Page 85 of Fake As Puck
“Yeah?” She goes still and awkward, but it’s gone within a breath.
“Yeah.”
She smiles kindly. “That’s... that’s good. I hope it works out.”
“Me too.”
We’re both quiet after that, standing side by side looking out at the ocean, and I can feel the weight of all the things we’re not saying.
“This is weird,” Liv says finally.
I take a sip to avoid whatever she’s about to say next.
She continues anyway, “This. Being here with you. Pretending.”
“Weird?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t feel like we’ve actually been pretending.”
My heart does something complicated in my chest. What the hell do I say to that? Do I burst the façade bubble now? Or do I deny and deflect because admitting this sounds even more terrifying.
I take another sip of champagne and shake my head. I have to tell the truth. “You’re right. It doesn’t.”
I can’t believe I just said that, but now I have to roll with it.
“One of us is going to get confused, West.”
“What if we’re both already confused?” I ask because I know it’s true for me.
She turns to look at me then, and there’s something in her expression that makes my breath catch. In the last light of the sunset, she looks so beautiful it actually hurts.
“West, don’t—”
“I’m not going to do anything you don’t want me to do. But I need you to know that this—” I gesture between us “—was never fake for me.”
“Really?”
Do I dare to make a move? Do I step forward, grab her face, touch her lips, and confess that I’ve never been able to get her kiss out of my head? What the hell am I supposed to do?
I exhale. “I don’t know. Maybe knowing you since we were basically kids was a reason why I didn’t pull a move. Then we kissed at Tessa’s wedding, and I had Tessa in my ear that we wouldn’t work. She said you had too much going on, and so did I, so I had to respect that space and time with your mom. I didn’t want to make things complicated for you or for me. I wasn’t even in Washington state that year. I move around a lot because of hockey. Nothing’s a promise in this career, and it just felt like the timing was never right, but I’ve dated girl after girl, and none of them ever felt right. None of them could ever compare, and I’ve tried to move on, Liv. I have. I’ve–” I throw my hands towards the ocean. “I’ve spent more time trying to not think about the one girl that–”
“There he is!” shouts Harry. “Hey, hockey player. Riddle me this…”
He starts going on and on about hockey stats meanwhile Liv is staring blankly at the ocean. One of the most important conversations was just interrupted because these drunks guys want to talk hockey.
I solve the ridiculous argument they had going, but it doesn’t end there, me and Liv can’t continue to talk because they pull both of us back inside and grab us more champagne.
Liv stares at me as we clink our glasses. We hold eye contact, and I’m dying to know what she’s thinking. I watch her lips and catchmyself staring when Harry asks me another hockey question, but I’m in another realm.
In a different scenario, Liv has been my girlfriend all these years, and this wedding would be much more bearable. Not this suffocating, anxiety-inducing, intensity that’s coursing through me right now.
“Right, man?” Harry asks, and I just nod to nod.
Liv watches me over her champagne flute and smiles at me.
23
The hotel key card beeps twice before West gets it to work, and I try not to read anything into the fact that his hands seem slightly unsteady.
