Not So Fake (The Real Thing Book 1)

by Emma Lyon

  Because seeing Bryce again had only made it more obvious how much I wanted Zach. But however much I wanted him, I couldn’t make him want me back.

  28

  Zach

  I was desperate for anything to distract myself from how miserable I was, and the opportunity came in form of an evite for my sister and her husband’s baby gender reveal party that weekend. Even though they’d already told close family, this was apparently for extended family.

  I’d originally declined, since I couldn’t afford the time off for another vacation weekend, but on second thought I shot off a quick email to her telling her I’d be there after all. I could talk to my parents about moving home for a year, lose myself in my sister’s baby craze, and hopefully get my mind off Lane for a couple of days.

  It had been agony not giving in and texting him the way I longed to do. I miss you. I want you. I don’t know how to be without you.

  But I would be the worst kind of asshole to do that to Lane after breaking up with him, so I always put my phone away without typing anything. I was doing the right thing. I just had to keep telling myself that.

  I caught the train to New York Friday night. I hadn’t been home since last Christmas, and my mom’s response to my email telling her I was coming home had been filled with exclamation points. I had to admit, I was looking forward to seeing her, too. With everything that had happened with Lane, I was feeling a bit battered.

  It was late by the time the cab dropped me off in front of their small detached house, but my mom was up in the kitchen making some tea. After I’d hugged her, she pulled back and searched my face. “Something’s wrong.”

  “Nothing’s wrong,” I lied, and slung my bag on the floor next to the kitchen table before sitting down. She got out a second mug from the cabinet and poured us both tea.

  I wasn’t a big tea drinker, but I accepted the mug from her. The tea smelled like lemon and honey, and it reminded me of when I’d been sick as a kid and she’d bring it upstairs for me. My eyes pricked. I must be tired from the train ride up.

  “Your dad’s in bed,” she said. She blew on her tea and studied me. She’d pulled her short hair back in a clip and her reading glasses were perched on the top of her head. She must have been working in the back shed she’d converted to a photography studio a few years ago. “How have you been doing?”

  I was about to answer, Fine, when my mouth opened and I told her everything. About Max, about dating for Max. About Lane. Even about what Lane’s father had said to me. It came out in a rush, like if I didn’t get it out it would continue to fester inside me like a poison.

  By the time I was done, my tea was cold. My mom had been silent throughout, letting me talk and sipping her own tea. I couldn’t tell what she thought from the expression on her face, but then she’d always had a good poker face.

  “Okay,” she said finally. “First of all, of course you can move back home, for as long as you need to. But is that really what you want? Your father and I are happy to help out—”

  “No,” I interrupted. “You’ve already given so much to me. I don’t want to ask for more.”

  She didn’t look convinced by my reasoning, but she didn’t push, just rested her chin on the back of her hand. “You know, when you moved to Washington, even though I knew I would miss you, I was so proud of you. You’ve always gone after what you wanted. The same for Angela and Jaime.”

  I snorted. “I wonder where we got that from.”

  She smiled, conceding the point. “But sometimes focusing so strongly on one thing leaves everything else out. From what you’ve said, you care about Lane a lot.”

  “I do,” I said, even though care sounded so inadequate.

  “Then don’t be afraid to tell him that. If he cares as much for you, the two of you can find a way to make it happen.”

  I looked down at my cold tea, wondering if it could possibly be that easy.

  “I also think,” she said, a bit delicately, “that you got your feelings hurt by what Lane’s father said to you. And maybe you’re taking that out on Lane.”

  “I’m not,” I said automatically, but then wondered if she could be right. Was that what I was doing? Yes, William’s apparent low opinion of me had stung, but Lane had told me definitely that he didn’t feel the same way.

  So why hadn’t I believed him?

  My mom put her hand over mine, and glanced at the clock hanging on the wall next to the back door. It was almost midnight. “I should turn in,” she said reluctantly. She squeezed my hand, and I tried not to let the pricking in my eyes turn into something else. “Whatever you decide, you know your father and I will support you.”

  She left me to go upstairs while I sat in the kitchen I’d grown up in, wishing I knew what to do. Because I wasn’t at all sure what the right thing was anymore.

  Angela’s gender reveal party wasn’t nearly as crazy as I’d feared. When I first got the invite, I’d sent her back cautionary tale links—like the one with the alligator, and the one that had started a wildfire—but she’d promised it would be relatively tame.

  “You’re not allowed to tell anyone,” Angela warned when she and Daniel first arrived to decorate and set out the food. They were having it at my parents’ house because their Manhattan apartment was tiny. I wasn’t sure how they could even raise a kid there. They’d gone with catered food, a cake, and because Angela was a secret geek, a Harry Potter sorting hat in the center of the room that would presumably reveal the gender at the appropriate time.

  “I’ll try to contain myself. I’m just worried you’ve put a severed baby doll’s head under the sorting hat.”

  “Oh my God, that would have been amazing,” Angela exclaimed. “But no, it’s just a green teddy bear.”

  I did a doubletake. “Uh, I think you may have missed the gender reveal part there.”

