Stop it.
I shake my head because that kind of thinking really is crazy. Paranoid and neurotic and a thousand other things I should be medicated for. Blake doesn’t have a malevolent bone in his body. Adam on the other hand…
But I can’t think about all of his evil. I’m pretty fixated on the feel of his hand on my hair, the memory enough to make me shiver now. Yeah, if anybody’s the bad guy in this relationship, it’s not Blake. It’s me.
As if on cue, Blake’s phone buzzes in my hand. I glance at it and think about him slouched in the study room, texting under the table. Like texting a lot.
I chew the inside of my bottom lip, glancing at the lit screen out of the corner of my eye. It’s absolutely wrong. An invasion of privacy and a breach of trust, not to mention how much of a stalker it makes me.
And, hell, I’m going to do it anyway.
The message is from a number I don’t recognize.
Do your job and she won’t figure anything out.
***
Riding home with a fake boyfriend sucks under normal circumstances. But now, said boyfriend isn’t just fake. He’s also hiding something from me. And it’s not an early Christmas present.
I’m so relieved when he pulls up to the curb beside my house that I nearly fling my door open and leap onto the curb.
“Whoa, you in a rush?”
I offer the smile I’ve been flashing the entire ride home. So wide I’m probably showing molars and so fake it should come with a disclaimer.
“Sorry. I’ve got an appointment. I don’t want to be late.”
“An appointment?”
“Dentist.”
“On a Saturday?”
“They’re booked up because he’s taking time off for Thanksgiving.”
Of course they’re not booked up and I’m not going to the dentist. But I can’t tell him I’m going to my therapist. Where I’m going to proceed to tell even more lies. Seriously, I may want to ditch this whole psychology thing and go with a future as a con artist.
“See you Monday?” I ask, and then I force myself to lean in and kiss him. His lips are warm and soft, but I feel cold and hard all over.
Blake pulls back with a frown. “Why do I feel like you’re giving me the brush-off?”
“I’m not,” I say too quickly.
He looks at me, eyes sad. “That feels a little hard to believe. First I find you in the bathroom with Adam—”
“That was nothing, Blake. He was just being a jerk and I…I overreacted.”
“C’mon, would you believe that if you caught me in the bathroom with Abbey? Or maybe Madison?”
The truth is, I’d pretty much expect to find Blake in the bathroom with either of those girls. They’re bouncy in all the right places, and they probably know all the important lacrosse rules. They are his kind. And yeah, maybe I dreamed about being in this position for years, but the truth is, I don’t belong here. There just isn’t a bit of sense in it.
“Ever since that night you hit your head, you’ve been strange,” he says, looking down. “I feel like you’re hiding something from me.”
I can’t hold back my snort. “I’m hiding something? Okay. Sure.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. Just forget it.” I turn, but his hand closes around my arm.
“What the hell, Chloe?” When I turn back, he doesn’t look like a villain. He looks handsome and sweet and terribly hurt. “What did I do to make you so mad? Why won’t you just tell me?”
I bite my lip, weighing my options. I’ve been over that text a thousand times, and I can’t imagine it being anything but sinister. But it’s not like I’m the poster child for objectivity here.
“Are you going to say anything?” he asks, and he doesn’t look suspicious. He looks like a guy who deserves better than this. Hell, stray dogs probably deserve better than this.
“I saw something on your phone,” I say.
He throws up his hands, clearly baffled. “My phone?”
“I didn’t mean to. You have to believe that. It was a complete accident, but I saw a text on your phone.”
Blake’s hands come down into his lap slowly. For one second, his face looks fractured, like there’s something cold and angry simmering just beneath his puzzled expression. When I blink, it’s gone, and he’s just an ordinary guy trying to calm down his obviously paranoid girlfriend.
“What text?” he asks. His voice is too low. Too quiet.
I look down at my hands in my lap, humiliated. “It buzzed while you were in the bathroom.”
He cocks his head at that. “After you’d been with Adam, right?” His tone says it all.
Ouch. And he’s totally right. He found me in the men’s bathroom with my hand on another guy’s arm, and I’m getting bent out of shape over a totally vague text message that I had no business looking at in the first place. Hello, Kettle, my name is Pot.
“Blake, I know what that probably looked like, but that wasn’t what it was.”
“And neither is this. What did the text say, Chloe?”
I feel my cheeks growing warm. “It said, ‘Do your job and she won’t figure anything out.’”
“That’s all you read?” he says.
I nod, even though it seems like an odd thing to say. Was there something worse I could have read? Ugh, why can’t I just stop?
“That’s it?” he repeats, obviously waiting for me to say something.
“Yeah. Yeah, that’s all.”
He laughs then, like he thinks I’m completely ridiculous. And I have a bad feeling I’m about to agree with him. “Chloe, it’s about Christmas. Dad bought Mom a bracelet for Christmas. He’s keeping it in my room in case she goes snooping in his usual hiding spots.”
My cheeks go hotter, and I look down again. “Oh. Well, I…”
There isn’t a thing I can say that will make this better, so I trail into silence. God, what is wrong with me? I finally get the guy of my dreams, and I’m going to lose him because I’m a neurotic whack job. Terrific.
Blake laughs again, which makes me flinch because I feel like I’m going to cry.
“Chloe, look at me,” he says.
I feel his hand on my face, cooler than is exactly comfortable, but it is November I guess. I look at him, holding back my tears.
“I’m really sorry,” I say. “I guess I was just feeling insecure.”
“It’s cute that you’re jealous,” he says, looking a little smug.
“No, it’s not. It’s obnoxious. I really wasn’t trying to invade your privacy.”
“I know that. We both have enough respect for each other not to do that.”
I sigh in relief, and this time, when he leans into kiss me, I try to savor it. It’s still harder than it should be. I don’t remember kissing being a difficult thing before. Hell, maybe it’s just one more thing I forgot.
When he pulls away, I zip my coat and ease open the passenger door.
“So I’ll see you Monday?”
He grins, checking his collar in the rearview mirror. “I wouldn’t miss it.”
Blake’s engine rumbles as he pulls away, and the front door creaks open behind me. I hear the hum of the vacuum cleaner before Dad closes it again. He’s got a paper under his arm and keys in his hand.
“Back from tutoring?” he asks.
“Yeah, but I have an appointment with Dr. Kirkpatrick.”
“I know. I, uh…I thought I could drive you.”
Read: Mom wants me to drive you so I can try to figure out how nuts you are.
I take a breath, but to my credit, I don’t sigh. It takes everything in me to hold it in. I can’t blame him though. I know better than anybody that with my mother, sometimes it’s easier to just give in.
“I’m hitting Rowdy’s anyway,” he says, and I smile.
Rowdy’s Roasters. Otherwise known as the best coffee along the coast of Lake Erie. A steamy café mocha sounds amazing. Or it does until I think about the way my stomach turned itself inside out at one whiff of the pot the other day.
But this is Rowdy’s. I can stomach that, right?
“Maybe you could grab me a mocha?”
He heads for the garage, eyeing me over his shoulder. “Thought you gave up the good stuff.”