Page 69 of Things We Fake
I leaned back, studying her. “Then I’ll hire you.”
She blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Teacher training teachers. Make it official. We’ll go over Christmas—two weeks off, and I promise to make it worth your while.”
“You’re bribing me with fake employment now?”
I gestured evasively. “I prefer to think of it as creative staffing. Think about the gorgeous beaches, the kangaroos, the koalas—”
“And giant spiders. And saltwater crocodiles.” She gave me a pointed look. “Do you always manipulate people with charm and loopholes to get your way?”
I gave a mock sigh. “I’m being a control freak again, huh?”
“Oh yeah.” She shifted gears. “Will you be at school tomorrow? Or just Dawna?”
“We’ll both be there. I wouldn’t let you face the dragon lady alone.”
She stood and picked up our plates, carrying them to the kitchen. “Thank you. If she doesn’t read the Weekender, someone else will. And Luke will definitely be there. Trying to keep him quiet is like trying to put the genie back in the bottle.”
I laughed and pulled my phone from my pocket. “Excuse me—this thing’s been vibrating nonstop.” I glanced at the screen and felt my smile fade.
How would I break this news to Sue?
As though sensing something was wrong, she froze.
“What is it?”
I looked up, my eyes meeting hers. “Well... my sister just texted. She and my mom are coming to Easter dinner, too.”
She sat down hard, the air whooshing out of her lungs.
“Your mom and sister? Oh boy! I can handle my family—I trained for that my whole life. But yours? What if they hate me? What if they give you some kind of ultimatum not to marry me?”
I burst into laughter and reached for her hand before she spiraled all the way into the cascade of what ifs.
“Hey,” I said, keeping my tone as gentle as I could. “We’ll prepare. We were going to go through everything for your family anyway—we’ll just have a slightly larger audience than we planned.”
“Yeah.” Her lips looked bloodless.
Inside, I wasn’t quite calm myself.
My mom was insightful, sharp, and intimidatingly perceptive. She’d spot cracks in our story faster than I could code a firewall. And Becky? Becky didn’t believe in subtlety. She had a sixth sense for bullshit—especially mine. This could blow up in our faces.
But I couldn’t let Sue see that. She was already unraveling, and I needed her steady. So I squeezed her hand again and stood.
“I’ll pour more wine. You grab your laptop. Let’s find that questionnaire and start studying again. We can pull this off, you’ll see.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Sue
Monday morning I woke before my alarm, groggy from a night of restless sleep. That icy knot in my stomach hadn’t budged since Cam dropped the news about his mom and sister joining us for Easter. We had a handful of days to build an entire relationship from scratch—one with inside jokes, shared memories, and mutual quirks. Deception was frigging hard!
How did serial cheaters do this? I’d read an article just last week about a bigamist who maintained two wives, two sets of kids, one in New York and the other in North Carolina. He kept the lie going for years.
How did he manage to pull it off, and most importantly—why? History shows men have always been more enthusiastic about polygamy. Women? Not so much. Probably because no sane woman would volunteer to juggle that many in-laws.
I shook my head, flinging the covers off me. As I sat on the edge of the bed, trying to find the energy to tackle another crazy day of the madness that was my life, my phone rang.
