Page 59 of The Fake Out

Michael looked giddy. “Wait…did you ‘meet cute’ them?”

Dad gave him a confused look. “Did I what?”

Michael laughed. “Holy shit! You totally did. You told Blaise to drive her home last summer because you were trying to push them together, right?”

Dad shrugged, and a sly smile came across his features.

My baby brother howled with laughter. “Damn, Dad, you’re quite the wingman.”

“Dad?” I asked.

“Hmm?”

“Mom would’ve wanted you to be happy. She’d have wanted you to move on.”

He twisted his wedding band on his finger. “I’m not sure I can. Your mother was the love of my life. Nobody can compare to her.”

“You don’t have to be lonely for the rest of your life,” I insisted.

“Blaise, why did you move back home?” he asked, trying to change the subject off him.

“Because I got traded.”

He pierced me with the ‘dad look.’ “You’re old enough to have your own place. You didn’t have to move back in here.”

I rubbed the back of my neck. “Because we’re all worried about you being alone. Okay? That’s the real reason I moved back in.”

Michael nodded in agreement. He slid his phone over to Dad. “Here, I’m making you a dating profile.”

Dad groaned. “I’m not doing that.”

“Yes, you are, old man,” I teased him.

He glared at me. “Get out of my house!”

Micheal and I shook our heads. “No way, old man. Mom wouldn’t have wanted you to live like this. We should have done this a long time ago.”

He crossed his arms over his chest and glared at us, but he appeased us when we called a family meeting over video chat, and the rest of my siblings razzed him until he gave in. Even Maja’s boyfriend Julien got in on the action. Dad shook his head, but the smile on his face might have been the first one I had seen in a long time.

Dad and I clashed. We were too similar, but laying it all on the table this morning had been good for us. I just hoped I didn’t disappoint him when he realized what Veronica and I had wasn’t real.

Chapter Eighteen

VERONICA

“My appointment didn’t show. You wanna get a coffee?” my brother asked while I was finishing up working on the stencil for Blaise.

“Busy,” I muttered. I still wasn’t on speaking terms with him. Us Irish girls knew how to hold a grudge.

“How about I get us a coffee, and then we can talk?” he suggested.

“Hard pass,” I said and checked my phone. I smiled at a text from Blaise.

BLAISE: OMW

BLAISE: Are you excited to stab me with things?

“Veronica, I’m trying to apologize here,” Alex sighed.