Page 57 of Faking it with my Off Limits Neighbor

“But it will do you a world of good.”

“I don’t want to feel good.” I shrug.

“Oh, come on, Troy. You can’t go on like this,” Milly says. “A few days away will take your mind off things.”

“No, Milly, it won’t,” I say determinedly. “I’ll just be miserable somewhere else.”

“Somewhere else with me,” she reasons with a slight smile.

When she arrived, I hadn’t even gotten the chance to close the front door before my little sister, bubbling with excitement, proposed that we go away for a few days. I was still trying to figure out what day it was.

Struggling to form words as we made our way into the kitchen, I flicked the coffee machine on and grabbed a mug from the cupboard. She declined coffee, which is probably a good thing. She’s buzzing like a hornet already.

With my steaming mug now in hand, I rest against the counter opposite her and take a tentative sip. It’s hot, just the way I like it.

“Please, Troy,” she begs.

She’s trying too hard, and I sense an ulterior motive under her pressing need.

“What’s this really about, Milly?” I ask, eyeing her suspiciously.

“What do you mean? Can’t I just want to go away with my big brother?”

I’m still not buying it. “What? Just like that?” I snap my fingers.

She drops her head and sighs. “After I dropped you off the other day, your words got me thinking. If you’re going to leave Cherryville, I’m not going to see much of you.”

“I’m not leaving the country, Milly.”

Her eyes meet mine then, and a deep frown furrows her brow. “Do you have any idea what it was like for me when you left?” she says, her voice sounding pained.

Her question catches me off guard, and I look at her, feeling a little bewildered.

“I know you didn’t want to go. And I know your heart was broken, Troy. But while you lost Charlie and Mom and Dad, I lost my big brother. The guy who had always been there to protect me, to make sure I was okay, to laugh at my silliness and jokes. Just like that, you were gone.”

“Milly,” I say softly. I’ll be honest; I had not once considered how my absence would affect Milly. At the time, I was too consumed with my feelings for Charlie. “I had no idea.”

“Of course you didn’t, because I didn’t tell you. You were distraught, so I pinned on my smile whenever we spoke. You were going through enough without having me whining at you.”

“You should have said something.”

“It doesn’t matter now,” she counters. “But now, you’re going to leave me again. I know it’s not Paris, but it’s not going to be close, either, is it? I’m not going to be able to just pop in and see you on my lunch break.”

“We’ll still see each other.”

Milly shakes her head. “Not half as often as I would like. I know how busy you’re going to be. It’s part of being a chef, right?”

I can’t disagree, and instead of lying, I just shrug.

“Exactly. So, when you said you were going to leave, I called my boss and scheduled some days off, then booked a small cottage on the coast.”

“You’ve already booked it?” I gawk.

“Yep. I just thought, you know, before you left, we could have a couple of days of it just being us.”

After everything she’s just told me, I can hardly say no, can I? Even if all I really feel like doing is crawling back into bed. If nothing else, I owe it to her. I put my whole family through a traumatic experience when I left. I just hadn’t realized how deeply it had affected Milly.

I take another sip of my coffee, and then I sigh heavily. “Fine. I’ll go.”

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