Page 35 of Lessons in Faking
“If you keep this up, I swear we’ll arriveaftermy alarmgoes off. Which is at five in the morning.” Without a word of warning, he dragged me across the sidewalk, coaxing loud insults and complaints out of me, then pushed me to sit on a hard wooden bench. Another sigh of relief fluttered through the air.
“What are you doing?” I asked as he started fumbling with his shoes beside me, and the sound of my voice guided his eyes to mine. Almost like he couldn’t help it.
Something about him looking up at me through those dark lashes, his brows raised... it did something to me.
Something I couldn’t think about further.
“I’m giving you my shoes,” he said matter-of-factly. Just like that. No laugh, no explanation. Just McCarthy taking off his shoes andgiving them to me.
“What?” Perplexed would be an understatement. “You really don’t need to—”
“Shut up.” He said it without even looking at me—right as he slipped out of his sneakers.
I think I preferred that side of him. The side that told me to shut up and didn’t catch me off guard with random acts of kindness. At least I knew what to do with that version of him.
Kiss it, apparently.
“You keep on wobbling in those shoes and we’ll never make it home.” He placed his pair in front of me.
“I can walk barefoot.”
“I’m not letting you walk home barefoot.” He acted like it was the most absurd suggestion. Like he wasn’t about to do so himself.
“Why not? It’s a good idea, actually.” I leaned forward to take my own shoes off. His offer was simply too nice, and I didn’t know how to deal with that.
But his hand grabbed my wrist, and I hesitated. My grasp lingered on the heel of my shoe, ready to slip it off, and I made sure to keep my eyes on the pavement. Because I knew he was right beside me, the scent of his cologne prominent in the air. Everything around me screamedMcCarthy, and I didn’t think I could take seeing him too.
“Pressley,” he said, a note in his tone that was unfamiliar. “Put on the damn shoes so we can get home.”
So I did.
My heeled boots dangled from McCarthy’s hand and his white socks turned darker with every step we took. Beside him, I was still wobbling, but only because his shoes felt at least twice my size. As we walked, I wondered if he accidentally ended up on my left side or if he somehow knew about the sidewalk rule.
The comfortable silence that followed was one of my favorite things about being around McCarthy. We didn’t have to keep forcing conversation; we could just shut up around each other without a lingering awkwardness.
“Why do you hate me?” I asked without any of the accusatory tone you’d expect in a loaded question like that. I actually wanted to know. Who wouldn’t be a little curious?
McCarthy scoffed. I could feel his head turning in my direction, though my eyes stayed on the road in front of us. In the distance, some cars rushed past our small collegetown as we approached my apartment building. I’d gotten used to the size of McCarthy’s shoes, and only limped half as badly as I had in the beginning, when he’d made fun of me for it.
In return, I’d called him Bigfoot.
“I don’t hate you. If anything, I hate your brother. And I pity you for how long you’ve been having to deal with him.”
“Well.” I shrugged, kicking a pebble into the strip of grass to my right and almost losing his shoe in the process. A glance at him confirmed he’d seen the entire thing. His smile was wide, but at least he had the decency to look down while he tried to get it under control. “Same difference. Why do you hate him?”
“Have you... met your brother?”
I snorted. Loudly. And I immediately regretted it, as the sound traveled farther through the empty streets than I’d expected. When I looked at him, he was no longer apologetic about the grin on his face.
Before I could say anything, McCarthy came to a halt. He held out my shoes, and I only recognized the redbrick building beside us as my own when he nodded toward it. “You’re welcome,” he teased as I took them from him, stepping out of his sneakers.
Despite the sarcasm he probably expected, I meant it when I said, “Thank you.”
He probably didn’t know how to deal with that any better than I had with his shoe trade, and I told myself that maybe we were even now.
But a thanks didn’t match up to walking barefoot soI wouldn’t have to wear uncomfortable boots. Not by a long shot.
“Seriously,” I tried again. “Thank you.”
