Page 79 of Fake As Puck
I’m finishing up when she emerges with a bag of snacks and two drinks.
“For the road,” she says, handing me one of the drinks.
I look at the label and feel something in my chest do a weird flip.
It’s my favorite. Some obscure energy drink that most places don’t carry, the kind of thing you have to specifically look for.
“How did you—”
“You had them in your fridge. I figured if you stocked them at home, you probably liked them.”
She noticed. She noticed what I drink and remembered and thought to get me one.
It’s such a small thing. Insignificant, really.
So why does it feel like everything?
“Thanks,” I say, flattered. Shocked. Amused.
“Welcome.” She gets back into the passenger seat and buckles in.
I get back in the car, and as I’m pulling back onto the highway, I realize my hands are shaking slightly.
Not from nerves about the wedding anymore.
From the fact that I’m sitting next to someone who notices the small things about me. Who remembers what I like and takes care of me without being asked.
Someone who says “we” like it’s natural and sings along to songs that make her happy and looks at me like she used to when we were teenagers.
Someone who’s being paid to pretend to care about me but who keeps doing things that feel real.
I grip the steering wheel tighter, trying to focus on the road instead of the way she’s humming along to the music or the way the afternoon light is hitting her profile.
Trying not to think about how easy this feels. How right.
Trying not to think about what’s going to happen when this weekend is over, and we go back to our separate lives, and I have to pretend I haven’t fallen completely and utterly in love with her.
Should I just tell her how I feel?
The thought hits me out of nowhere, and I almost swerve into the next lane.
Should I tell her that this was never fake for me? That the more I think about my love life problems, the more I realize that she has been the answer all along? That even in high school I liked being around her? That at my sister’s wedding three years ago, I wanted to kiss her again?
Should I risk ruining everything on the chance that she might feel the same way?
“You okay?” Liv asks, and I realize I’m white-knuckling the steering wheel again.
“Yeah,” I say. “Just thinking.”
“About what?”
“Nothing important.”
But that’s a lie.
Because this—her, us, whatever this is—feels like the most important thing in the world, but I don’t have the fucking balls to tell her how I really feel.
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