Page 122 of Faking it For Summer

“Mia, please. I obviously didn’t tell Talia anything. I didn’t tell you because the only times work has come up, you’ve been angry at me because I’ve been working.”

“So, how does she know?”

“It was probably talked about inTheWall Street Journalor something like that.”

“TheWall Street Journal?” Mia’s jaw drops.

“What? I told you the deal I was working on was really big. The company I work for is the number one hedge fund in New York City, and my boss offered me a position to start a branch in England. I haven’t accepted it, and I haven’t had time to tell you about it because we’ve kind of had other stuff going on. I know you don’t really care about my job, and I assumed you wouldn’t care about this offer.”

“You assumed I wouldn’t care that you were moving to fucking England, Luke?” Her voice rises.

People are noticing us, but I know she doesn’t care, and I can’t really say anything to her. I don’t want to make her even angrier.

“I didn’t tell you, Mia, because I just thought there were more important things for us to discuss before that even came up.”

“Wow, thanks for trusting me and sharing with me and thinking about me before you decided to move to England.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means, you’re already far enough away in New York City, and I don’t see you. I’ll never see you in England, and there’s going to be a time difference, so we won’t even get to speak on the phone. But what does that matter, right?”

“Maybe you can come to England too,” I suggest.

“What do you mean, I can come to England? I don’t have the money to live in England. What am I going to do—have Juniper move the bookmobile over to London? Where would we even put it? That’s not even something that can happen.”

“I could take care of you. I want to give you security so you can follow your dreams.”

“You can—I don’t need you to take care of me, Luke. I’m not just some sad sack that is sitting here, waiting for some man to take care of me.”

“I was just going based upon the emails, when you said we should get married if we were both single at forty.”

“That was a joke, Luke. You really thought I wanted to marry you because you were rich and you could take care of me?”

I press my lips together because I did think that she wanted that—but from the look on her face, I don’t think she wants me to say that to her right now.

“I’m so insulted. I feel like you don’t care about me or respect me at all.”

“That’s not true. I’m sorry if I hurt you. I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you about London. It’s not because I didn’t care what you would think. I haven’t even decided if I’ll take the offer. I just felt like there were bigger things going on between us that I wanted to talk about. And you have to be honest, Mia—you’ve been really upset every time I’ve had to work. I really didn’t think you would want to talk about my job.”

“So, this is on me now? You’re blaming me because we had sex and I got upset that you weren’t in bed, waiting for me when I woke up? And so you didn’t tell me you’re moving across the fucking country?”

She pauses. “Actually, it’s not even the country. It’s the world. You’re moving to the other side of the world.”

“I haven’t accepted the position. Look, I realize I should have told you, and I normally would have, but we haven’t been in the most normal of circumstances recently.”

“This was a mistake, wasn’t it?” she says. “We fucked up. We never should have pretended that we were dating. We should have both just attended as singles and just kept our friendship.”

“And what, never kissed, never touched, never made love? Do you regret it all?”

“No,” she murmurs. “I don’t regret it. And that’s the worst part. What I regret is what it’s reduced us to. We’ve spent so many years, Luke, sharing everything with each other, being there for each other, and yet now I feel there are secrets and liesbetween us, and I can’t even really tell you how I feel because—” She chokes on her words, and I can feel my heart constricting.

“What are you saying, Mia?”

“I don’t know what I’m saying, but I think this isn’t the time or place for this conversation. I don’t want everyone to think that this was fake, right? We didn’t do all this and practically ruin our friendship for us to get found out at the last moment.”

“Do you think our friendship is ruined?”

I reach to grab her hand, and she pulls it away.