Page 51 of My Fake Fiancé

"Hi," is all I say and she turns to face me.

"Oh honey. You doing okay?" She asks before pulling me into a big hug. She rubs my back a few times then pulls away looking me over. And by this time, I'd started crying again. She wipes at my tears and then leads me over to the tall stools at the counter. I sit down and she starts pulling things out of her grocery bag.

"Kurt called," she says but doesn't pause to wait for my reaction, "We've got the place to ourselves this evening and it is a girls' night. And you know what that means. Well, actually you probably don't but I'll tell you. So, movies, junk food, soda, and lots of popcorn. And I'm not talking about those sob-fest movies. Got it? I'm talking Fast and Furious, our favorites only. Jason Bourne, again, favorites only." She digs through my movie box and pulls out all of the Jason Bourne movies, including the one with Jeremey Renner and she holds them victoriously in the air. "No, we have all of them, we will watch all of them!"

I lean back in my chair and watch as she bounces around the kitchen pulling out bowls for our junk food. At one point, she tosses me her phone and tells me that I am the DJ while she preps our food. I scroll through her songs and really want to listen to sad songs to sob my heart out too but I know that tonight is not the night for sobbing so I find her pump-up playlist and hit shuffle. The first song is My House by Flo Rida and Tatyana instantly begins singing. I love this song and about a minute into it, I join in and hop down off of the stool to help her pour various candies into different bowls.

Maybe I'll be alright after all.

Chapter 45

Juliana

“Okay so Tokyo Drift is over. Now what? Jason Bourne? Psych? Covert Affairs?" Tatyana lists off movies and TV shows. "But the thing with TV shows is, how much do we watch? Do we watch the whole thing? Like for Psych, that's 8 seasons and a couple of movies too! That seems like a lot," she rattles on and I get up to make more popcorn. While in the kitchen, I open another bag of mini M&M's and dump them into our almost empty bowl.

"Psych. Definitely, Psych." I contribute. "I need a little laughter right now. And as funny as Vin's accent is, I think I need some Shawn and Gus right now." Tatyana cheers and I pour the popcorn into a large bowl and bring over both bowls while she sets up the TV. “Season 3 is my comfort zone, it’s the season I’ve owned the longest.” Tatyana nods and pops in the third season for us.

We've been at this all night until the wee hours of the night. Sometimes I catch myself wondering what Kurt is doing or wondering when he will be back and I have to force myself to stop thinking about him. I can't pretend what we had was real. It wasn't. It was just a game.

“So,” I say to distract myself. “How was your trip with Mike? We never have had time to talk about that.”

“Oh, it was amazing! Mike was in meetings most of the day and had to attend a few dinners as well, so I was on my own for the most part, but I had tons of fun!” Tatyana tells me. “My boss kept emailing me things to do so I did spend some time working in the hotel. But thankfully, it was easy things like charts and updating info. Easy stuff I could finish before noon and then spend a few hours at the pool.”

“Ooo, I thought you looked tanner!” I compliment her and she holds her arms to show me. “Amazing, dang girl.” I hold my arms up by hers to compare and we both burst into giggles. She was already tanner than me before but now it’s even more drastic.

“Yes, thank you. But anyway, Mike’s conference was very successful. He’s a great salesman,” Tatyana chuckles. “That’s how he got me.” We both laugh but she’s not wrong. I’ve seen him in action and he is quite good.

Tatyana talks a little more about her trip and her job, mostly complaining about her boss, Shelby, and her inability to do anything on her own, aside from looking up stocks, ones she is fond of. When Tatyana trails off, distracted by the TV show, I sit back into the arm of the couch and sigh. Tatyana looks at me. "Are you thinking about him?" She asks softly. I nod and she gives me a sad smile. "Juli, he likes you. Okay? He really does. I've told you this from the beginning. Who knows, maybe he has liked you for a while now." She is about to continue talking but I cut her off.

"No," I say and dismiss her words with a wave of my hand. "He doesn't. It was all fake." I pause and I can feel her watching me. I sigh and pull the blanket up to my chin. "I just feel so stupid, you know? I mean you don't know because you have your boyfriend and he's awesome and real and loves you." I ramble on, forming sentences that aren't really sentences. "But Kurt, Kurt wasn't real. Everything we did wasn't real. And I made it even worse with that stupid, beautiful dress."

"Wait, what did you guys do?" Tatyana sits up a little bit, interested. She leans in closer and a smile threatens to spread across her lips. I blush and hide behind my hands but then quickly respond so she doesn't get the wrong impression.

"No, nothing! I mean, okay, I maybe tried to do stuff..." I trail off blushing even more and she pushes my shoulder laughing.

"What did you do?! I knew you guys liked each other." She nods her head, proud of her detective skills. It makes me smile. I feel like a schoolgirl talking about her crush on an older man. (Not too much older but you know in middle school when you had crushes on like a high school senior or something? Something like that).

"I don't know. I was acting all emotional and I kissed him and then kind of pulled him on me and I was trying to uhm... undo his pants." I say blushing a bit from embarrassment. She grins at me. "Yeah okay, but he stopped me. He was the one who stopped." I sigh and shrug my shoulders. "Then a few days after that, the day we went dress shopping, I came home and we just…came together. We made out for a while and just touched each other and then he…” I trail off again and Tatyana jumps up, sitting forward, enthralled in the story.

“What? What did he do?” She looks so eager to know that I chuckle a little.

“He, well, he went down on me,” I admit and she squeals. Her squeal is so high-pitched that I cover my ears with my hands. When the noise stops, I drop my hands again and continue. “I was going to return the favor, you know, but he said he was happy to do it and he didn’t want me to rush into anything and all of that.”

“So he was basically the perfect gentleman,” Tatyana says and I nod. “Wait, did he get you to finish?”

“Mhm,” I respond and bite down on my lip. Tatyana raises her eyebrows and her smile grows. “Twice,” I add and she squeals again, pounding her fist on the couch in excitement.

“Yessss, OMG. I am so happy for you,” Tatyana cheers excitedly.

“Me too. Or I was. I don't know. I guess I was just caught up in the whole performance. I was having fun and forgot that it had to end at some point." Again I sigh. "I'm probably just repeating myself now but that's really all I can say. Well, besides the fact that I definitely like him."

"I knew it!" Tatyana tosses popcorn at me. "Also, duh. Everyone believed you guys were a couple. And you're terrible at acting." I roll my eyes but she is right. I'm really bad at it. "Maybe he stopped you from going further because he wants to try a real relationship. Start where normal couples start." She offers and I have to shrug again. I honestly don't know. I don't think he wants a relationship though. I sigh and lean my head back against the couch.

“I doubt that. If that were the case, he would have been a lot more understanding about the whole wedding dress thing. I clearly did not mean for that to happen, I had no idea,” I say and Tatyana shrugs. “Plus, he laughed when I asked about it,” I tell her and she gasps.

“No, he did not?!” Tatyana asks, horrified. I just nod. She shakes her head, clearly upset and disappointed. “Wow, that’s a little cruel. I mean, I can understand that he’s feeling a lot of emotions, but to laugh about it? That’s not cool.”

“Yeah,” I mutter. “It stung more than I care to admit,” I tell her and she nods in understanding.

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