Page 28 of Fake Out Hearts

“You too. Bye, Mom.”

I hang up just as the elevator arrives, but her words follow me out and into the hallway. I know it’s stupid and a waste of time, but I can’t stop thinking about what she said about commentators harping on about my performance this season.

But there isn’t anything I can do about it at the moment. Those pinheads are going to talk regardless—it’s what they get paid to do—so I use my phone to unlock my unit’s door and drop my bags just inside the door that opens into the kitchen. With both hands free, I tap over to the camera and snap a quick picture of my living room with its incredible view of the Rocky Mountains thanks to the wrap-around floor-to-ceiling windows and vaulted roof, then attach it to a message I send to Becca.

ME: The mountains are waiting for you. *smile emoji*

Chapter 10

Becca

I’m still wearing Theo’s jersey as I quickly pack my somewhat meager belongings into boxes, and when I stop to take a break, I realize that the jersey still smells like him.

Part of me wants to breathe it and him in, inhaling the scent of amber and spice, but I don’t have time. I might not have a lot of stuff to pack, since I like to keep my possessions light—another behavior I probably picked up from growing up with my mother. But there’s enough that I have to be conscious of my time.

It helps that Shawn never gave me much space in his condo, even after two years together. Then again, there wasn’t a lot of room left with his ego taking up so much mass. But at least that means I won’t have to face him to get back anything I care about, and that’s a mercy because I don’t know how I’d behave around him right now. Especially now that I have nothing left to lose.

But I’d be a liar if I said it didn’t hurt. I still can’t believe he’d so casually throw me away like I meant nothing to him at all. It makes me wonder if I ever mattered to him, or if I was always just a prop in his staged life, something to make him look and feel better until the season was over and he recast me with a younger model.

My phone rings from the other side of the room, thankfully saving me from a spiral I have no business going down right now. I step over and around half-full boxes and scattered possessions to get to my phone where it sits on the kitchen counter, and freeze when I see the name on the screen.

It’s Peyton, one of the crew members on Shawn’s reality show. I’m tempted to decline the call, but Peyton was one of the few friends I managed to make in LA. The city’s reputation as a fake and shallow place was definitely true in my experience, so I had a hard time making friends that weren’t also part of Shawn’s orbit.

But I don’t want to disappear from the city without at least getting a chance to say goodbye and thanks to Peyton, so I pick up the phone.

“Hey, girl,” I answer.

“Becca! I’m so glad you picked up. I was worried you might not after what happened.”

Great, so she already knows. Not that I’m surprised given her job and proximity to Shawn, but I’m still not fully prepared to have this conversation—and I’m not entirely sure I can trust her with the truth of what’s happened since.

“Yeah, it’s been a wild couple of days,” I say, which is the understatement of my lifetime.

“I’ve heard. That’s why I called. I saw the footage of the breakup the crew captured earlier, and I just wanted to make sure you were okay,” Peyton says, and my heart thaws almost instantly. She and I were real friends, so maybe it shouldn’t be a shock that she cares, but it still catches me off-guard.

“I’m weirdly at peace with it,” I admit, surprising myself.

She scoffs. “Really? Then you’re a better woman than I am.”

“I don’t know about that. It’s just that sometimes you know when it’s time to move on, and my time came. Maybe not in the way I would’ve liked, but it came anyway.”

“Holy shit, Becca. I’m so sorry. This whole thing is awful.”

“It’s not your fault. It’s not like you scripted it or anything.”

“I know, but still. No woman should have to go through something like this.”

“Plenty of women before me have gone through worse than this.”

Peyton laughs. “Okay, you got me there. What are you going to do now? I mean, I know about your residency situation and all.”

There it is, the million-dollar question. I want to be honest with Peyton, but I’m scared. The green card arrangement is complicated, and I don’t want to do anything that might jeopardize what Theo and I have done.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to,” Peyton says when I don’t reply. “You know what? Are you free to meet for coffee or something?”

“Uh, I’m in the middle of packing right now, but—”

“Packing?” Peyton frowns. “Are you going back to Canada already? Damn.”

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