Page 3 of Bullied Pretend Mate
They seat me right away, giving me a table on the balcony, and I thoroughly enjoy my time, listening to the music and feeling the gentle breeze through my hair as I sit, sipping on a limoncello and twisting noodles around my fork. When I’m there too long and my food starts to cool off, I flick my finger toward it, warming it up inconspicuously.
And I almost think I’ve gotten away with it, trying to enjoy a night in Silverville, when I step out the front door of the restaurant and come face-to-face with my past.
Phina Winward is walking down the other side of the street, pushing a baby carriage. Her blond hair flutters back from her face, and she laughs, reaching in, her focus completely on what must be a baby inside that stroller.
Even with the time that’s passed, she looks so much like she used to. Thin, but not quite as thin as she was. And she looks much happier than I’ve ever seen her.
She still lives here. And she has ababy.
The thought is impossible to me.
A teenager walks alongside her, wearing an outfit I’m supremely jealous of, her nose practically buried in her phone. Phina says something to her, and the girl rolls her eyes, tucking the phone into her pocket and taking over pushing the stroller.
It’s at this moment that Phina looks up and sees me standing there.
For a wild, fleeting moment, I think that maybe she won’t recognize me. That, while I still have the same body, I’m definitely not the same girl I was before. My hair is better, for one, and I never would have been wearing the romper I have on now in high school.
No, Phina Winward has never seen me in anything but too-big pants or shorts, one of my dad’s shirts draped over my body shamefully, the draping not really doing much to hide the shape of me.
But she does recognize me. I see it in the way her eyes widen, how she stands up a little taller.
And then, like something out of a nightmare, she taps the teen next to her on the shoulder and gestures for them to cross the street.
My mouth fills with battery acid, and I turn, booking it a few houses down and ducking into the alley, circling around to the Airbnb, hands shaking as I punch in the code.
Has she lost hermind? Does she not realize what it would look like for the two of us to be standing together, talking to one another on the street? Even after all this time, I know the residents of Silverville are not going to be kind to us. Honestly, I’m pleased that I haven’t been run out yet, that I’ve managed to park and eat.
As though it’s a vampire after me and not just an old friend, I turn off all the lights in the Airbnb and lay down on the couch, folding my hands over my stomach and forcing myself to take long, deep breaths.
I won’t be here for that long. I’m just going to meet with the lawyer, take whatever plate, bowl, or mean message my grandmother has left for me, and get the fuck out of Silverville.
Chapter 2 - Felix
“Felix!”
I startle awake, pushing out thoughts of strawberry-blond hair and full lips, realizing all too late that I was having a sex dream while napping at my parents’ house.
And IknowI’m imagining it, but it’s like I can catch her scent on the wind. Like she might somehow be near Silverville. I know that’s not true. I know she left for good, and this smell is just wishful thinking on my part.
Blinking, I sit up and look at my mother, who stands in front of the couch, her hand on her hip. She’s shaking her head but smiling. Secretly, she loves it when I come back here and do things I used to do. Like napping on the couch, or wolfing down dinner.
“Food’s ready,” she says, turning on her heel and gesturing for me to follow her.
My parents’ house is tucked right into the middle of the west side of town, and somehow mostly survived the most recent wildfire that blew in, razing half the houses on this side. Since then, Xeran—our supreme—has put a lot of work into supporting the rebuilding effort, which means we can hear saws and hammers, sometimes all through the night, from my parents’ house.
They don’t mind. Sometimes my dad will just wander around until he finds a project going on, then step in and ask what he can do to help.
Yawning and rubbing my eyes—and trying not to think about the girl lingering in my head—I stumble to the table and take a seat, grinning at my mom when she brings me a glass.
Rolling her eyes, she says, “You are so spoiled, do you know that?”
“Coming here is my favorite part of the week,” I say, stretching out. “Really gives me a chance to relax after being at the firehouse.”
“You know,” my dad says, appearing from the kitchen, holding a glass baking dish of lasagna in his oven-mitted hands. “You’re not going to be able to use the fire excuse for much longer. People are saying they’ve finally slowed down.”
I swallow, nerves creeping up when I think about it. It’s been months since we discovered what was causing all the fires—a couple of fuckers from Silverville trying to harvest daemonic energy, not caring that each time they did it, it seemed to spawn the fires that consumed trees and houses and left nothing in their wake.
When Xeran came back to town, he started up our old firefighting squad, and for a while, we were out what felt like every night, trying to smother the fires before they could get to town.
