Page 69 of Fake it 'Til Christmas
ChapterTwenty-Eight
Soren
The phone dims.I stare at her last message like it might blink back.
She’s so fucking good at this—at me.At keeping me hooked, finding the exact wavelength of mood that makes it impossible to stop texting her, impossible to want to.
I could say goodnight.I should.I’ve got a meeting in seven hours and a business suit that still smells like first-class bourbon and emotional repression.But instead, I lie back on the overpriced mattress and let the silence crawl all over me.
London’s asleep.Which feels unfair.Cities should keep you company when your head won’t shut the hell up.But outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, it’s just the empty sky and the occasional blink of a plane heading somewhere warmer, louder, better.Even the hotel’s doing that weird, smug quiet.Like it knows you’re trying not to think about someone and wants to see you fail.
This is the time we’d be outside.
She’d sneak a blanket off the couch.I’d pretend I wasn’t waiting for her to mention marshmallows, or cocoa, or one more episode of whatever dating show she’s hate-watching, and we’d get into some banter that will last hours.
Our friendship—or what she calls frene ...something…she has a name for us, I can’t remember exactly.The point is that we hang out almost every evening except when we’re out of town.It’s never planned.We just happen.
Winnifred and I are unplanned and yet tangled in ways I had never realized until we faked being something that maybe we could be.How do I know?
Obviously, the kiss, but also, every night I’m away, I find myself reaching for this time like it’s a habit I didn’t mean to start.Like, somehow, this became our thing.Not dates, not obligations.Just this quiet in-between.
Confession time: I hate that it’s still just pretending.
I’m not a relationship kind of guy, but somehow, having her as my constant just feels right.Not being with her all these weeks has been ...fuck.I’m just glad we’re texting and calling.Before we began fake dating—if we can call this fake—I wasn’t aware of how much she means to me.
I thumb the edge of my phone.She’s probably in bed.Or having dinner wearing those ridiculous cat-ear headphones, she swears are ironically cute.Unless she’s outside talking to her mother on speakerphone because she can’t find her earbuds.I should buy her a new pair for Christmas.
I type another reply because she hasn’t admitted that she misses me, but I delete it.Then, type a different one, and then I stop being a coward and hit call.
She answers on the first ring.
“Is this about the pajamas?I can let you choose the color if you want.”
Her voice is bright, teasing, wrapped in that fake-innocent tone that makes it impossible not to picture her smiling.Probably barefoot.Probably standing in the kitchen stirring something ridiculous like cranberry syrup with cinnamon sticks and secrets.
But there’s something else threaded through her words—something that presses low in my gut and stays there.Like she knows I’ve been staring at the ceiling for the past twenty minutes, thinking about her, about how her absence feels like being in a room that used to smell like home and now just smells ...fine.
I rub a hand over my face, dragging my palm down like that’ll wipe off the stupid smile pulling at my mouth.“No, you can pick the color.I’ll live with your choices—it’s just a holiday.”
There’s a beat.A pause.I know she’s smiling now.I’d bet anything.Probably the same grin she wore when she sent that photo of her popcorn and dried orange garland with the caption,Is this what domestic seduction looks like?Asking for a friend.
“You just never told me if you missed me,” I add, more casually than I feel.“So I’m assuming you might be lighting cranberry-scented candles and crying over my absence.Maybe even composing sad haikus about me and the way I make your coffee.”
She laughs.God, I fucking love that sound.Like she’s too smart for her own good and knows I’m full of shit but indulges me anyway.
“I might’ve rearranged the centerpiece.Twice.”
“Twice?”I feign offense.“That’s practically a breakdown.”
“But no tears,” she continues.“Not yet, anyway.”
I shift on the bed, adjusting the pillows behind me.One of them smells like her.I don’t know how that’s possible, but it does.Citrus and honey and something warm I haven’t figured out yet.
“You should be resting,” I say, even though I’m grinning like I didn’t just check my calendar three times to count how many more days until she lands.“It’s a big emotional week for you.You’re traveling first class this Wednesday.”
“Oh, is that what we’re calling it?”she asks.“A big emotional week?”
“Well, yeah.Champagne.Hot towels.The possibility of sitting next to a man who wants to tell you about his divorce and his start-up idea in the same breath.It’s a lot to take in.”
