Best Fake Fiance (Loveless Brothers 2)

“We can’t even be friends now,” I say as she steps out of the tires and wraps her arms around me, my voice going sky-high at the end. “How the fuck are we supposed to even be friends after I know what he looks like naked?”

She holds me, rocks back and forth.

“I’m sorry,” she murmurs, one hand stroking my hair.

“It was so dumb,” I say. “This whole thing was so dumb. I mean, who even lies in court anyway? Dumb. And it was dumb to say I’d go along with it and then it was dumb to actually fall for him, because, you know, if it was for real, we’d have done this ages ago—”

I break off, sucking in air.

“Not necessarily,” Elizabeth says. “You needed a kick.”

“He still wishes he’d married Crystal,” I say suddenly, the words spilling out of me before I even know what they’re going to be, like someone’s got a string and tugged at it. “He got drunk and told me that one night, that he thinks he should have married her so they can have a dog and a fence.”

I gasp for air again, because I’m trying to keep control of myself, keep from sobbing again next to this giant truck tire that my sister wants me to get inside of.

“He said that?” she asks, sounding genuinely baffled. “About Crystal?”

I just nod. I breathe deep again, trying to maintain control.

“Daniel Loveless said that he wishes he were married to his trash-ass babymomma?” Elizabeth says. “He said those words? To you?”

I look at my sister in some alarm.

“Don’t use your murder voice,” I say.

“I’ll use my murder voice if I’m going to kill someone,” she says. “Come on. Sit down.”

She tugs me onto the grass, and I more or less crumple, lean back against the hot rubber of this massive tire. It smells like asphalt and dirt and grass out here, and Elizabeth gets on the ground next to me, one arm around my shoulder.

“He didn’t say that,” I admit. “He just sort of said it, what’s the thing where someone doesn’t say what they mean but you’re supposed to understand it anyway?”

“Subtext?”

“Yeah, he said it in subtext,” I say. “Like, he thinks that if he’d married her when he knocked her up everything would be great and perfect and she’d love Rusty and they’d, like, have family movie night and shit, and she’d be in the PTA and bake cookies and knit sweaters and they’d go to Disney World on vacation and everything.”

Elizabeth’s quiet for a moment, her arm around me, her fingers gently sproinging through my hair.

“He thinks his dick is that powerful?” she asks, and I snort. I snort so hard that snot comes out of my nose, and I wipe it on the grass, and it’s gross.

“Don’t all men?” I say, my voice shaky.

“True,” she says. “Did his dick teach you to knit?”

I just shake my head.

“Has it spurted out a dog and a fence yet?”

“You’re disgusting.”

“I’m not the one wiping my snot on the grass,” she says, gently.

“I can’t join the PTA and organize bake sales,” I sigh, resting my head against her shoulder. “I can’t even remember what day it is half the time, Betsy. I got Rusty’s arm broken and she took a knife from me—”

“Not your fault,” she interjects.

“—and I nearly got Daniel landed on the sex offender registry—"

“Also probably not true.”

“And… he’s right,” I say. “I’m gonna get Rusty taken away from him.”

She pulls me in, kisses the top of my head gently.

“I can’t even be mad,” I say.

We’re quiet for a long time. The birds chirp. A few stray clouds pass over the sun. The wind waves through the grass.

“Are you still gonna go to the custody hearing?” she finally asks.

“Why, so he can tell everyone how I got Rusty’s arm broken in person?” I say. “So that when Crystal gets custody the judge can point to me and tell Daniel how it’s my fault specifically that his daughter’s gone? Oh God.”

I burrow into her. Elizabeth wraps both her arms around me, and I sob.Chapter Thirty-SixDaniel“Dad!” Rusty calls.

I take a deep breath, my hand still on her doorknob, then open it again.

“Yes?”

“I need a glass of water.”

“There’s a glass on your nightstand,” I point out.

In the dark I can just barely make out her small form in the bed, Astrid the wombat snuggled up on one side, her bright green cast on top of the covers.

“That one’s old.”

“Is this what you’re using your coupon on?” I ask.

It’s an idea I got from one of the ballet moms, actually. Rusty likes to fight bedtime by asking for a million things after lights out, so I gave her a coupon that she’s allowed to use once, and that’s it. One post-bedtime request, and then she has to go to sleep.