Fakers (Licking Thicket 1)

See, in my moment of vindictive brilliance Friday, I’d forgotten Paul’s fear of flying was so bad he needed his inhaler when he thought too hard about airplanes hurtling through the sky. I could hardly leave my beloved boyfriend after telling my mom he was coming, though, could I? So we’d ended up driving. For thirteen fucking hours.

When we’d arrived, I’d been ready to fall into bed and sleep for a year, but my mother had kissed my cheek, handed me a two-page itinerary of my appearances as Head Licker for the week ahead, and informed me that I’d be sleeping on the lumpy pullout in the den while Paul took the guest bed, since there would be “no canoodling of unmarried persons under her roof, gay or not.”

Canoodling. Honestly. Who even said canoodle anymore, anyway?

I hadn’t read through my itinerary of appearances yet, but I could already tell it would put a serious damper on the amount of real work I could get done in the next few days, and Pamela had already started calling to demand updates. It also seemed like whatever free time I did have, my family was determined to make sure I didn’t spend with Paul…

Not that my one true love seemed to mind this overly much.

Paul clearly had not understood that being my fake boyfriend wasn’t just about being nearby so we could work on the campaign, it was about being my fucking wingman, damn it. Instead of standing by my side like a good fake boyfriend should, he’d let himself get carted off by my sister the minute she’d introduced herself and given us each a big hug. Gracie had told me to relax because she’d protect Paul from Mama… which unfortunately meant there was no one around to protect me.

Sure enough, when I glanced over at my sugar bear, he was sitting in the shade of a giant oak tree snuggling a baby against his chest, happy as a proverbial clam, while regaling the ladies with his knowledge of red raspberry tea leaves and which diapers stopped leaks best. It would have been creepy if it weren’t so perfectly Paul. Ask the man to run a meeting and he’d panic, ask him to ride in a plane and he’d have an asthma attack, but ask him to deal with a cavalcade of fussy babies and women discussing lactation, and he was cool as a cucumber.

Probably literally cool as a cucumber, since he was in the freakin’ shade. Asshole.

Paul looked up and saw me glaring daggers at him. He pressed his fingertips to his mouth and blew an extravagant kiss in my direction, then drew a heart in the air.

I gave him a bright smile in case anyone was looking… and flipped him off by rubbing my middle finger against my nose.

I was totally fake-breaking-up with him when we got back to New York.

“’Scuse me, Ms. Cosway,” I said, breaking into my mom’s conversation. I slapped at my ankle, where another damn mosquito was sucking away a pint of my blood, and wiped the sweat from my damp forehead. “Mama, I’m gonna go inside for a bit. Looks like Payton and the rest of the kids have demolished most of the brownies already. I’ll go see if the second batch is cool.” By which I meant I would stand in front of the window air conditioner and hold the brownies while they cooled.

“Nonsense, Brooks, honey! You’ll miss all the fun! Oh, look! Lurleen’s here. Come on!”

I gritted my teeth and let her tow me across the yard again, like I wasn’t a foot taller and at least fifty pounds heavier than she was.

In point of fact, I had never found parties fun. My whole childhood had been spent devising hideouts at get-togethers so I didn’t have to make small talk, and you’d think my mom would remember that since she’d seemed equally devoted to finding me and forcing me out. But I was not here to start fights or correct assumptions. I was here to help my family, and then I was getting the hell out of the Thicket.

“Lurleen!” my mom exclaimed. She dropped my arm so she could exchange cheek kisses with our across-the-road neighbor like it’d been a hundred years since they’d seen each other instead of a day at most. “You look wonderful! Brooks, honey, you remember Ms. Jackson?”

“Yes, ma’am. Nice to see you.” I nodded politely at the woman with the familiar helmet of black curls, electric-blue eyeliner, and bright red dress.

Lurleen Jackson was everything I loved and hated about Licking Thicket. I remembered her making dinner for my family for weeks on end when my mom broke her arm back in the day. I remembered her giving me strawberry Popsicles because she knew they were my favorite. I also remembered her ratting me out when she found me holed up in her pantry reading books when I was ten and I was supposed to be down in her rec room, socializing with her daughter Alana and the other kids.