Page 32 of A Fine Line

Winnie and I both glanced around the immaculate living room, not a single dust bunny or crooked item to be found. ‘A wreck’, my ass.

Winnie smiled at her in way that was so genuine I felt a tinge of guilt. Don’t fall in love with my mom. Don’t even think about it.

Half an hour later my mother had Winnifred wrapped around her perfectly manicured fingers. My family was gathered around the table as we always had, but now an extra chair was pulled up next to my side with a redhead looking at them all with giant heart eyes.

And what was worse was that they looked right back at her with the same fascination. Like we had some kind of rare ethereal creature in this room, something unknown and new and exciting sitting next to the same old Crew. Nathan and Calla were discussing baseball stats and Winnie was hanging on their every word like she cares about sports when I know for a fact she hates them.

I glanced to her through the corner of my eye, trying to catch up on what they saw. Yes, she was gorgeous. It was a fact you couldn’t ignore, not when she was right next to you with full lips and round flushed cheeks and the softest hair I’d ever seen. But behind all of that beauty were secrets and deceit and it seemed to be that I was the only one who picked up on it.

“So, how did you two meet?” My dad asked, his mouth full of a roll it stuffed in there in a single bite.

Winnie’s foot nudged mine under the desk and I nudged her right back.

She answered reluctantly with caution. “We work across from each other, I own the pink food truck next to his.”

A collective ‘Ooohh’ went around the table before they each went back to their forks clinking against plates and stomachs begin pushed full. Nathan pointed a fork between me and the girl kicking my shin.

“I knew he liked her,” he nudged Calla. “Didn’t I say that? I swear I told you guys he secretly-”

“I thought they hated each other?” Dallas, my current least favorite nephew of the two, blurted out and Marigold smacked the back of his head.

Winnie and I both turned bright red under all of their stares and I sensed it in my bones. We can’t pull this off. Not to my family and not to a chamber of commerce and certainly not on competition day.

I was inches away from giving it all up, shouting out ‘gotcha!’ and pretending this was merely one of my many, many pranks on my family when Winnie reached over to my lap and laced our fingers together.

My eyes shot down to make sure I wasn’t dreaming but no, that’s skin on skin and warmth was spreading its way through my entire body and lighting up my chest. I was either so out of touch with relationships that something as simple as holding a girls hand had my heart thumping loudly against my ribs, or Winnie had another one of her spells going on and she was injecting poison through my fingertips.

“Oh, yeah, well you know…” She spoke up, vibrations between our chairs arms traveling up my skin. Her eyes met mine and she gave a wink, maybe for me or maybe for them I wasn’t sure all I knew was her hand was on mine and me really, really didn’t hate it? “I told him I wasn’t interested but he just kept asking andasking. I mean really, it was like every day Winnie just say yes, come on, Winnie girl don’t do me like that. A girl could only say no so many times before carving.”

Winnie girl? When had I ever called her Winnie girl?

I ground down on my molars. “I don’t remember it happening like that.”

“Funny.” Her hand squeezed mine in a death grip. “I do.”

Mom’s throat cleared. “So, have you been going out long?”

I answered the first number that popped in my busy head. “Two weeks.” at the same time Winnie all but shouted “A month.”

Our eyes met, widened in fear and confusion and ‘why the hell would you say a month?’ and ‘well why did you say two weeks?’

We turned back to the table where everyone was looking at us expectantly.

“I mean two weeks…and a month…” Winnie cleared up with the most unsure voice I’d ever heard from her.

My siblings and parents kept their stare on us, nosy and waiting and I really had nothing honest to add to it so I let my mouth take over the competing thoughts in my head. “We ended up signing up for the competition to do it together.”

“Aww!” Calla cooed and clapped her hands together, “Coworkers to lovers”

Winnie’s head tilted, her hand was still locked in mind and I felt like I was sweating a lot suddenly. “What?”

Nathan answered on behalf of my sister. “Don’t mind her, she reads a lot of romance.”

The rest of dinner was basically the Crew and Winnie show, everyone taking their turns to ask us questions from ‘so would you say you liked Revenge of The Sith better than The Phantom Menace’ coming from Luke or ‘Does Crew still talk in his sleep? He used to tell us about his day as soon as his eyes were shut.’from Liam. Even Adam at one point asked a couple questions and engaged in the conversation.

When our stomachs were full and bloated my mom collected our plates, and turned to the kitchen before glancing at my fake girlfriend over her shoulder. “Winnifred, would you mind helping me, dear?”

Winnie looked from me to my mom to Rachel directly across from her who was smiling and doing a slight head nod. Her eyes came back to me and I widened them hoping she would pick up the signal. Do not. DO NOT have manners and go help my mom. Those two alone were going to be explosive and my mom knew all the right questions to ask to make this whole thing turn over and get absolutely ruined.

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