Page 91 of The Facade

“They’ll know that I’m having a lot of fun sneaking around with a very pretty girl,” he said flirtatiously. And I appreciated the compliment. Loved that he thought I was pretty.

But he really couldn’t change my name tothat.

“Just put me in as something like Portia, or Roxy if you want something exotic-sounding.” I started jumping, trying to steal his phone from him. But that was the hard thing about being over a foot shorter than my secret boyfriend. All he had to do was hold his arm up straight above his head and I had no chance of getting ahold of anything he didn’t want me to grab.

“If I was looking for an exotic-sounding name, I’d stick with Cambrielle,” he said with a wink, continuing to tap on his phone screen with his thumb.

“But what if someone sees me texting you now?” I asked, breathless from my jumping. “Like, you don’t think having the word ‘Mistress’ at the top of your screen will raise some questions?”

He finished changing my contact info and returned his phone to his back pocket with a smile. “If I have to be Alfred, then you get to be my Mistress.”

“I could have changed your name,” I said. “I would have changed it to something different, if you asked.”

But he just shook his head with a wicked smile on his lips and said, “Sorry, it’s already done. It’s set in stone now.”

I crossed my arms. “You’re the worst sometimes, don’t you know?”

“The worst and the best.” He kissed me on the top of the head.

After glancing around the area to make sure my little jumping scene hadn’t drawn any curious eyes, I looked back at him and said, “Well, if I’m your mistress, you better give me a better goodbye kiss than that.”

He laughed like I’d hoped, and proving that he was never one to back down from a challenge, he pulled me close again and gave me exactly the kind of kiss I’d asked for.

28

Mack

I pulledinto my garage around five-thirty, after spending a half-hour behind the oak tree with Cambrielle.

I expected the kitchen to be empty when I stepped inside, since my mom spent most of her time in her room, her nurse or my grandma Jackson nearby during the day, and my dad was usually at work until dinner. But as soon as I stepped inside, I found my dad sitting at the kitchen table. And in front of him was one of my mom’s recipe binders.

Were the Hastings not providing dinner today then?

“Hey Mack.” My dad looked up from what he was doing, his tie loose around his neck and his brown hair tousled like he’d been running his fingers through it.

“Hey,” I said, dropping my gym bag on the chair beside him. “Planning to cook something tonight?”

But when I took a closer look, I saw that he was actually leafing through the binder dedicated to my mom’s dessert recipes.

Yes, my mom had such a big sweet tooth back before she got sick that she had a huge binder full of cake, cookie, and pastry recipes that she’d printed off through the years.

“No, the Hastings are still having Marie cook extra for us.” Dad ran a hand through his hair. “I’m just looking for the pumpkin pie recipe your mom always makes for Thanksgiving.”

“But Thanksgiving isn’t for three weeks.”

“I know,” he said. “Dawn was here earlier, though, and asked if we were still planning on coming to their house for Thanksgiving this year—something I guess she and your mom arranged a couple of weeks ago.”

“And she asked you to bring something?” I frowned, surprised that Mrs. Hastings would have my dad make something when they’d been bringing us dinner lately.

“I assumed it would be easy enough to make so I offered.” He shook his head like he was regretting it. “I temporarily forgot that your mom was the one who did most of the cooking and that I have no idea what I’m doing.”

“I’m sure you could always just tell her never mind. I don’t think she’d care if we showed up without it.”

“I know.” He rubbed his hand across his face. “I just…” He sighed. “I just wanted to feel like I could do something. Ava, Elyse, and their mom are going to be there, too, so I didn’t want our family to be too big of a burden.”

Our family.

As in, all of us were considered a family now. The twins, my dad, mom, and me.

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