Fakers (Licking Thicket 1)

Oh, thank God.

“Yes! Yes, it’s all fine.” I waved him over, and he walked toward me, only somewhat reluctantly. I hauled him up against my side, and he gave a little grunt. “Everything’s perfect now that you’re here, my little… my little…” Fuck my absentee brain. “Paul.”

“Your little Paul?” Mal said suspiciously.

“Yes. My little Paul. We can’t all use every pet name in the bakery case, Mal. So I call him my little Paul, and he calls me…”

I looked down at Paul expectantly. We were a team. We brainstormed constantly and could finish each other’s sentences. I knew he wouldn’t let me dow—

“Big Daddy Brooks,” Paul said, staring up at me with a wide, adoring smile.

I was going to kill him slowly.

“Hello,” Paul said, holding the baby on his shoulder expertly while extending the other hand to Ava. “We haven’t been properly introduced. I’m Paul Siegel. Brooks’s ah… main squeeze.”

She took his hand reluctantly. “Ava Ivey. Brooks’s ex-main squeeze.”

“Ava. A radiant name for a radiant woman,” Paul said, smoothly ignoring the second half of her statement. The baby on his chest started fussing, and Paul did a little bob-and-weave dance that got it to be quiet.

Ava stared at him in open fascination.

So did Mal.

So did I.

Frankly, I think all of us did.

Fortunately, he didn’t notice.

After a moment Ava sniffed. “Mal! I need tea.” She turned toward the kitchen.

“Oh, I can get you some,” Paul said, instantly coming to attention and putting one hand at the small of her back to guide her down the hall, while still holding the squirming baby in the other. “Come sit down, if you want, and I can make it for you—”

“Nonsense! I can make it for her!” Mrs. Ivey said shrilly, hurrying after them.

Mal shot me a murderous look before turning on his heel and following the Ava parade too.

I blew out a breath and rubbed a hand over my forehead.

“Don’t worry, honey,” my mother said. She patted my shoulder consolingly. “Maybe they’re not serious.”

“Pardon?” I stared down at her.

She shrugged. “You just looked… real upset at seeing Ava and her boyfriend, that’s all.”

“What? No. If anything, I was upset because he’s not much of a boyfriend. I’m pretty sure he’s gay. Or bisexual. Or… a total flirt, if nothing else.”

“Uh-huh,” she drawled.

“I’m being serious,” I insisted.

She snickered. “I believe that you believe that, Brooks. But honey, not everyone has to be gay, you know?”

“Yeah, I know, but he—”

She tilted her head toward me knowingly. “What’s more likely, sweetie? That Ava hooked herself a second guy who’s ‘gay’”—she added the air quotes, and it was every bit as annoying as I’d imagined when we were on the phone—“or that her first love is jealous of her new relationship and wants to get her back?”

She winked and slipped down the hall to join the rest of the group in her kitchen, but as I watched her walk away, I couldn’t help thinking glumly that I kinda was jealous of Ava’s new relationship.

Only it wasn’t Ava that I wanted.

It figured that the only guy I’d had such a strong, instant connection with in… well, ever… was tied at the hip to someone I could never bring myself to hurt again. It also figured he was a total asshole who, despite his ridiculous pet names, clearly didn’t realize what an amazing woman he had on his arm.

That part, at least, I could fix…and I damn well would.

4

Mal

Well, that was unexpected. I’d been knee-deep in ridiculous bovine paraphernalia when I’d finally met Brooks Johnson. The Brooks Johnson. Arbiter of all the pain a head cheerleader and homecoming queen could possibly be expected to endure.

“He’s taller than you made him sound,” I muttered, climbing up the rope ladder to the “guest suite” I’d been assigned for the week. For some reason I couldn’t stop thinking about the asshole in the cow T-shirt. How was it even possible to look sexy in a shirt with a screen-printed cow butt on it?

The man was six feet of pure Ken doll perfection—blond, fit, and model-gorgeous. Exactly the kind of guy I wished was not my type, but was. He was even sexier in person than he was in the photos I’d seen of him in Ava’s scrapbook. In high school, he’d been the quintessential hunky jock, but now… now he was definitely more grown-up with broader shoulders and a thicker five-o’clock shadow.

If I’d had a three-ring binder, I might have had to doodle his name in it simply because he was that pretty. And also sweet. And kind of goofy. I sighed. Leave it to me to think Ava’s ex was all that. I felt like a traitor and had to remind myself he was the enemy.

“He’s a jackass, is what he is. Did you see that poor, sweet man he somehow roped into dating him? If that man’s gay, I’m the queen of Sheba.”