Page 74 of Just My Fake Husband

“Wasshe your girlfriend?”

“I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

“You were holding hands. How could you not remember?”

I don’t respond and that’s when she sighs. “Ugh. It’s because you held lots of girls’ hands, huh?”

I feel shallow. A little ridiculous, like I’m the quintessential representation of all teen boys everywhere. “I guess so. I was immature.” It’s become harder to breathe as easily as it was.

“But you were sweet with me the week before. You were nice enough not to be like,What’s wrong?and demand I tell you my embarrassing story. You sort of tried to take my mind off it and then you told some story about when you—”

I lift a finger. “—When I sneezed on the girl I had a crush on and she wiped her arm off with her shirt and walked away.”

“Yes! See? You do remember!” Her smile does something to sift through the little rocks in my chest. “That anecdote? I felt so seen.”

“Why were you sad that night?”

Her eyes rotate up. “My friend said she was glad Skye wasn’t there and if I brought her to the next party with me, I couldn’t hang out with her anymore.”

“Unbelievable!” Disgust hits my gut. How could someone be so mean? And it hurts even worse thinking of a young, vulnerable River being harmed because of prejudices against her sister.

“Yeah. I eventually got the courage to say ‘forget you,’ and found some better friends who liked having Skye around. But yeah, it hurt.”

“I’m sorry. And sorry I didn’t realize you were the same person at the shake shop.” The sting of it all zips down my windpipe and spreads throughout my lungs. “Knowing I treated you so callously . . .”

She lifts a shoulder. “It was a hard summer. I was fourteen years old, for one thing. And my parents kept insisting I bring Skye with me to social events, and I had a terrible attitude about that. I didn’t want my sister tagging along. And so then when I mentioned to you at the shake shop that you and I had talkedduring the party the week before and you looked like I was . . . not worth remembering, I just—” Her gaze darts down to her robe’s terry cloth belt. She grabs it and starts tapping it against her hand. “You became the fall guy for all that was wrong in my world.”

The set of her jaw and far off look feels like turning the page in a book you’ve never read before, only to see that it’s blank. She’s reliving something. Haunted.

“Youareworth remembering, River. I’m sorry I didn’t before. The details are hazy, but I do remember a girl named Marie and thinking she was cool. But I don’t have any reference in my brain for what ‘Marie’ looked like, so I was confused the next week. And was too wrapped up in myself and in whoever I was holding hands with at the time to handle it well.” I grit my teeth, trying to temper the shame for being such an idiot.

“So there you go,” she says. “We actually met well over a decade ago, even though you’ve thought it was when you barged into my office—”

“There was no barging,” I say cooly. “I knocked.”

Her grin lights up the dark. She’s quiet and that’s when I give in and reach over to place a hand on her knee. I brush my fingertips along her impossibly smooth skin. “You should know that . . . I like your body, okay? You have no idea.”

“Oh really?” Her voice purrs. “This feels very good considering I’ve spent all this time being humiliated about your rejection of me.”

“Perceivedrejection,” I correct. “Or misinformed rejection.”

“Potato. Pa-tah-to.”

“And you’re beating yourself up over not wanting Skye to be involved in things with your friends.”

“It was wrong of me,” she insists.

“But understandable. Like you said, you were fourteen. Look at all you’re doing for her now. You’ve given her the world. You’re an incredible sister.”

The tension between us tells me she’s not completely convinced. Hopefully she’ll come to realize there’s nothing to feel shame over anymore. “What can I do for you, River? Or is it ‘Roberta?’ Or maybe ‘Marie?’”

A barely there laugh, and then she scratches the top of her head.

“I want you to figure out what you want.”

Not what I was expecting her to say. “I know what I want.”

“Not with Foundations. With other things.”

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