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“When did you get here?” His questions kept coming, but my brain wasn’t able to process any answers to them. Tommy’s eyes shifted down to the keys dangling from my fingers and then to the car behind me.
“Did you drive here?” He was now a few paces from me and probably close enough to take in the smeared mascara and red eyes. “Are you okay?”
Luckily, it seemed like life had taken pity on me and given me a break. Olivia’s car came to a stop next to me, and she rolled down the window to catch my eye. Without giving Tommy another look or even a response, I pulled open Olivia’s door and dove inside. I heard him shout my name again as Olivia pulled away, leaving him disappearing behind us in the rearview mirror.
After a few minutes of silence, Olivia finally turned to me. “What happened?”
“His ex was here.” I didn’t add anything else. Olivia knew Tommy’s history and she could connect the dots from prior knowledge.
“Are you two done?” The question made me pause. I thought about the contract that we both had signed.
Can we be done?
“I’m not sure we can be done,” I told her truthfully. I didn’t care that Monica wanted nobody to know the truth behind the origin of Tommy’s and my relationship. All I wanted was to talk through my very real feelings for a boy with my best friend.
“What do you mean you’re not sure you can be done?” Olivia asked.
I let out a breath before I looked back over at her. “I haven’t been telling you the truth.”
Olivia’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. I was not the type of person who would lie or could lie very well, so the fact that I was telling her I had lied to her and she hadn’t already suspected it was probably catching her off guard.
“My relationship with Tommy didn’t start off real.” The words felt weird coming out of my mouth, like my brain was finally registering what I had gotten myself into. Olivia didn’t ask me to elaborate. The deafening silence between us spoke the words for her.
“The night the two of us left the club was innocent. I wanted to leave, and Tommy offered to take me home. When the paparazzi posted the photo they took of us, it didn’t go over well with the PR team for the Cougars.” Olivia turned south on Lake Shore Drive, driving toward my apartment. “Monica, the head of the PR team, gave Tommy only one option, which was to fake date me. She offered us a contract. Tommy would get to keep his job with the Cougars, and I would get a fat bonus.”
Olivia coughed next to me, her eyes widening. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah,” I told her. “Monica told us no one could know. I was too afraid of telling you and risking your job, so I kept it to myself.”
“Maggie Redford!” she exclaimed. “Shut up! You hustler!”
A smile spread across my face at Olivia’s outburst. I knew her mind was probably reeling. This was completely uncharacteristic of me.
“So what happened?” Olivia’s voice was insistent, like she was now invested in the story.
“I caught feelings.” I ducked my eyes down toward my hands, not wanting to see any disappointment on my best friend’s face. “I’m pretty sure I’m in love with him.”
“In love?”
“I was actually going over to his place just now to tell him, but when I got there, I saw him hugging Sutton James, his ex-girlfriend.”
“Why is she coming out of the woodwork?” Olivia’s support for me was exactly why I loved her.
“She must have decided she wanted Tommy again when she saw us at the ESPYS, but the reason we are in this mess in the first place is because of Tommy’s reputation. So who’s to say he hasn’t been playing me the whole time?”
Olivia pulled up to my apartment, and the two of us got out to head inside. I was dreading having to tell Mrs. Adams that her car was stuck in Lincoln Park, but I was going to handle that later. Right now, I wanted to give myself time to grieve a relationship that may have never been real before I had to face her again.
“Were they just hugging?” Olivia asked as I unlocked my apartment door.
“That’s all I saw.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t an innocent hug?” Olivia pressed.
“Olivia, are you serious?” I threw myself down on the couch and pulled a discarded blanket around me.
“Maggie, I need you to listen to me for a second.” She walked over to sit next to me on the couch. “Even though I may not have been in on the whole charade, I know my best friend, and the girl I saw with Tommy Mikals was someone I hadn’t met before. She looked alive. I also may not know Tommy very well, but the way that boy looked at you when there was no one to fool or cameras to capture something was like you were turning into his whole world.”
It was like fate wanted to rear its head again because my phone went off and Tommy’s name flashed across the screen. Olivia and I stared down at the phone. A small part of me wanted to pick up the call and hear what he was going to say, but a bigger part of me was too scared that he was going to lie to me again and I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. The phone continued to go off for a few more seconds before the call went to voice mail.
