Page 54 of Love is Fake

“Bien! Now, I do not mean to interrupt, carry on,” he gestures towards us again as if he expects us to start up kissing again.

“Well, he seems…”

“He’s happy, I’m happy,” Lennox says softly, his eyes on me and I do a little internal dance at the thought I’m the one who’s made him feel like that.

“When did you guys get so close?” I ask, but Lennox’s face shutters abruptly. It’s so sudden it’s as if someone’s turned all the lights out in New York.

After a few beats, he carries on as if I haven’t spoken, the warm expression back in his eyes so quickly I wonder if I’ve imagined the coldness that was there only moments before.

“Trust me, they’re the best people. You’ll love Maria and I know she’s gonna love you.”

“How can you be so sure about that?”

Lennox just shrugs. “Because everyone does,” he says simply, having no idea how his words have made my heart swell andmaking me promptly forget there was anything amiss between us a minute ago.

That night,as promised, we have a double date with Miguel and Maria and it turns out to be the most fun I’ve had in a long while. Lennox isn’t wrong about me loving Maria – she’s warm, funny and friendly and so maternal I’m surprised when I learn they haven’t had kids of their own. Her eyes go watery as she thinks about it and I curse myself for asking such an insensitive question.

“We weren’t blessed with children of our own.” Maria’s eyes meet Miguel’s and they grasp hands on top of the table. I feel tearful just watching the affection flowing between them.

I look down to see Lennox has grabbed my hand on my thigh, squeezing it gently in comfort as he’s seen my reaction to the older couple’s exchange.

“Lennox is like our son.” Maria looks at him affectionately and I feel a lump in my throat. For someone who hardly cries, sitting at the table with Maria and Miguel is surprisingly emotional. “We looked after his father and then, after the accident, we started working for Lennox.”

“Maria,” Lennox’s voice is filled with warning and the conversation abruptly shuts down. Maria looks at him in confusion and then looks to me, realization – of what I don’t know – dawning.

“I say too much!” She shakes her head. “Miguel always says I talk too much. Who’s ready for dessert?”

There’s a sudden tension in the room that wasn’t there before, one I can’t hope to understand. Lennox’s body is stiff as a board and his hand releases mine as he turns to Miguel and starts questioning him about his vegetable garden. The rest of the evening passes without incident, but the echo of whateverLennox didn’t want discussed sits like a fifth person at the table and he more or less ignores me for the remainder.

It’s only once we leave their cottage and start the walk back to the main house that I call him out.

“You wanna tell me what that was all about?” I ask, keeping pace with him as he strides purposefully towards the main house.

“It was nothing.” He doesn’t meet my eyes, but if he thinks I’m going to be fobbed off so easily, then he’s got another thing coming.

“Well things got pretty damn awkward pretty damn quickly over ‘nothing’,” I tell him, coming to a stop.

Lennox takes a few more steps before he realizes I have no intention of catching up to him.

“If you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine.” I hold my hands up. “But don’t gaslight me and say what I just saw in there didn’t happen. You turned into a completely different person all of a sudden and Maria looked like she’s just eaten a whole tray of humble pie.”

Lennox looks up at the sky as if he might find an answer there, or like he’s hoping an alien spacecraft might appear and save him from having this conversation.

“You really don’t miss anything, do you?” he grumbles under his breath. “And you’re not afraid to call me out on my shit.” He says it as if it pisses him off but he’s not unhappy about it. I wonder if that’s why he likes having me around – because no one else dares to call him out when necessary.

I shrug, not really knowing how to answer him. “I don’t want to fight with you, Nox,” I say eventually, hands on my hips. “But I don’t appreciate being frozen out either.”

He scoffs as if to say I’m being dramatic. “I didn’tfreezeyou out.”

Yeah, right.

“From the minute Maria mentioned your father, you all but ignored me. You could’ve cut the tension in that room with a damn knife! I’m not asking you to tell me what Lennox Gray Senior has to do with any of this, but…don’t lie to me!”

I bite my lip, because I didn’t mean to start an argument with him, not when things have been so good between us.

“It isn’t Gray Senior Maria was talking about. It’s my father, myrealfather,” Lennox says eventually, sighing as he leans against a tree. It’s hard to make out his expression in the darkness, but from the droop of his shoulders I would hazard a guess that whatever the story is he’s about to tell, it’s not one that has a happy ending.

“When I was seventeen, during one of the damn shouting matches between my mom and Gray Senior, he let it slip how he raised ‘that little bastard’ even though the kid wasn’t his.”

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