  “I’m not going to pigeonhole my daughter by making everything pink,” Angela said firmly. “She can shape her own identity. Maybe her identity won’t even be female.”

  I kissed her on the forehead. “Always be you, Ang.”

  As Angela had promised, the party was like any other gathering of our extended family—loud, of course, but with our various intrafamily dramas put on hold by the presence of Daniel’s family there, too. I caught up with cousins and uncles and aunts I hadn’t seen since Christmas. Jaime was upstate on a building project and couldn’t make it, and I resolved to check in with her soon—it had been a while since we’d talked.

  But as a distraction from Lane it lasted about five minutes. I zeroed in on every flash of blond hair, as if Lane might walk in any minute. It felt wrong to be here without him, surrounded by all my family. I wondered what the hell I was doing here at all.

  Last night, I’d stayed awake thinking about what my mom had said. She was right of course; she usually was. I’d been hurt and angry by William’s words to me, and I’d taken that out on Lane. I’d assumed he wouldn’t want me either, rather than believe him when he’d said he did.

  Breaking up with him hadn’t been about giving him space or being fair to him. It was about me hiding out from the one person who had the capacity to hurt me, more than David ever had. And here I was more than two hundred miles away, hiding out more.

  But now that I was half-resolved to beg him to take me back, to try to make it work long distance and under the specter of his father’s disapproval, all the fear came rushing back. Because what if he said no?

  I couldn’t keep on a party face any longer. I retreated to the kitchen, making an excuse about looking for more plates to set out for the cake.

  Hearing thumps from the back yard, I opened the back door to find my father shooting hoops in the net he’d put up for us when we were kids. There was enough concrete porch out there to do a basic game of horse, which we’d done plenty of growing up.

  “Hiding out?” I said, closing the back door behind me. I caught the basketball he threw to me, and took a shot from the back steps—one we’d always
tried to make as kids but never could. It turned out my adult self couldn’t do it either. My dad grabbed the rebound and made another shot, tossing it back to me as I left the steps to get closer to the hoop.

  I made the shot and tossed it back to him.

  I used to wonder if my dad was ever disappointed I was gay. I’d always been an athletic kid, and we’d bonded over sports when I was in that phase, but I’d still been afraid that he felt he’d have more in common with a straight son. Not that I ever got that impression from him growing up—he’d been as supportive as my mom when I came out to them—but there’d always been a tiny, insecure part of me that had wondered.

  I wondered about Lane’s dad, too, who didn’t seem to have a problem that Lane was gay, only that he might date beneath him. My mom had been right; that still stung. That somehow an asshole like Bryce was okay but I wasn’t good enough, because I didn’t belong to the right political family, or have the right connections, or whatever it was Lane’s father found lacking in me.

  We alternated shots a while, until my dad said, “Your mother told me a little of what’s going on with you.”

  I stiffened and missed the next shot. Not that I minded that she’d told him, but I was nervous of how he’d judge me for it. My parents weren’t the type to understand the whole “date strangers for money” thing, and I knew now that I didn’t exactly come across well in how I’d broken up with Lane.

  “We talked and decided that we’ll lend you the money for school this year, so you don’t have to move back home.”

  My face grew hot. “I don’t want you to have to do that. You’ve already given me enough.”

  “It’s a loan,” he said firmly. “Once you’ve got a job and have your feet under you, you can pay us back.” He tossed the ball to me and I caught it. “We happen to think you’re a good investment.”

  My eyes pricked the way they had last night in the kitchen talking with my mom. I wasn’t sure what to say to that, so I just said, “Thank you.”

  I missed the next shot because my vision had somehow gotten blurry. My dad caught the rebound and said, peering in the direction of the basketball hoop instead of me, “I hope you know how proud your mom and I are of you.”

  That was not helping my vision any. I managed a nod.

  “You know,” he said casually, “your sister won’t hold it against you if you need to leave this party of hers early. I’m sure she’d understand.”

  I cleared my throat, which also seemed to be suffering under the same reaction as my vision. “Maybe I’ll check the train schedule for this afternoon.”

  He nodded, and I watched as the ball thumped against the backboard and swished down the net. “As much as your mother and I like having you here, I think that would be a good idea.” He made another shot, still looking at the hoop instead of me. “Do you know what he’s going to say?”

  “No,” I said honestly, because I had no idea what Lane was going to say to me, only that I was done hiding. I’d say what I felt to him and live with the consequences. If Lane rejected me, then at least I’d finally been honest with him.

  Tonight was the night we were supposed to be having dinner at his parents’ house. Maybe that was for the best. I doubted I’d change William’s mind about me, but if he knew how I really felt about Lane, maybe I could convince him to give me a chance.

  And hope that Lane would, too.

  29

  Lane

  Dinner at my parents’ house while I was still angry with my father and hungover from the tequila shots of the night before was not how I’d wanted to spend the evening. That would have involved a lot more dark rooms and copious amounts of pain killers, not icy silence between my father and me while my mother threw us confused glances. She probably would have confronted us, but she’d invited some family friends to the dinner, a couple they’d known for years. I’d already had to face her disappointment when I’d told her Zach couldn’t make it, without getting into the reason why.

