Fakers (Licking Thicket 1)

“Right,” I said to cover the sound of my heart cracking just a little. “I can see how ‘Can’t wait to see you’ would really throw you for a loop. What’s wrong, sweetness? What’s going on?”

His face flushed. “Can we just… not do this now?”

“This,” I repeated. “Meaning what? Talking? Or being in the same room breathing the same air? Or—”

“Yes!” he cried, throwing his hands up. “Yes, that. All of it. You being so… you. It’s impossible to think straight when you’re around. I can’t… I just… I need space, Brooks.” He shouldered past me, heading for the stage.

“But what happened?” I demanded, ducking around props and rolls of electric wire so I could follow behind him. I grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around to face me. “Just please, tell me what I did, okay? Did I say something? Did I forget to say something? Is it… is it that I couldn’t be with you at the parade? Or do you really hate being here in the Thicket? Or—”

“What? God, no. I love Licking Thicket.” He snorted. “And there’s a thing I never thought I’d say.”

“Okay, so it is me, then.”

Mal huffed out a breath, his blue eyes turbulent. “Not exactly—”

“Just tell me so I can fix it, Mal. Please,” I begged. “Because you’re leaving here Monday, and I have to go back to New York Monday too, and I was really hoping you and I could—”

“Could what?” he demanded. “Fuck one more time? Exchange addresses and promise to write? No—” He broke off and shook his head. “Look, this week has been fun, and we had a good time, but you can’t fix everything, Brooks. You have a life in New York, and I have one in LA.”

“But we could move!” I blurted with all the finesse of Miley Cyrus and her wrecking ball. So much for my ability to stay cool and articulate in a crisis. “Here. To the Thicket. Maybe. If you wanted to. Eventually. I mean—”

Mal looked stunned. “You and me? Move to the Thicket? Really? But… you ran from this place.”

“Years ago. Things have changed!” I grabbed his hands, trying to force him to listen. “Paul’s moving to the Thicket to be with Ava anyway. He says he’s gonna do ads for farmers or learn to milk cows, and I didn’t get it when he said it, but now I kinda do. He’s happy to do it for Ava. And I’d do that for you—”

Mal bit his lip like he was really considering my words. “Brooks, you have no idea how tempting that is. God. But I just got this email from a gallery in Los Angeles about a showing, and I know you’re waiting to talk to the General, and it’s great that we’re attracted to each other, but I can’t see how we could make this work. My career has been the most important thing in my life for so long. My art gave me a purpose and a place to belong when I had nothing. I want to have faith in us, but moving here for you just seems so—”

“Brooks Johnson!” General Partridge called. His cane clomped on the floor behind me. “The man of the evening! You’re a hard man to track down, but I told Parrish here that I couldn’t wait to go over a couple of things tonight. You remember my nephew Parrish, don’t you?”

Fuck. Talk about the worst timing ever.

“Sure,” I said. “Yeah. Hey. Good to see you. And this is Mal. He’s—”

“Going to go find Ava,” Mal said. “But nice to meet you both.”

“Same to you, son,” the General said.

“No,” I said firmly. “Mal, please don’t go. I need to—”

“Talk to your clients,” Mal said with a forced smile. “That’s more important.”

I couldn’t disagree. It was important, especially since I’d already put the General off several times, but also because he’d swooped in and catered this entire event for free. I wasn’t about to blow him off again because I was in the middle of a disagreement with a man I’d known for six days. No matter how much I wanted to.

My heart thundered hard in my chest. How was it possible it had only been so little time, when I already felt like a part of Mal was embedded in me the same way the license tag from the Thicket’s first milk truck was embedded in the town sign? I knew as soon as this dance was over, I needed to find Mal and talk all of this out. I wasn’t about to let him get away from me. But first, I had to give my clients my full attention.

“Yes, sir,” I said, pasting on a smile. “Parrish, your uncle and I were talking about…” I fell back into ad exec mode, thanks to the years of work I’d put in at Storms Marketing. Mal’s voice in the back of my head whispered about me being Mr. Perfect and wearing a polite mask, but for once, I didn’t feel like it was true. I actually loved what we’d put together for Partridge Pit, and I enjoyed talking through some of the details with the General and his nephew in order to make sure our presentation Monday was the best it could be.