Page 62 of Fake As Puck
Because I am thriving.
My phone sits silent on my nightstand. Still no text from West. No “looking forward to seeing you” or “safe travels” or anything that suggests he’s thought about me once since I left Seattle.
Which is exactly what I should want. It means he’s maintaining professional boundaries. It means he’s not confusing this arrangement with something it isn’t.
It means I can show up tomorrow as Liv the employee, not Liv the girl who fell asleep on his couch and woke up fantasizing about forever like I used to as a lovesick teenager.
I set my alarm for 7 AM and stare at my perfectly packed suitcase sitting by the door.
Eight days in Seattle. One wedding. One week of pretending to be West’s girlfriend while trying not to remember how much I truly liked the guy for the past fifteen years.
I can do this. I can be professional and detached and completely unbothered by the fact that he hasn’t thought about me enough to send a single text in three weeks.
I can show up looking like a million bucks and play my part perfectly and collect my money and come home with my dignity intact.
I ignore the way my heart is already racing at the thought of seeing him again.
16
I’m standing at baggage claim trying to look like a normal person who’s casually picking up his girlfriend from the airport.
Not like someone who’s been checking the flight status every ten minutes for the past two hours.
Not like someone who changed his shirt five times before leaving the house.
Not like someone who’s been thinking about this moment for three weeks straight.
Just casual. Normal. Like I pick up my beautiful girlfriend from the airport all the time and it’s no big deal.
Except it is a big deal, because I’ve been going quietly insane for twenty-one days, and now she’s here, somewhere in this airport, and I have no idea how to act like the past three weeks didn’t happen.
Her flight landed fifteen minutes ago, and passengers are starting to emerge from the jet bridge. I scan each face, looking for the one that’s been appearing in my dreams with alarming frequency.
Then I see her.
And my heart stops.
Because this isn’t the same Liv who left three weeks ago.
This Liv looks like a new version of herself. Her hair is different—longer, shinier, styled in a way that looks effortless but can’t be. She’s wearing a sundress that’s casual but fitted in all the right places, and there’s something about the way she’s walking that’s more confident than I remember.
More deliberate.
Like she knows exactly how she looks and what effect it’s going to have.
Our eyes meet across the baggage claim area, and she smiles at me. Not the easy, familiar smile from three weeks ago. Something sharper. More careful.
My chest tightens.
“Hey,” she says when she reaches me, and her voice is exactly the same but somehow different too. Cooler. More controlled.
“Hey.”
We hug, because that’s what couples do when they reunite at airports, but it’s weird. Careful. Like we’re both trying to figure out the rules of engagement.
Her arms go around my neck, and I catch a hint of her perfume. It’s something new, something that I haven’t smelled before. Something that makes me want to bury my face in her neck and breathe her in.
Instead, I step back after exactly the appropriate amount of time for a casual greeting hug.
