Page 17 of Hard to Pretend

It wasn’t every day that you found someone that was willing to play pretend with a near stranger just because they seemed a little stressed out. He was the kind of friend I wouldn’t mind having in my corner.

“I’d like that,” I told him simply. We talked for a few more minutes, and he promised to text me the details of dinner once he talked to his mom.

When I hung up, I saw a new text message on my phone.

Luce

Are you going to hit send or leave us staring at the bouncing dots all day?

Fuck. I forgot that they could see that I had written a message.

I deleted the breakup text and typed in an invitation to get dinner to anyone who was available.

It turned out that Luce, River, and Natalie were all available. We met up at Pie in the Sky a few hours after my message and gathered around a corner table. After a little small talk, the conversation turned to Luce’s party. Mainly because she was complaining about the fact that the marinara sauce Pie in the Sky used was lacking compared to her personal recipe.

“How are things going with you and Seb?” Natalie asked, interrupting what seemed to be an eternal tirade about marinara sauce. Luce glared at her, but Natalie barreled on. “Please, for the love of god, tell me things about you and Seb. Distract Luce before she starts talking about the cheese selection.”

“One time!” Luce exclaimed. “I mentioned one time that a three cheese blend—”

“Babe,” River cut off their girlfriend, resting one hand on her forearm. “I get that you’re excited about pasta sauce and cheese and all things food, but you agreed to let other people cook for you tonight. That means that you need to hush about how you would make it better, enjoy your pizza, and listen as Chris talks about his button of a boyfriend.”

I fought the urge to glare at River. They had the best intentions, but I would almost rather listen to Luce rant about food. It would mean not coming up with more lies about my relationship with Seb.

But three sets of eyes were staring at me, and I knew I was not getting off this hook. My stomach sank as I said the only words that came to mind. “I’m meeting his mom.”

“Holy crap! That means it’s getting serious,” Natalie squealed, clapping her hands together.

Oh, that was going to make the breakup a lot harder for them to swallow. Fuck. I should have said something else,anythingelse. “He’s close to his mom. It’s not that big of a deal.”

“It’s a huge deal,” Luce corrected. “River and I were dating for eight months before they met my parents. Istillhaven’t met their parents.”

“Don’t their parents live in Iowa or something?”

“Indiana,” River corrected. “My parents live in Indiana.”

“That’s basically the same thing,” I countered, “and different couples move at different speeds.”

Like some couples went from zero to a complete fake relationship that included meeting the parents in the time it took for one idiot to open his mouth. In this case, I was the idiot. This lie was getting deeper than it ever should have.

“I think yours is moving at the speed of light.” Luce’s statement was delivered with one of her patented looks of judgment. I could only imagine how much worse that look would be if this all fell apart and the truth came out.

As much as I hated lying to my friends, I hated the idea of them finding out the truth more. They’d never trust me again, and I wouldn’t be able to blame them.

A part of me knew that I should just come clean, tell them that this thing had never been real in the first place. I opened my mouth to speak, but Natalie beat me to it. “Stop giving him a hard time,” she scolded the others. “Seb is nice, and we all saw how happy he looked when he actually had someone that could hold their own in Taboo. Do you guys remember when he brought Vic to game night?”

I groaned at the memory. Vic had been one of my more recent exes. We’d been together for three months before I brought him to game night. We’d been on completely different pages during Taboo, which wouldn’t have been a big deal. Except that when we lost, he threw a fit. He acted like we’d somehow been cheated. When we lost a second game and his reactionwas the same, I knew that he was not the one for me. I couldn’t handle that hyper-competitive bullshit.

When Seb lost, he laughed.

It was a small wonder that my friends liked him better than Vic. I liked him better than Vic, and I wasn’t actually dating him. To be fair, it was barely a competition between the two. If it were, Vic would probably appear and start throwing breadsticks because he was losing.

“He was the one that threw the hissy fits, right?” River asked. “You were dating him when me and Luce started seeing each other?”

“You mean the giant man baby?” Luce clarified. I chuckled at the description and grabbed another slice of pepperoni pizza from the stand in the middle of the table. “That was him. He was—” She looked down at the half eaten slice of cheese pizza on her plate. “God, I can’t even think of a tactful way to describe him. He was a disaster, and I’m so glad we never saw him again.”

“I remember. You told me.Severaltimes. I’m pretty sure if I didn’t break up with him, you would have stolen my phone and done it for me.”

“I had to stop her from stealing your phone when you were saying goodbye,” Natalie volunteered. Luce reached across the table and swatted our red headed best friend. Natalie laughed. “Don’t act likeit’s not true!”

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