Page 88 of The Charade

"I wish I'd known," I said, wiping at my eyes with the sleeve of my jacket.

Cambrielle let out a shaky breath, looking torn up about the subject herself. "It's been rough on Mack."

As I watched her try to keep her lips from trembling with emotion, I realized that she could be having a hard time with this as well. She was next-door neighbors to the Aardens. Their dads were best friends. She was probably a lot closer to Mack and his family than the rest of us.

And now that I thought about it, she and Mack did seem to have a special sort of relationship. Mack was always teasing her and her brothers about taking her out on dates to Eden Falls version of "make-out point."

But was it possible there was something going on behind the scenes that no one had picked up on?

Because for all of the flirting Mack did at school—even flirting with Elyse and me on occasion—I had yet to see him go on a date.

But then again, dating was probably the last thing a person wanted to focus on when he was worried about seeing his mom at Christmas.

Oh Mack.My heart hurt for him just thinking about it.

Cambrielle blew out another long breath before forcing a smile and saying, "Anyway, that's where all the guys are tonight. I'm just hoping the soirée this weekend will help cheer everyone up a little."

Right.

The soirée.

As in, the party where I had hoped to flirt and dance with Carter all night.

The party where I would now be forced to watch him hold other girls from school in his arms instead as he led them around the dance floor.

Suddenly, the soirée didn't sound like so much fun anymore.

If I didn't know how much work Cambrielle and her mom had put into planning it, I'd probably look for an excuse not to go. But since she might just be calling me sister in the near future, I should probably try to not start things off on the wrong foot—even though it was going to be complete torture to see how amazing Carter looked in his suit and know I could never touch him the way I wanted to ever again.

"Did you still want all of us to come over early to get ready together?" Elyse asked Cambrielle, jumping on the subject change.

"Yes." Cambrielle's eyes lit up, seeming grateful for the opportunity to discuss something other than Mack and his situation. "I'm just dying for you all to see my dress."

"Did you end up going with the purple one you showed me last week?" Elyse asked.

Cambrielle nodded. "We just got it back from the tailor this week and it's going to be epic."

They continued chatting about all the plans Cambrielle had made for the evening. And though Elyse seemed more than excited for the party our possible half-sister had planned, I only half-listened as they discussed the decorations and the live string quartet Cambrielle and her mom had secured for the event.

Who knew, maybe everything would be all cleared up by the party and there would be some other explanation for who my biological father was that had nothing to do with Mr. Hastings or anyone else in Eden Falls. Maybe the party would be one of the highlights of my senior year, and I'd get to dance the night away with Carter and laugh over the hysteria of the past few days.

But I'd learned a long time ago to not get my hopes up too high where the truth about my father was concerned, so I'd just be holding my breath until then.

36

Carter

I successfully avoided seeingAva for the rest of the school week, aside from the few classes we had together. I didn't go to any of our after-school study sessions—chickening out on tutoring her and instead opting to study on my own or hang out with Mack instead. During lunch, instead of eating with the crew at our usual table, I went to a chess club meeting on Wednesday and a math club meeting on Thursday—even though I wasn't actually planning to participate in either one of those clubs this year. On Friday, I offered to take Mack to lunch at Charlie's Food Hut because their burgers were his favorite and he looked like he could use a break from everything after his mom had another bad seizure.

Then on Friday night, instead of going to the football game with everyone else, I opted to stay behind and hang out with Dawn. Talking to Mack about his mom made me feel sentimental about my own mothers. And even though my biological mom wasn't here anymore and the thirteenth anniversary of the last day I'd seen her was coming up on Monday, Dawn had been an amazing mom to me for almost a decade now. So I wanted to show her how much I appreciated her treating me like her own flesh and blood and try to do something special just for her.

Since my dad was still out of town until the next day, I asked her to go on a mother/son date night. We had a good time eating dinner at her favorite restaurant in town and watched her favorite movie—The Proposal—in the comfy living room.

I was able to keep the conversation on her work, the books she'd been reading, and the podcasts she'd been listening to lately, since she was the one to get me into personal development in the first place. But when the movie ended and she was washing the big popcorn bowl we'd shared, before calling it a night, she looked at me with concern etched in her green eyes and asked, "Is everything okay, Carter? You've seemed a little off the past few days."

"I'm okay," I said, hoping I sounded convincing enough that she wouldn't press me.

But since Dawn was never one to just let things go, she narrowed her eyes and said, "I've missed seeing Ava around this week." She rinsed the soapy bubbles off the stainless-steel bowl. "You two seemed to be getting along really well. Did something happen?"

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