me and you.”

I cocked my head, my arms folding across my chest. “Is that true?”

She nodded immediately, crossing her heart with her index finger. I chuckled at the gesture, remembering all the times she’d done it as a kid. When Freya crossed her heart, she meant it.

As much as she was a grownup now and I didn’t know the adult version of her very well, it was nice to know that deep down inside, she was still her. The Freya I had known inside and out. I used to be able to tell with a single look whether she was lying or not, and unless she’d gotten incredibly good at it, she wasn’t lying now.

This really was about her curiosity, as opposed to that of my parents. I relaxed a little bit. “Fine. Tell me what you want to know. It’s only been a couple of months though, so I’ll try to answer your questions the best I can, but I don’t know everything about her just yet.”

Freya flashed me a radiant smile. “That’s a surprisingly honest answer. It is also surprisingly accurate about people who are in real relationships.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve picked up a thing or two.” From other people, but hey, at least it seemed like I’d passed the first test.

“Ella is wonderful,” my sister said, still smiling. “She’s sweet, and kind, and patient, and really easy to talk to, not to mention that she’s drop-dead gorgeous.”

“So what’s the problem?”

Freya fidgeted with her cup, rolling it slowly in her hands and glancing at the steam rising off it again. I braced myself, knowing that we were about to get to what she really wanted to talk about. “It’s just that she’s not your usual type.”

As she said it, her eyes went wide and she started backtracking almost immediately. “Not that gorgeous women aren’t your type. They are. Obviously. They’re every man’s type. It’s…”

She bit her lip, looking panicked. I stared at her, fighting the smile that wanted to break free. “Out with it, Freya. What is it?”