Page 18 of Hard to Pretend

Luce looked like she was about to deny it, but I wasn’t sure there was any denial she could make. River came to their girlfriend’s rescue. “We like Seb though.”

There was that heavy guilt settling into the pit of my stomach again. Maybe I should have asked Seb to be a less than great boyfriend at the party. Make my friends hate him.

Maybe I should volunteer to do that for the dinner with his mom.

It was a thought.

It turned out that it was a bad thought. The moment I got home, I called Seb and suggested that I make his mom dislike me. Then he wouldn’t have to catch as much shit about our breakup. I knew I was going to have to deal with it, especially after that dinner. My friends had spent the rest of the evening singing his praises, asking when they’d get to hang out with him again, and insisting that I try to make him a regular at our game nights.

At least I could get out of that one easily. Our game nights were usually on Thursday, and I knew he had plans with his friends every Thursday.

Luce was serious about getting to see him again. She’d actually suggested moving game night one week to a night that would be better for Seb. I kept myanswer noncommittal, claimed I’d talk to Seb, and hoped that the topic would be dropped until after I told them we broke up. It shouldn’t be that hard, right? It was only another week and a half.

“So, why don’t you want me to be a terrible boyfriend?” I asked into the phone. I laid back on my bed and put my phone beside me.

His answer came out tinny, ringing out over my speaker phone. “I don’t want her to hate you. If she hates you, then she’s going to hate the idea that we stay friends. It’s better that she likes you and that we tell everyone that we’re better off as friends.” He made a lot of sense. I just didn’t like the sense that he made, because it would put him in an uncomfortable position. Not that this entire thing wasn’t an uncomfortable position. “My mom’s excited to meet you, anyway. If she hates you, then she’s just going to be disappointed.”

“And you don’t want to disappoint her?”

“No.” He let out a soft breath. I remembered the way those soft breaths felt against my skin the night we slept together. “I never want to disappoint her.” He was silent for another few moments before he spoke. His voice was heavy when he spoke again. “Meaning that she can never find out that this whole thing is fake.”

7

ItwasanotherThursdaynight, and I was surrounded by my best friends. That night, we’d chosen not to go to the bar. It wasn’t very often that we chose to skip the bars, but it happened every so often. Usually it was due to Jonas’s anxiety or one of us not feeling very well. That night, it was the latter. Holden had been feeling under the weather all week, so instead of going out without him, we all met at his and Eli’s apartment. A movie played in the background while we chatted over pizza from Pie in the Sky.

Holden and Eli were sitting together on the love seat, Holden’s head in Eli’s lap while Eli ran his fingers through his dark hair. They both looked content. Holden’s eyes were drifting shut and fluttering back open every few minutes. I wouldn’t be surprised if he ended up falling asleep. Matthew sat cross-legged on the floor, his back against the couch and a hotpink rubber duck in his hand. He had a notebook open in front of him and occasionally, he’d scribble down a few thoughts. He claimed he was working on a new freelance assignment he’d gotten, but from quick glances, it didn’t look like any project I’d ever seen. Jonas and I sat on the couch together, paper plates on the empty cushion between us.

Jonas was talking about his latest date with Silas. They’d gone to some fancy restaurant that looked too expensive for me to even breathe in the vicinity of. According to Jonas, it was all worth it. The way he talked about the steak made it sound like a religious experience. The way his face lit up while he talked about his date, about Silas, about all of it—I was jealous. I wanted something like that.

I was grateful Matt wasn’t looking at me. He’d have been able to tell what I was thinking in a heartbeat.

“You’re being awfully quiet over there,” Holden piped up as the conversation hit a lull. Apparently, there was only so much that Jonas could say about a restaurant none of the rest of us had ever been to. “Are you thinking about your fake boyfriend? Have you guys broken up yet?”

“I thought you were dying over there,” I grumbled.

Holden lazily lifted a middle finger in my direction.

Eli laughed. “I take that as a no, then?”

Now they were teaming up on me. I sighed. “He’s meeting my mom on Saturday.”

The room was silent except for the sound of Matt’s pencil falling with an audible thud. Four pairs of eyes turned on me, expressions of various states of shock written all over their faces. There were a few beats before Jonas broke the silence. “He’s meeting your mother?”

“You’re bringing a fake boyfriend to meet your very real mother?” Matt repeated. “It took me months to introduce Lucas to my parents, and you’re introducing someone you’re not actually dating. I thought you two were breaking up this week?”

“We were, but one of his friends works with Mom and she found out and she’s insisting.” And I should have said no. I knew that I should have said no, but it was too late now. I’d already told her we’d be there.

“And you couldn’t just tell her no?” Eli asked in his always blunt manner. “You realize that she’s going to see right through you, right?”

I hadn’t thought about that. I hadn’t thought about the fact that my mom knew me better than almost anyone else on the planet, that she’d always been able to see through my poker face. We’d have to be extra convincing just to make her think that it was a real thing. What in the hell had I been thinking? “I’m screwed, aren’t I?”

“You’re completely screwed,” Eli agreed. “Maybe you should just tell her the two of you broke up. Skip the whole meet the mother part of this idiotic plan.”

He was probably right, but she’d have a lot more questions than she would if she met him and we broke up. Or maybe she’d have less. I’d never done this before. I wasn’t exactly known for deceiving my mom, but here I was. I was deceiving a lot more than my mom, too. All of Chris’s friends… We were fucked. “I don’t think that would be a good idea. Maybe if she sees us together and then we break up, she’ll be so disappointed that she’ll stop worrying about me being alone?”

Matt’s shocked expression changed to one of sympathy. He was the only one who knew that my mom and I both wanted the same thing. For me to find my happily ever after.

“Besides, if I tell her we broke up before we meet, then she’s just going to spend the entire dinner asking me a thousand questions.”

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