Page 278 of Accidentally Under Your Tree

"Rose." This time, I spoke with enough force in my voice to get her attention. "We need to end the lie. It's gone too far. I want to tell your parents tonight."

A crease formed between her eyebrows. "That we broke up or…?"

I shook my head, looking far more confident than I felt. "That we've been lying to them."

"No. Nope. They'll freak out."

"We are not pulling this off. We're going to get caught if we keep this up. It's better to get ahead of it."

"We're doing fine."

"I'm not keeping my distance from Lizzy, and I don't want to." I admitted with a heavy omission of fucking around in the basement. "And you"—I jerked my head in Lawrence's direction, where Rose's attention had already wandered—"are not being as discrete as you think, either."

She pinched the bridge of her nose.

"I don't want to keep lying. Particularly, not about Lizzy—"

"We are not telling my parents in the same conversation that we lied about datingandyou having the hots for my sister," Rose interrupted.

Exhaling a deep breath, I agreed, "That's probably smart."

She smirked. "So, it's unlike us?"

"Practically opposites." I nudged her shoulder with mine. "We can wait a couple of days and announce an amicable breakup online."

"I really don't want to tell my mom and dad." She pleaded.

"I think we should." I scraped my toe on a black scuff mark on the tile floor. "We shouldn't have lied to them to begin with."

"Fine…we'll tell them tonight when we get home."

"Thanks."

I found Lizzy standing with her parents and a group of high schoolers. One of the orchestra kids held her phone in front of Lizzy's face. She stilled like she did when she was nervous.

I rubbed at the back of my neck, my muscles knotting into one. My throat closed, dreading what could be on that screen. With numb fingers, I slid my phone from my pocket and pulled up the show's most popular profile. The half a second it took for it to load was the longest in my life. My heart beat a panicked rhythm in my ears.

My breath rushed from my lungs. Relief washing over me and drying the cold sweat that had beaded on my forehead.

There was a picture of me and Lizzy, but it was as innocent as I could hope for. In the shot we were standing far enough apart, our facial expressions innocent. Some comments were suspicious, but nothing too bad. She had been nervous a few seconds ago, but she was probably experiencing the same wash of comfort I was.

If I needed any more reason to end the lie, dodging this bullet would have been it.

I turned to show Rose, only to find the space where she'd been at my side was empty and I hadn't even heard her leave. I'd been too absorbed in Lizzy.

I didn't bother to look if Lawrence were still with the group he'd been in.

I knew he wasn't.

My stomach dropped for the second time in less than a minute.

"Where's Rosie?" Kelly asked at my side. I jumped, caught off-guard yet again. The women of this family moved with incredible stealth.

Jim and Lizzy joined us.

I shoved my phone back into my pocket. My attempt to not look at Lizzy failed, instead I answered her mom while looking directly into Lizzy's eyes. "I don't know. She was just right here."

"We were just going to head out," Kelly explained. "She couldn't have gone far."

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