Page 40 of Reckless
Then, quieter, I said, “My mother already thinks you’re coming to lunch.She already thinks you’re at graduation weekend with me.Charlie’s already treating this like a sport.If I say I lied, you don’t become uninvolved.You become embarrassed.And despite your proclamations you actually like the head on my shoulders.”
Her lips parted, then pressed together again.
She looked away first, over the fence toward nothing .“You are the worst.”
“Sometimes.”
“I’m aware.”
Her laugh this time held no humor at all.“But I don’t like thinking about what Britney said about you.”
“Britney must realize that you are not a nameless nothing to me.You’re Kelly.”
“She has an exhausting commitment to me not making stupid choices.”
I winced but nodded once.“I completely get it.”
Her gaze snapped back to mine when I made a throat sound and then said, “This will be a temporary arrangement where we both get wins.”
She opened her mouth.I cut in before she could bury the whole thing under fury.“And it’s only a few days, through graduation weekend.”
That stopped her.
“Four days,” I said.“Dinner Friday.Family things through Sunday.Enough to let this settle into something our families believe was real and ended quietly after, if we choose to end it after.”
She looked at me for a long time.
Wind moved between us.
I kept my voice even.“You don’t have to like it.I’m not asking you to.I’m telling you that in four days my mother has already built an entire social structure around one sentence.This contains it.”
Kelly shook her head slowly.“You understand this is insane and this fake dating led every single one of our friends and your brothers into their current wedded bliss.”
“Yes.”
She nodded and sighed.“Also yes.”
I reached for her hand.“And you think you just agreed.”
Her eyes flashed.“You are unbelievably arrogant but you did remember I like lavender as a victory drink which hopefully means that you do know I’m not into that odd kink Britney said you liked.”
“I saw sex as exercise that helps relieve work stress, but that hasn’t happened since we became friends.Britney is talking about long before we met.”
“I hate when you say nice things like that.”
“I know that too.”
“Stop knowing things about me.”
A response rose to my mouth.I killed it.
Because this wasn’t the moment for wit, and with Kelly that mattered.So I let her go.
“If there were a better way to undo what I did so I’d not hurt a friend,” I said, “I’d do that.There isn’t.”
She stared.
“It won’t be all bad.We’ve navigated events together in the past.”
