Page 28 of Love is Fake

“How’d you even know where I live?” I frown up at him.

“You’re listed,” he states simply, and I instantly feel stupid for asking such an obvious question.

He takes the suitcase from my limp hold and starts piling boxes into the trunk of his car, while I watch.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were planning on coming all the way out here yesterday?” It’s not as if we hadn’t spent more or less the whole day together and he hadn’t had a chance to mention it.

“Because you would have told me not to. Seemed easier to save the argument until it was too late for you to do anything about it.” Lennox lifts another box with ease and stacks it.

This maddeningly calm and practical version of Lennox is really hard to fight with.

“You didn’t need to drive all the way out here,” I insist. “I’m sure you had better things to do with your Sunday. And I could’ve done this on my own.”

Lennox stops what he’s doing and looks at me appraisingly. It makes me aware of how much of a mess I must seem with my clothes covered in dust, my hair pulled up in a makeshift bun high up on my head. It’s not my best look. But I’m not exactly heading out to a ball.

He frowns down at me and I really wish he’d take those damn sunglasses off, so I’d have more of an idea of what he’s thinking. “You don’t like to let people help you, do you?”

“I was never a fan of the whole Cinderella, damsel-in-distress thing. I’ve never wanted anyone to save me,” I shrug. “Besides, Ithink my dad always wanted a boy, so he pretty much treated me like one. I learned how to take an engine apart and put it back together around the same time as I learned my times tables.”

And… I’m rambling again, just like I always do around Lennox. I try to remind myself that I’m not being paid for my conversation. We’re not friends, despite him turning up to help me move suggesting differently. We work together, that’s all. I shake my head.

“What?” He furrows his brown at me.

I frown right back at him. “What, what?”

“Normally I’m pretty good at reading people, but you’re just…different,” he says eventually.

“I guess,” I shrug, marveling at how a description that would have upset me as a teenager is like water off a duck’s back to me now.

“We’re all squared away here, Nox.” Kai, calling over from his truck, interrupts us. I see Kiara shaking her head in a mixture of confusion and amusement at the other man and I wonder what’s gone on between them; it’s a combination of emotions I’m all too familiar with now.

“Great, is that everything?” Lennox looks at me for confirmation and I nod. “Get in, you’re riding with me.”

I step towards his Escalade because his commanding tone makes you automatically do what he says like it’s some kind of freaky superpower. And then I stop.

“No, it’s fine. I can just go with Kai.” I motion towards the much safer option behind me.

“There’s no room in his truck,” Lennox responds without missing a beat.

His truck, which used to be my truck before it was re-appropriated, I think to myself, grouchily.

Lennox watches me, waiting for the next excuse. “I have to go and close up the apartment,” I come up with finally.

Lennox folds his arms, his words a challenge. “I’ll wait.”

Infuriating freaking man.

“I’ll lock up, Iz. Just go ahead and head on out. You don’t want to hit traffic.” Kiara ushers me on, sweetly and completely unhelpfully.

“That’s settled then.” Lennox, nods at my best friend. “Good to meet you, Kiara. You should come out to the house, sometime – it’s an open invitation.”

Damn charming so-and-so.

Kiara’s smile splits her face. “Thanks, I might just do that.”

Kai looks like all his Christmases may have just come at once and everyone seems super happy with the current situation apart from me who now has to spend almost two hours in a confined space with a man I’ve been trying to keep at a purely professional distance. This is not how I planned for my day to go.

I wave at Kiara before rounding the hood to climb into the passenger seat. Before I even get to the door, Lennox is in front of me, pulling the damn thing open for me like a gentleman.

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