Page 96 of Things We Fake
Sue gulped, looking over at me from the passenger seat of my car. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”
“Everything is going to be fine. How hard could it be to convince someone I’m madly in love with you?”
I leaned in for a deep, possessive kiss that sent my senses into overdrive. God, how I wished she was in love with me. But being lovers wasn’t the same as being in love. This was the charade we’d started, half-seriously, only a week ago, and I had to follow it through to the bitter end.
I opened my eyes, tasting her on my lips—toothpaste and cherry lip balm. If I didn’t know otherwise, I could swear she was madly in love with me. She was an excellent actress, and I had no reason to act. I was crazy about her. At least I didn’t have to worry I’d lie to Mom and Becky about that.
“Okay, let’s do this.” She took a deep breath and leaned back in her seat.
I started the engine and slid the car into traffic. We were going to pick up my mom and sister from their hotel, then meet Sue’s family at The River Café.
I didn’t even know how the day had passed. I’d done my job like a robot, checking my watch and calculating minutes until dinner time. Sue’s prayers about the tsunami were still unanswered and I wasn’t putting much stock into that plan at this point.
Next to me, she was a mess. I put on some soothing jazz, hoping to calm her nerves. It didn’t work. It was like that moment when someone tells you to calm down, and the last thing you can do is calm down. That was Sue.
In contrast, I was eerily calm. I couldn’t explain why, but I wasn’t in the least bit nervous to meet her family. Maybe I felt protected somehow because this engagement was fake. After Britt, I was scared of another real engagement, so I took this as a game at first. It couldn’t hurt me. But on the other hand, what I felt for Sue was not fake at all. The ring wasn’t fake to me.
I couldn’t, for the life of me, explain what was happening in my brain. For a brief second I wished I could talk to my mother about it. She would help me make sense of things. Maybe one day I would, but for now I had to take it one hour at a time.
Sue’s mom texted her to let her know they were heading to the restaurant. She texted back the phoniest smiley face emoji in the library of emojis.
Twenty minutes later, I pulled up outside The St. Regis, where Mom and Becky were waiting for us. Themoment I spotted them through the glass doors, my face split into a wide grin. I hadn’t realized how much I missed them until this moment.
Next to me, Sue was unraveling.
“Oh God, oh God, oh God,” she muttered under her breath.
“Would you relax?” I squeezed her hand hard, forcing her to look at me. “They’re going to love you.”
“They’re going to analyze me,” she corrected. “Your mother has a frigging PhD in mind-reading. She’s going to sniff out every fake thing about this engagement and dissect me like a science experiment.”
I smirked at the picture she painted. “Good thing there’s nothing fake about my feelings for you.”
I gave her no choice but to follow me out of the car.
Becky spotted us instantly. “There’s my favorite brother and his mysterious fiancée!”
She sauntered toward us with the gait of a TV host about to present a reality show.
She was almost as tall as me. If someone held a gun to my head demanding objectivity, I had to admit my sister was stunning, with long raven black hair and dark, almond-shaped eyes. Her fashion sense was something between boho and hippie. She wore a colorful skirt, a denim jacket covered in flowers, a long knit scarf, and army boots.
I barely had a second to react before she hug-tackled Sue, nearly sending them both into the side of my car.
“Welcome to New York,” Sue gasped.
“Oh, my God! You’re even prettier than in the pictures.” She pulled back, scanning Sue from head to toe.
I barely had time to blink before she turned to me and pulled me into a bear hug. I lifted her cleanly off her feet and twirled her around a couple of times.
“Good to see you, Bex,” I said, bopping her nose.
“Back at you, bro.” Becky smacked me on the arm. “How the hell did you land her?”
My grin widened. “I tricked her into liking me.”
“Yeah, you have a knack for that.”
Meanwhile, my mom approached with the kind of calm authority I’d always admired about her. She was dressed in a navy coat, her short dark hair sleek and sophisticated. Her sharp blue eyes missed absolutely nothing.
