Page 14 of Caught in a Bad Fauxmance
The touch makes me jump, accidentally spilling a few drops of coffee onto the edge of the page. The droplet smudges sketch-Maya’s bronze skin, turning the sharp curve of her wrist dull and shapeless.
“Maybe,” I reply as I delicately dab the other drops of coffee. “I was thinking of using it for my mentorship application.”
She sets a water gun down on the table, a safe distance from the sketchbook after I shoot her a warning glare. That explains the cold hands. With her arms crossed, she takes in the sketch with a critical eye, all the admiration she once had for me and my work long gone. “You made my head toobig.”
“Your headisbig,” I reply. Her grumbled reply is too quiet for me to make out over the sound of Andy snorting.
“Oh, that reminds me,” Andy announces excitedly. “I found another place for you to add to your California list.” He tosses his phone to me, the browser open to an overwhelmingly long menu. I cradle the phone close to my chest, out of Maya’s view. The mention of one of the forbidden Cs makes her roll her eyes to the back of her head. “It’s this restaurant that has over ahundreddifferent pizza toppings.”
My carefully curated list of galleries, beaches, and hole-in-the-walls quickly turned into a list of restaurants Andy wants to go to when everyone comes to visit me for spring break. With all the time I’ve spent struggling to stay above water in my classes, I haven’t even opened it since move-in day, let alone crossed anything off. Not flunking takes priority over sightseeing, unfortunately. Still, I can’t find it in me to be annoyed that my list has been hijacked. Not when Andy’s the only person in this family who’s shown any enthusiasm about California. Dad’s understandably concerned about how his son, who can barely boil water without getting hurt, is now living alone across the country. And Maya, well…
“Time’s up,” she snaps. “Out to the backyard.”
Andy and I drop the subject, but I add the restaurant to my list anyway. The least he deserves for putting up with us is a pizza with an obscene amount of toppings.
“Now!” Maya barks when we don’t immediately move.
It doesn’t matter that Andy hasn’t put on a shirt yet, when she lifts the water gun and aims it at us, we get up and go. She doesn’t lower her weapon until the door has closed behind us, snapping her fingers and gesturing for me to followher to the shed on the opposite end of the yard. I hold the door open while she sorts through broken power tools and tinker projects Dad abandoned after the Suck-o incident.
“What does this have to do with the Lawgies?” I ask after she shoves a dozen pool noodles into my arms.
“Ask no questions, young one,” Maya muses as she hoists a traffic cone over her shoulder. Where the hell did we even get that from?
“We’ll start with two laps around the woods,” she announces once she’s gotten everything she needs. “Then we’ll meet here and—”
The sight in front of us makes her stop: Stella, decked out in a lime-green bikini and chugging an iced coffee, talking to Andy.
Stella freezes once she catches sight of us, quickly patting Andy on the arm before rushing back into her house.
Maya sprints over to Andy, instantly recognizing the lovesickness on his face. “Don’t even think about it,” she warns, slapping his arm. “She’s off-limits.”
Andy’s dazed expression turns into one of confusion. “I only said hi?”
Maya narrows her eyes. “You like her. It’s written all over your face.”
It is. Stella is attractive, like the rest of her family, and Andy’s a hopeless simp. He may be as loyal as a golden retriever, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the Seo-Cookes found a way to talk him over to the dark side.
“Her dipshit brothers are off-limits too,” I add. No telling how far they’d stoop to get one of our own to turn against us.
Maya gives me a nod of approval before shifting to themore important task at hand. She claps her hands before Andy can protest, taking off into the woods for our first lap.
“Can I at least put on a shirt?” Andy calls out to her before breaking into a jog.
“Too late, already started,” she replies without turning back.
Andy groans, casting one last look at the Seo-Cookes’ backyard before taking off at full speed. Which leaves me, the slowest runner in our family, to trail behind. Catching up to either of them is next to impossible for someone as athletically challenged as me, but I put in a decent effort. I make it a whole twenty feet before a stitch starts forming in my side.
According to Maya, one lap through the woods should take fifteen minutes. It takes me thirty. Running for more than five minutes is too much to ask of my body, so I slow down to a jog. By the time I cross our backyard for my second lap, I’m down to a fast walk. Maya and Andy are so far ahead I can’t even hear their footsteps anymore, or Maya shouting at me to go faster. Once she’s done with her own laps, she’ll come looking for me.
In the meantime, I enjoy the solitude. I’m taking my time walking along the lake’s edge when the sound of a branch snapping near the trees makes me jump. My heart races as my knees lock into a runner’s stance, prepared to bolt whenever Maya jumps out to force me to start sprinting again. But she doesn’t pop out of the woodwork. Nothing does.
Cautiously, I edge toward the woods, realizing too late that I should’ve brought a weapon. For all I know, the ringleader of the crawl-space possums could be luring me in,prepared to take me out and lay its claim over the cabin once and for all.
What I find is a lot worse than the possum king.
“Jesus, calm down!” Julian hisses, lunging forward and covering my mouth when I gear up to scream.
I bite down on Julian’s pinky finger hard enough for him to let me go, nearly slipping on the damp grass as I push him as hard as I can. “What is wrong with you?” I spit, getting rid of the sweat his palm left behind on my tongue.
