Page 11 of The Pump Fake

She shrugs her shoulders. “I told my teammates that we were friends and after spending so much time together, began to develop feelings.”

I nod my head while I mull over what she’s saying, but there isn’t really anything to change because she’s right. “I agree. That’s the obvious story. We will continue with that.”

Without any other reason to delay, I hit the call button and after only one ring, Taylor picks up. “What the hell is this that I read? Something about you and Jade being together? And whydidn’t you tell us ahead of time.” He pelts us with question after question immediately, and I didn’t expect anything different.

“Well, hello there to you too, big brother,” I say to him with a huge grin on my face, which annoys Taylor so much I can see his left eye visibly twitching.

“Enough of that, Cliff. Tell us what’s going on,” he demands.

Jade grabs the hand that I have on her leg and squeezes it, giving me the strength to keep going, because even though I told her it wouldn’t be so bad, I wasn’t jumping for joy at the thought of telling them either.

“Well, as you know Jade and I spend a lot of time together since I became her manager,” I begin. “Or at least I used to be.”

“What do you mean ‘used to be?’” Mya interrupts to ask.

This time Jade jumps in to answer her instead of leaving me out to dry, “I changed management to Hunter when I started developing feelings for Cliff.”

Mya nods her head, replying, “That makes sense. Being forced together means you get to know each other better. When did you know you had feelings for him?”

Jade’s gaze leaves the phone and meets mine when she begins to speak, “I’ve known for a while that Cliff was for me. He’s the kindest man to walk this earth. Every time I need someone to talk to, he’s there with no judgement. When I’m upset and need someone to hold me, it’s him I want to turn to.”

The longer she talks, the more the world around us fades away and I can’t help but get lost in her brown eyes. And even though I have a voice in the back of my head telling me that this is all for show, I can’t help but believe what she’s saying. I’m slightly aware of the fact that my brother and his wife are still on the phone, but everything comes back when Mya speaks, “Awe. That’s sweet. What about you, Cliff?”

My gaze moves back to the phone where Taylor and Mya are both looking at me, waiting. I don’t leave them waiting for toolong when I answer with nothing but the truth. “Jade has been mine since the moment I met her.”

There is a small pause after my confession and I can feel the sweat drip down the back of my neck. When Taylor snaps at me, “Well, I think this is stupid but you two seem to be on the same page.” Then he narrows his eyes as he points at me through the phone before leaving us with a few more words. “Don’t fuck up our family events.”

We all watch as Taylor storms out of the room.

“Well, I think it’s wonderful. Taylor is right, but as long as you keep each other first, it will all work out,” Mya says then looks over her shoulder, in the direction of where Taylor disappeared to. When she looks back at us, she gives us a conspiratorial grin. “Don’t worry about him. I’ll get Taylor on board.”

“Thank you, Mya,” I say to her, feeling a bit of the pressure releasing.

“Thanks, Mya. We should probably go, our takeout will be here soon.” Jade offers to get us off the phone, probably done with the awkwardness Taylor brought.

“Sounds good, Jade. Love you guys,” Mya replies then hangs up the phone.

I drop the phone on the side table. “Well, that went better than I thought.”

She shrugs her shoulders. “I guess so. Though Taylor seemed really mad.”

“Like Mya said, he’ll get over it,” I tell her, hoping that both Mya and I are right.

8

Jade

Aknock at the door breaks us from dwelling on our conversation about our siblings. “That’s probably dinner,” Cliff says, getting up and answering the door.

Once he finishes grabbing the food and tipping the delivery guy, he comes back to where I’m sitting. We pull the food out of the bag silently as we distribute everything. I’m not sure what’s going on. It feels as if something is happening, but I don’t understand what.

Cliff sits back down on the couch and grabs the remote that is sitting next to him. He pulls up the Netflix menu and starts to scroll when I see it—my favorite movie ‘Clueless’. It’s an oldie but a classic. I mean if you haven’t seen it, you definitely should.

Excitement runs through me, and I can’t help myself as I jump up and down on the couch. “Can we watch it?” I ask him.

He looks over at me with one of his eyebrows lifted, silently asking me if I’m serious.

“You know it’s my favorite movie. Please, let’s watch it?” I answer his silent question.

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