Page 25 of Pretend You're Mine

“That’s an awful thing to say, Mother,” Becca snapped, glaring at her.

Evelyn ignored her daughter, turning her focus back to me and Avery. "Avery and his father were so close... so close that the others were jealous of their bond." Her gaze flicked to Nathaniel and Joseph before returning to Avery. "My husband had big dreams for Avery, dreams that crumbled when he... when Avery came back from that conversion camp even more convinced that he liked men. It broke his heart, and it cost him his health. He had his first heart attack after that. It was the final straw.”

The scrape of my chair against the tile was loud in the sudden silence, and everyone’s attention snapped to me. "What did you just say?"

Avery’s hand tightened around my wrist, tugging me back down into my seat. Our eyes locked, and I saw the exhaustion in his expression, the raw pain that he’d been carrying for far too long. His eyes, red-rimmed, pleaded with me to stay calm. This was a man in need of protection, and I couldn’t let him face this alone.

Evelyn’s voice broke as she continued, her speech slurred by the alcohol. "I'm s-saying that if Avery wasn’t gay, or at least p-pretended not to be, my h-husband would still be alive, sitting at the h-head of the t-table this Thanksgiving."

That was it—the tipping point. I gritted my teeth, my mind racing with all the things I wanted to say to make her understand how deeply she was hurting her own son. The urge to snap back, to drag her out of her drunken stupor with a few choice words, was almost overwhelming.

Next to me, Avery’s cheeks flushed red with embarrassment, his gaze fixed firmly on the table. The silence in the room was suffocating, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that Nathaniel and Joseph believed the poison Evelyn was spewing. Or maybe they were just too afraid to contradict her, the matriarch of the family.

I wasn’t great at keeping my emotions in check, especially when it came to people I cared about.

I pushed my chair back again, this time with finality. "I think you’ll understand why we have to excuse ourselves for the night." I turned to Avery, noting the barely touched plate in front of him. "There’s no reason to stay here and make this worse. Let’s go."

I helped him to his feet, and together, we left the dining room, trudging up the stairs in silence. My mind buzzed, drained and numb from the evening's events. This wasn’t how I had imagined the night going—especially not after the half-decent dinner we’d managed the evening before.

“Are you okay?” I asked as we walked back into Avery's room.

“I’m fine.” His answer was almost immediate. “I just want to go to sleep.”

“Yeah, sounds like a good idea.”

"You know you didn't need to put yourself on the line for me out there," Avery muttered as he changed out of his clothes.

“Your mother thinks she can spout all she wants and still have you relate with her on a personal level without any boundaries being drawn," I mumbled, "but that's not going to fly with me if she disrespects you."

No other word was uttered as we climbed into bed. Avery cradled my face, and his thumb trailed my jaw.

“Creed… thanks for backing me, for being there for me. I appreciate it."

"I know this might come off as weird considering I'm being paid to play the part, but there’s nowhere else I'd rather be."

It didn't take long for Avery to close his eyes and fall asleep, his body aligned with mine. My chest swelled with emotions, looking at his relaxed face.

I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I knew, my eyes popped open. There was no gradual transition fromconsciousness to sleep back to consciousness. I was met with the sensation of a solid, warm presence beside me, and I turned to see Avery's peaceful sleeping form. My heart fluttered in my chest. As my gaze trailed down to his body, it was as if the entire cosmos had condensed into this moment, my senses heightened by the warmth of his body against mine and the stirring of desire within me. Time seemed to hold its breath as the darkness of the room enveloped us, the only light coming from the dimly lit window.

It was a foreign feeling, lying next to someone and feeling wanted, when I had spent my life with no one really knowing me nor caring, except for my mom. Still, there was a tiny part of me that wanted to climb out of the bed and leave.

Maybe it was the memory of how we’d woken up in a compromising position the previous night. The sensation of Avery’s hard cock pressed against me had been addictive, and I couldn’t help but grind against it, caught up in the moment. Until Avery realized what was happening and put a stop to it.

I’d tried to ignore the tension between us, wanting to avoid the awkwardness of addressing it. The more I thought about it, the more I felt it was best to leave things unsaid. But the uncertainty of what this meant for us lingered in my mind. Just last week, I would have said I couldn’t be attracted to a man, that I’d never considered another guy in this way before. Yet, now, the label “gay” felt oddly familiar, even though it startled me.

The truth was, I had felt these things before but buried them deep, thanks to my father’s constant demands to “man up” whenever I showed any sign of vulnerability.

“I guess it all makes sense now,” I muttered under my breath, shaking my head at the confusion swirling inside me.

Sitting up in bed, I reminded myself not to dwell on things I couldn’t change. The label felt strange, but part of me recognized this attraction to Avery. I had spent too long suppressing myfeelings, haunted by the conflict of my sexuality and my father’s tough masculinity that made it hard to explore them.

Right now, nothing else mattered but Avery. Sweet, kind Avery, who didn’t deserve the crap life was throwing at him. My responsibility was to protect him, even if it meant crossing lines I never thought I would.

Deciding to set aside my personal struggles, I slipped out of the cozy bed, glancing at Avery curled up beneath the blankets. A wave of regret washed over me. But I knew I had to execute my next plan.

CHAPTER 14

CREED

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