Page 11 of The Kiss of Deception

I fake a smile.

I say, “Guess who went to bingo night and won a million bucks?”

Servers bustle around, chatter narrates the instrumental music, pots clatter and aromatize the space. The yellow chandeliers hang above with unblinking eyes that judge and convict me of my crimes.

“I don’t doubt you’d get competitive with old ladies.” Grandpa chuckles, not at all fazed with the sudden change of topic, like he’s picturing me screaming at the elderly.

I roll my eyes but keep an impassive façade as I speak.

“Not me.” I pat the corners of my lips with the napkin. “I did get a promotion though.”

When I arrived at my cubicle this morning and found a Post-It signed by my boss with instructions to see him immediately, I expected a lot of things—unemployment, to name the first.

But he didn’t utter a word about the scandal. His expression said enough about silent intentions as he made an offer, not particularly bothered to disguise the reason behind it—my recent rampant rise in notoriety.

“The sidelines are about to get their ass kicked,” I say to Grandpa. “Any suggestions on how to spend that raise?”

“Since you mentioned it.” He grins, his words seasoned with unrestrained pride. “I think I need a bigger TV. More memory space, too.”

Grandpa’s words haunt me all through dinner as I plaster a smile I only feel in brief intervals, and all the way home as I navigate the nightlife of Boston’s ever-congested traffic.

It’s nothing if not humbling to see myself through the sincerity of someone who loves me unconditionally.

The only person that knows me better than I know myself doesn’t think I’m happy—or that I’m enough to make myself happy.

But I am. I know I am, and even that certainty doesn’t convince him and relieve his fears.

The pressure in my chest morphs into something familiar that solidifies my questionable decision.

If being someone different is what it takes, I’ll be whatever I must for the sake of his peace and happiness.

Chapter Four

Zoe

After listening to my grandpa dissect my life—and blatantly lying to the face of my favorite person on Earth—I should’ve gone home to plan how I would tell him the truth without breaking his hear. Then promptly torture myself for my lies.

Yet, I end the night at the door of the most insufferable man in Boston, the very reason I find myself trapped in this predicament.

A predicament that I seal by signing a verbal contract with nothing but three measly words.

“I’ll do it.”

It’s almost absurd, if not tragic, how a single decision can be life-changing in ways one could barely fathom.

How one action can trigger a chain of events that leads to the unexpected.

How three little words can merge two fates into one, two hands forever intertwined.

Miles watches me like I’m an apparition. Struck silent, a sight I’d never seen before. A wicked part of me is delighted to reduce him to a fish mouthing for air. My temporary insanity was a little worth it, after all.

It takes him a while to snap his mouth closed, but for once I can’t fault him. I barrelled into him with the force of a destructive tornado.

“Come in,” he finally says.

The parallel indentations dig deeper between his brows when I obey without snarky retorts, a rare occurrence that attests to my current state of complete resignment to defeat and guilt-fueled self-hatred.

And just like that, we’ve broken a new record.

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