Page 12 of Fake It For Him

Mikey shot me a puzzled look but then tucked me under his arm and led me away. Kara thanked Calan for the shot before she rushed to catch up to us. She draped her arm around my waist, sticking close to my side. They led me downstairs and out the door we’d come in through not so long ago.

As soon as we were outside in the chilly night air, the fog of shock lifted from my brain and I started seething out loud. “God, he’s a dick. Such a dick! How cocky can one person really be? Am I sour about being loved and left?” I scoffed. “Ack. How can I be? I wasn’t loved. I was just fooled into thinking that I might be. Asshole. Shit, I can’t believe I slept with him. What a dick!”

We made our way down the block, putting that club firmly behind us.

“Slept with him?” Kara shivered and pressed a little closer to my side. “The way I remember you telling the story, there wasn’t much sleeping involved.”

Mikey laughed, getting between us so he could wrap an arm around Kara as well when she shivered again. I scowled at them. Obviously, they weren’t understanding what a huge prick he was at all.

“This isn’t funny, guys. Seriously. He hurt me.”

Their laughter and playfulness stopped immediately. Mikey even slowed and glanced over his shoulder like he was considering going back to confront the man. He tensed, but I tugged at him to encourage him to keep moving forward.

My friend was an incredible person and it wasn’t that he didn’t have any muscles. He just wasn’t nearly as buff as Calan. In a fight between the two, there was no doubt in my mind that it was Mikey I’d be patching up this time.

He stayed in shape and used his bicycle to get around the city even in the winter months, and he was lean and probably quite strong, but he was also at least half a head shorter than Calan. I’d seen Calan’s frame that night. He wasn’t as bulky as a bodybuilder or anything, but he definitely had a few pounds and a lot of muscle on my friend.

“He hurt you?” Kara asked as we kept hurrying away from the club. Her voice had that breathless, hushed quality to it that people tended to get when they’d just had their socks shocked off. “Are you serious? You didn’t mention that before.”

“It wasn’t physical,” I admitted immediately before either of them got the wrong idea. “He didn’t do anything I didn’t want him to do. It wasn’t like that. It was just that I met him only a couple of months after I got overseas.”

“Okay,” Mikey said slowly, his expression puzzled behind his round glasses. “If it wasn’t physical, why’d you say he hurt you?”

“Because he did,” I said emphatically, giving him a meaningful look. “It was only a couple of months after I got there. He was the first person I… you know…”

I trailed off, my throat burning too much to keep talking. I swallowed to try to push back all that old pain.

Kara’s eyebrows finally shot up as she got it. “He was the first person you slept with after Spencer?”

I nodded, grateful that she knew me well enough that I hadn’t had to say the words myself. “He was also only the second person I’d ever been with. To this day.”

Mikey’s grasp on my shoulders tightened and he turned his head to rest it on top of mine. “Shit. Sorry, babe. I’m sorry. We’re both sorry for laughing. We didn’t know.”

“To this day?” Kara made her eyes big at me again, worry swimming in them as she stared at me across Mikey’s chest. “You mean there’s only ever been him and Spencer?”

“Yep,” I said miserably, letting my head drop forward and breathing in deep. “I thought I was ready. It’s not entirely Calan’s fault, but I just wish I hadn’t done it, you know? Or that I’d gone into it with my eyes wide open, knowing it was never going to be more than just a hookup.”

Mikey frowned. “Did he lie to you?”

“No, but he just made me feel…” I trailed off again and shrugged. “I don’t know. Some of the things he said just made me feel like maybe there could be something real there, and when I woke up the next morning, he was gone and it sucked. I felt vulnerable and uncertain, and it took me a year to bounce back.”

Kara reached around Mikey’s back to rub mine. “I’m sorry he made you feel like that, babe. He shouldn’t have, but on the upside, your Scotland dude is damn hot. I mean, I know you told me that he was, but you really downplayed how hot. He was a definite step up from Spencer. If your taste in men keeps developing at this trajectory, you’re going to marry a supermodel or an A-lister someday.”

“Kara,” Mikey groaned, but I laughed.

The sound was edged with hysteria, but there it was. At least I could always count on her to make me laugh and on Mikey to admonish her for it before he joined in.

No matter how stupid the decisions I made, these two were always there to help me pick up the pieces, and I was damn grateful to be back with them. Even if this little reunion of ours wasn’t going to last very long—if I had anything to say about it.

7

CALAN

Della Fontenot was an eccentric, glamorous, spirited woman. She wore a leopard top and too many bracelets on her wrists, and her hair was swept up into a beehive.

And I had no idea what I was doing in her office.

After Joe had mentioned this place to me, he’d dropped the name a few more times. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I’d started wondering why a dating service would be called Faux’s. In the end, I’d wondered about it enough to have set up an appointment, and while I still wasn’t sure why I’d taken Joe’s advice to come here, if it hooked me up with a good girl to take to Freya’s wedding, it wouldn’t be a big, fat waste of my time.