Page 90 of Fake it With Me

“Even cake?”

“Even cake. Today is special.”

She ran off, and Darek pulled me close. “Thank you. I know I keep saying it but thank you.”

“You’re welcome. But can we stop thanking each other and start eating? I’m starving. And I know you have to be famished.”

“I am so damn hungry.”

We stepped onto the patio and I was seriously considering running through the trays face first. I was so hungry and it all looked so good. Sandwiches, little apps that I didn’t know what they were but they were wrapped with bacon. Fresh fruit. At least twenty different kinds of cheeses and an assortment of sliced meats. There were several bottles of champagne chilling in buckets.

And on one table was a large cake with pink frosting. When I looked closer, I saw there was an image surrounded by the pink icing. Whales. Several whales that looked airbrushed.

“Now that was a risk,” he said with a laugh. “I told them to toss it if things didn’t go my way.”

“But they did and I think that cake looks amazing.”

By the time Melody and the legal team arrived, we had already started on the food. They walked in looking relaxed and happy, a stark contrast to their tense professionalism in the courthouse. Aaron immediately grabbed a champagne flute.

“To whale science!” he declared, raising his glass. “May it always be relevant in custody disputes!”

“To whale science!” everyone echoed. I felt my face heat with embarrassed pride.

“Seriously though,” Brittany said, coming over to where I stood near the dessert table. “That was incredible. I’ve been practicing family law for eight years and I’ve never seen anything like it. You just stood up and shouted about whales and somehow it worked.”

“I didn’t plan it,” I admitted. “I just saw those whales in the background and my brain went ‘wait, that’s wrong,’ and then suddenly I was on my feet yelling.”

“Well, your impulsive whale knowledge saved the day.” She clinked her glass against mine. “Darek’s lucky to have you.”

“I’m lucky to have him too.”

“I wish all our cases could be won with whale science,” Aaron joked at one point. “It would make my job so much more interesting.”

Everyone laughed, and I found myself grinning so hard my face hurt.

“I’m not billing you for this time,” Aaron announced with a laugh.

“And I won’t bill you for the bottle of Dom you’ve put away,” Darek shot back.

I grabbed a plate and loaded it with sandwiches, fruit, and several of those bacon-wrapped things that I still couldn’t identify but tasted incredible. Daisie appeared beside me, her hands freshly washed, eyes wide at all the food options.

“Can I really have anything?” she asked, like she was confirming Darek hadn’t been joking.

“Anything you want,” I told her. “It’s a special day.”

She carefully selected items, building a plate that was mostly fruit and cheese with one sandwich cut into triangles. Then she looked up at me with those big, curious eyes.

“Liza, why does everyone keep talking about whales?”

My hand froze halfway to grabbing another sandwich. I glanced around, but the adults were all clustered near the champagne, laughing about something Aaron was saying.

“I got to talk about them today. At the courthouse. It was pretty cool.” I wasn’t lying, exactly. Just severely editing.

“Did you see real whales?”

“Not today. But I saw pictures of them.”

“Oh and you told them about the whales?”