Page 7 of Lessons in Faking
“Used that mouth of yours quite often, Pressley,” he continued.
I groaned loudly, but I doubted he even heard me over the noise around us. (I wasn’t sure if I could still consider it music. I probably would after a few more drinks.)
“Pretty skillfully too.”
Fuck. Me.
In a mix of annoyance and rage andI can’t believe he said that!, I turned toward him—so quick, I lost my balance for a dreadful second. With my hand holding onto the bar he still leaned against, the full weight of the alcohol I’d consumed until now kicked me. Hard.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” I finally snapped. “You’ve got some nerve.”
“Oh,” Jason hummed, nodding to himself. “She speaks.”
Honestly, the J-name should’ve been my first blindingly bright red flag. Yet despite all odds and previous beliefs, I fell head over heels for Jason Montgomery just three weeks into my freshman year. Probably more so because my parents would’ve loved him, because my brother had loved him, and because everyone (excluding Wren) had told me we were practically perfect for each other. The thought was repulsive now.
But back then, knowing nothing of Jason—apart from the fact that he was the Montgomerys’ golden boy, with a bright future ahead and the charm of someone who had been raised to be nothing but charming—he was perfect. Handsome too.
“This.” I gestured between the two of us, finding an amused gleam in his eyes. “Is not happening.”
“What’s not happening?” Jason’s hands flew up in mock surrender. “I’m not trying to make anything happen, Athalia.” The only thing giving him away was his smug, subtle smirk. I hated the way my name sounded on his lips. “But honestly, after you egged my car and slashed a tire, I thought we were even.”
The tire was an accident. Sort of.
He leaned closer, his voice low. “I’m just trying to catch up with an old friend here.” As he straightened back up, I hoped it was the alcohol that sent a light shiver down my spine. Taking a step forward to stand opposite me, he added, “Wearefriends, right?”
And I was trying to come up with the best way of telling him that I would rather eat my own foot—
“I think I’d know about that.”
For a moment, I wondered whether it was my own voice that had become deep and sulky, carrying a cool kind of indifference. Perplexed, my hand reached for my mouth. I was pretty sure I hadn’t said a damn thing. If I did, though, it would’ve been just a little meaner than that.
My head snapped to the arm that carefully placed itself around me, a beer in hand, just by my shoulder. I jerked at the touch, taking a step away, only to bump into a body that hadn’t previously been there. My hazy mind couldn’t put two and two together. The blasting music—it could be classified as that again—had sucked the last bit of coherency from my brain.
What I did notice, though, was that Jason took a step back because of whoever that arm belonged to. And that was all it took for drunk, simpleminded me to relax into the stranger. I even managed to whip up a smile, fueled with a confidence that usually went out the window when Jason was around. Meanwhile, he wasn’t even looking at me.
“McCarthy,” he said by way of greeting.
The name alone was enough to startle me. Jason stillfocused on him, and my own eyes skirted up the black T-shirt, noticed the silver necklace disappearing underneath its collar, and registered an annoyingly familiar jawline, before taking him in as a whole.
McCarthy had an arm around me, but he hadn’t acknowledged my presence much more than that. His attention was entirely on Jason.
In any other situation, I would’ve shoved McCarthy off me before I could even be sure it was him. But now, with the way Jason responded to him, he was useful enough for me to stick by his side.
“What a sight to behold,” Jason said, snapping out of it. His eyes flicked back and forth between us in record time. I swallowed deeply. The room started spinning. “Never thought Brother Dearest would approve.” His eyes slid back to me. “Where is Henry, by the way?”
Henry wouldn’t approve. He’d kill both of us if he saw McCarthy’s arm around me. I had to keep myself from looking around frantically just at the mention of my brother.
McCarthy did what Jason hated most: He ignored him. Instead of answering, he turned to me, raised his brows, an edge of—surely faked—concern in his features. “Care to join me outside?” he asked coolly, nodding to the backyard.
And I wasn’t even lying when I said, “Yes, please.”
Chapter 4
“I’d thank you...” The crisp autumn breeze swallowed my words. I was slurring, probably. Swaying and hiccuping as we made our way to the garden bench. “But being here with you is probably just as bad.” To be honest, nothing was worse than spending another minute in the suffocating presence of Jason Montgomery, but McCarthy didn’t need to know I was lying. So I doubled down. “Worse, maybe.”
“You could just say thank you, you know.” I felt the bench shift underneath his weight when he sat beside me, and without looking at him, I knew a self-satisfied smirk played on his lips. The same one that he couldn’t seem to suppress whenever he realized just how lost I was during our tutoring.
“I didn’t need your help,” I clarified, only because the sheer thought of that cocky smile irritated me.
