I angled a look back, and my eyes twitched wide, completely sitting up when Evelyn came in with a man I didn’t know. He wore a tux, like Ramses, older, and Evie herself wore a lovely gown of a dark purple, shimmering crystals on it. She looked completely surprised to me, handbag clasped beneath her gloved fingers, and I had to have looked like a deer in headlights. She frowned. “Dear… What are you—”
“Mom?”
Stopped where he stood. Ramses exchanged a glance between his mom and whoever she’d arrived with before looking at me. His brow arched. “What are you doing here?”
I had no fucking idea what to even say at this point.
Oh, fuck.
Heart like someone reached in and squeezed it just to play around. Evie directed her eyes in her son’s direction.
“Why I’ve come to see the show, of course,” she said, her look curious. “In our family box. Though, we were late and missed the first half. Sweetheart, you know James from the country club.”
This James extended a hand, which Ramses quickly took.
“Right. Yeah,” Ramses returned, his expression also curious before twitching back to his mom.
His mom, who now had her attention directed at me. I stood, and her finger flicked my way.
“Have you two come together?” she asked, placing that out there. Ramses, in a quick step, crossed the distance over to me. I started to say something until he took the initiative.
“Actually, yes.” He hovered a hand behind me, but I noticed not too terribly close. In actuality, he let it fall rather quickly before forcing a hand over the dark fade of his shaven head. “I had tickets. A date that fell through.” He clasped his hands. “Anyway, I ran into Bri on campus. Mentioned them. She said she enjoyed the ballet so here we are. Tickets not wasted.”
Here we were indeed.
He’d lied for me, completely, and I hated it as much as I failed to correct him.
Because in that next moment, I watched his mother and my friend’s expression shift warm. No confusion, her smile quaint and full. This new sc
enario obviously made sense to her, and I was a coward. I was afraid for an alternative.
Whatever that may have been.
Evie’s previous thoughts had obviously been her own, but this situation now appeared to be perfectly acceptable to her. She placed her hands together. “Oh, how nice, Ramses.”
How nice. The dagger dug deeper. Like he was doing me a favor.
Just tell her.
The words itched, but cowardice was something else. It kept me locked in a box, tortured in the fear. I didn’t want things to change, to lose this new awesome life I had. I wanted her in it, and I wanted Ramses too.
Like stated, selfish.
Ramses wet his lips in front of me, smiling without words. He partook in some back and forth with his mom and James before Evie hugged me, and we all took our seats. Ramses and I did sit next to each other, but with his mom and James in the seats beside us, we kept our distance reasonable and our touches nonexistent. We were two acquaintances again.
Like we’d always been a lie.
The second half to the ballet proved to be just as awkward as intermission. Ramses and I did keep to ourselves, and after, Evie talked to me while Ramses entertained James. It appeared James was Evie’s date for the evening and the man she’d been talking to the day she’d left my office.
“I haven’t told Ramses yet,” she said, the men talking beneath the staircase after the show. Evie and I had left the theater in full banter, her talking and me just listening. My attention divided, I gauged it between chatting with her and trying not to look at Ramses.
Currently with James, he’d been doing the same thing, his hands in his pockets. He flicked a glance my way on occasion, and I hugged my arms, pretending not to notice. This was definitely not the precedent I wanted to set with his mom.
I mean, we were supposed to tell her soon.
Tonight’s interception would just be the prelude to more lies. We were already going to have to lie, but now, we really had to lie.
I chewed my lip while Evie went on. She said she planned to tell Ramses about James soon, but it was new just like I hinted to her.