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“Um…So Jack is here,” she tells me. “He’s in your dressing room.”
“Yeah,” I sigh. “That tracks.”
“Yeah…I don’t think I’ll be attending that meeting with you,” Theo says.
“Thanks,” I snort.
Theo claps me on the shoulder. “You’re on your own, kid.”
“I can handle my brother,” I say with what is mostly complete confidence. “Probably.”
Ava looks sympathetic, but I tell myself that it’s going to be fine. This is Jack, after all. My biggest cheerleader and my oldest friend. One of the very few people I have in the world.
With that in mind, I leave my friends behind, heading downstairs to find him.
Rip off the Band-Aid.
Jack is pacing back and forth in my dressing room when I open the door, muttering to himself. I know from experience that he’s most likely practicing every outcome of the conversation we’re about to have, and if I couldn’t see the frustration etched into his features, that would make me laugh. He halts midstep when he hears the door shut behind me, watching me lean against it, his brow furrowed.
“Hi,” I say.
His fists clench, his phone in one hand. “Hey.”
“You, uh, wanna sit?” I gesture to the small couch pushed against the wall. “Or did you want to yell at me standing up?”
More muttering under his breath, but he stomps over to the couch, plopping down on one side and patting the other aggressively to signal that I join him. I settle into the cushion with less force than he did, lacing my fingers together in my lap as I watch him chew on what are most likely a dozen different sentences as he tries to land on the one he actually wants to say.
I decide to throw him a bone. “So…I guess you saw.”
“Yeah,” he snorts. “I saw.”
“You obviously have feelings about it.”
“That didn’t look like pretending, Dee.”
I take a deep breath. “Because it wasn’t.”
“So you lied to me.”
“Not on purpose.”
“How long has it been ‘not pretending’?”
“Not as long as you’re probably thinking. It just…sort of happened. Hazard of the ruse, I guess.”
“And why didn’t you tell me? Why did you think you had to keep lying to me?”
“I…” My words trail off as I frown, considering that. It’s a simple question, but my answer is less so. “Honestly? I just…I wanted him to myself for a little bit.”
“That doesn’t even make sense,” Jack huffs.
“It does to me,” I press. “Look, we both know that I was head over heels for him as a kid.”
“Yeah, but that was only a crush.”
“Maybe at first, but can we really say that? It never actually went away. The second I saw him again, I just…”
Jack eyes me, studying whatever he’s seeing on my face. “Really? Why didn’t you say anything? Why agree to this whole thing then? What if it didn’t work out? That could have really hurt you, Dee.”
