Page 83 of Fake It 'til You Make It

He knows. I think he knows I’m not who I’m pretending to be. Does he? How could he? But I need to stop the business chat, get back to baseball and channeling the persona of a top sportsman.

‘What did you say the name of your brother’s business is?’ Terry asks.

I panic. I’m like a moose caught in headlights. Do I tell him the truth? What if he looks it up? What if he connects me to the business? But if I make something up, I could undermine everything for Abbey.

Fueled by anxiety, I tell him, ‘Vanguard RED Technologies.’

‘Food’s up,’ Abbey says, bumping open the door to the dining room with her hip and carrying two bowls of soup.

Please don’t leave me again.

35

ABBEY

Dinner was a bit weird. Mike was odd and in a way I can’t quite put my finger on. He was outwardly happy and composed but at the risk of sounding too Gen Z, he was vibing some strangely nervous energy as he sat next to me at the dinner table.

Or maybe there was some peculiar energy betweenus.

‘Is everything okay?’ I ask once we have tidied up from dinner and are heading upstairs to my bedroom.

My bedroom, from which I haphazardly removed all easily removable traces of Andrew and high-school weird earlier.

‘Yeah, I’m good, just cooked. Are you okay?’

We reach the landing. Standing outside my bedroom door, I can see his face, the way his jaw seems taut; his hands are resting in the pockets of his pants, and his shoulders are placed higher than usual.

‘Is it awful? Is it too bizarre, being here, meeting my parents, us pretending we’re… you know… in love?’

My throat tightens around that last word and I realize my mouth is dry. I need to swallow but it’s hard to swallow and I’m staring at him, and he’s staring at me.

And now he’s looking at my mouth and I’m looking at his.

He’s reaching a hand and he’s going to touch my face, maybe tuck my hair behind my ear, maybe touch my lips and?—

I reach for the door handle and hastily push open my bedroom door with too much force. It bangs against the wall.

‘Crap,’ I say, making a futile attempt to catch it.

Then Mike is inside my bedroom, where there’s one bed, my bed, and we’re both going to be lying in there soon, and?—

‘I’ll just grab some things and sleep on the sofa,’ he says, reaching for a T-shirt and his wash bag. ‘Do you have a spare blanket or sheet?’

Oh.

‘The sofa? Why? You can stay with me. We’re two adults and, in any case, my parents actually think that we’re having… you know…’

‘Sex.’

It’s out there. He said it. And it’s hanging in the air between us like fragile glass – hovering, waiting to drop and shatter.

It’s ridiculous how one word has made my blood pump faster, my palms heat, my breath hitch. But it has.

We’re standing in the room, the only things between us Mike’s toiletries and spare T-shirt. All I can think about is how he’ll undress before bed.

He’s so close to me, I can feel the warmth of his body, smell wine on his breath.

His tongue wets his lips as his eyes penetrate mine.

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