Page 72 of Empty Net

Idowant this to work. It’s been nice not having my mother call and berate me for a change. Sure, now she’s going to becalling about party planning, but that I can deal with. I love planning. It’s everything else that I don’t love. Lying to people I care about, like Auden, who I’ve barely spoken to out of fear of blurting out how all of this is fake.

“Yes, I want this to work.”

“Then we’ll do it. Party and then we’ll break up. You can dump me after the engagement party. No harm, no foul, except to your parents’ pocketbook.”

He’s all smiles, but my stomach turns at the thought. Not of my parents—I couldn’t care less about that—but of breaking up with him. That was the plan all along, but having a timeline now makes it feel so much more real.

“What about your family? What are you going to tell them about all this?” For the first time since we started this whole thing, he looks panicked by my question. “Will you let them believe we’re actually engaged, or will you lie to them too?”

He runs a hand through his hair. “I hadn’t really thought about them in this whole thing.”

No, I’m sure he didn’t. We didn’t think any of this through.

“We need to call it off.”

He looks over at me, brows raised. “Are you serious?”

Shit.AmI serious? Do I want to stop this and go back to my parents trying to set me up? Go back to having them look at me completely disappointed instead of just mildly so? I hate that my answers are no and no. I hate that while Ishouldcall it off, there’s a good chance I won’t because I’m being that selfish right now.

I groan. “This wasn’t supposed to be this stressful.”

Fox reaches over, his hand landing on my thigh, and I like the weight of it far too much.

He squeezes me reassuringly. “Hey, it’s okay. We’ll figure it all out. If it makes you feel any better, my parents would one hundred percent laugh about this whole thing.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yeah, definitely. They have three raucous kids. Nothing would surprise them at this point.”

“Even a fake engagement?”

“Regan pretended to be dating a boy forthree yearsbefore coming out as a lesbian. I think a fake engagement wouldn’t faze them one bit.”

“Three years?”

“Yeah. They moved in together and everything.”

“That’s…”

“Fucking crazy? I know, but she was scared. What’s funny is that it was completely unnecessary because when she finally confessed and came out, my parents didn’t care one bit. We joke about it all the time now.” He squeezes my thigh again. “This’ll just be another story we bring up at holiday gatherings for the next, oh, ten to twenty years.”

That makes me feel marginally better, but I still don’t feel right lying toeveryonewe know and love.

“I think we should tell Auden.”

Fox peeks over at me, brows raised. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. I feel horrible lying to her. She should know.”

“All right. Then we’ll tell her.”

“Hutch will know, too, then. They tell each other everything.”

He grimaces at that but nods. “Okay.”

There’s a small part of me that’s irritated he’s being so accommodating yet again, but it’s squashed the second he tightens his hand on my thigh, his grip having slid two inches higher without me noticing. My dress is bunched up dangerously high. If I were to move at all, I’d practically be flashing him.

Fox must notice, too, because I swear the air in the car shifts. We’re both very aware of our close quarters and what happened the last time we were alone together. I don’t know about him, butI damn sure felt relaxed afterward. I could use more of that right now, and I’m betting he could too.

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