  I hadn’t wanted to go at all, but I wanted to tell my father what I thought of what he’d said to Zach, and this seemed as good an opportunity I would get. Even if we had to shield it from my mother and their friends.

  Sitting through dinner was excruciating. Ethan was away for the weekend visiting a friend, and I felt the lack of potential moral support keenly. I hadn’t talked to him since he showed up at headquarters, so he didn’t know yet that Zach had broken things off.

  Luckily the family friends were mostly interested in my father’s campaign, and I only had to answer a few questions about school before letting my father take the conversational reins and quietly seething at him.

  I wasn’t able to corner him until after dinner when he disappeared into the kitchen to wash up and put on coffee while my mom entertained their guests.

  I followed him in and said in a low voice, “Ethan told me what you said to Zach. What the hell did you think you were doing?”

  My father put a rinsed-off dish in the dishwasher between us. “This is my house. I’ll thank you not to swear at me in it.”

  “Then stop trying to control my life.” All the anger I’d accumulated came rushing back. It was one thing for him to push jobs I didn’t want my way, and quite another to interfere in my love life.

  “I’m not going to apologize for looking out for my son’s best interests.”

  “Your best interests, you mean.”

  He glanced my way. “Is that what you think?”

  “I know that if you weren’t running for office right now, you wouldn’t care who I dated.”

  My father blew out a breath. “I would care that you were dating an escort. For God’s sake, Lane, I thought you had better judgment than that. For all we know this was just a con he was playing.”

  “Because he could never be interested in me otherwise.”

  “That’s not at all what I meant.” He straightened and wiped his hands on the dishcloth folded on the counter. “I’m asking you to look at this rationally.”

  How was I not being rational? “Listen, Dad—”

  “No, Lane, you listen,” he said, and the note of anger in his voice pissed me off more. He didn’t have the right. “I’ve always been supportive of your choices.” I was about to interrupt that supportive didn’t mean constantly question, but he held up a hand. “I didn’t always understand them, and I realize you need to make your own choices, which sometimes means your own mistakes. But think, Lane. I respect your decision to be out about your sexuality, but you’re going to have a hard enough time succeeding in this world without saddling yourself with someone like him.”

  Like him. Someone who was working two jobs to get through law school. Who was funny and charming, and made me feel good. “Is that what bothers you so much, that I’m actually happy?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” my father said, then straightened abruptly as he glanced toward the doorway.

  I turned my head. My mother stood at the threshold into the kitchen, her mouth set in an unhappy line. Her arms were folded over her chest. I wondered how much she’d heard.

  “Can I ask what’s going on?”

  “Ask him,” I said, gesturing to my father.

  “Nothing, Jessica,” he answered, leaning back against the counter with infuriating casualness. “Everything’s fine.”

  Her eyes swept back and forth between us. “Is this the reason Zach’s not here tonight?”

  “Yes.” I turned on my father. “He broke up with me because he didn’t want to cause a rift between the two of us. Does that sound like a con to you?”

  He shrugged. “Or maybe he knew he’d been caught out.”

  “Oh for fuck’s—”

  “Lane,” my mother said sharply, just as the doorbell rang. She sighed audibly. “I’m going to get that, and then the two of you are going to be civil to each other until our guests leave. And then the three of us are going to have this out.” She turned and left the kitchen with an angry tap of her heels on the floor.
/>   “Now you’ve upset your mother,” my father said.

  “I’m not the one who did that,” I said, just as I heard my mother’s voice coming from the living room, “Zach, what a pleasant surprise.”

  My whole body went still. My heart skipped a beat, and then began thumping loudly in my chest. What was he doing here? We hadn’t talked since the breakup, and I’d kept myself from texting him through sheer will. Me begging him to reconsider would just make things worse.

  My father and I exchanged a glance, and then I was on my way out of the kitchen and into the living room with him following more slowly behind me.

  It was indeed Zach in the foyer space, looking uncomfortable with his hands in his pants pockets as my parents’ dinner guests looked on curiously from their seats on the living room couch. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Garrett, I didn’t realize you had company….” He broke off when he saw me, and some of the tenseness in his face relaxed. “Lane.”

  My throat was too tight to speak, but I nodded. Zach’s eyes went past me to where my father stood by the kitchen door, arms crossed over his chest. I saw Zach steel himself and take a breath.

  “Sir,” Zach said, a little clipped. “I realize this isn’t the best time to do this, but it needs to be said.” He sounded nervous, but determined. “I know you don’t approve of me dating your son. I wish you didn’t feel that way, and I think you’re wrong, but I realized these last few days that I can’t wait on your blessing. Because I happen to love your son.”

  Time stopped. It felt like everyone in the room was holding their breath, and none more than me. I replayed the words in my head. Had he actually said…?

  At my father’s silence, Zach continued, “Obviously Lane might not feel the same, but that’s up to him to decide. I came here to tell you that I have no intention of backing off just because you don’t think I’m good enough for him.”