The Charade

by Judy Corry

  And the thought of someone like Carter enjoying this moment as much as I did scorched my insides from head to toe.

  "Do you think they're gone?" Carter asked a while later, pulling away and scanning the area, his chest heaving from the intensity of the make-out session.

  "Yeah," I said, smoothing my hair down with my hands and trying to catch my breath as well. "At least I think so."

  I couldn't exactly be sure how long we'd been kissing, since time had seemed to disappear when I was in Carter's arms, but the sun was nearly set now and I couldn’t see nor hear Sofia or Simon anymore. They were probably back to the party by now.

  "Think they bought it?" He turned back to face me, and that was when I noticed I'd left lip gloss all over his mouth.

  "Maybe," I said, moving to wipe my lip gloss away. While I was at it, I fixed his hair too, adjusting until it looked close to what it’d been like before I'd run my fingers through it.

  Carter just watched me as I worked to make him more presentable, and my nervous system was all too aware of how closely he was studying me.

  Did he like what he saw when he looked at me? Was he as attracted to me after that kiss as I was to him?

  "Thanks for cleaning me up," Carter said when I'd finished with his hair. "I, um, I guess we better plan a time for me to take you shopping now, huh?"

  "I do deserve to be rewarded for suffering through the past few minutes, don't I?" I arched a teasing eyebrow.

  He smoothed his fingers through my hair to tame it, and even though I'd just been kissing him a minute ago, the sensation of his light touch sent warm tingles from my head to my toes. "If that's what you act like when you're suffering, I can't imagine what you act like when you're kissing a guy you actually like. There must be literal fireworks and rainbows that explode when you're into it."

  So apparently, he had caught onto just how much I'd enjoyed it all.

  Oh well. It's not like I needed to be ashamed since he seemed to like it just as much.

  But to keep up the little game we had going, I shrugged and said, "I'm just really good at this acting gig."

  "Really?" He gave me a look that told me he didn't believe I'd hated kissing him for half a second. "Well, I guess it's good we're on the same page then, because kissing you was pretty much the worst."

  "Whatever." I gave his shoulder a playful shove. "More like, you're probably going to take your little tutoring contract to your lawyer tomorrow to see if she can find any loopholes because you know you're addicted to me now."

  He chuckled. "I was actually planning to email it over to her as soon as we got back to the house."

  "I thought so."

  We stood there smiling goofily at each other for a moment, and I liked that when I studied his eyes there was a look of wonder in them. Like he didn't know what to make of what was happening between us.

  He broke the eye contact after a moment, though, and peered off into the distance. The sun was close to dipping below the horizon. "Should we head back to the party?"

  I kind of wanted to stay out here all night to flirt with Carter and see what might happen, but I stood up straighter and said, "Yes, let's go."

  The path was less visible in the dim lighting, my footing not as sure. After I stumbled over a few branches, Carter reached for my hand to guide me back to where we'd come from. And as we walked through the trees and bushes with our fingers laced together, sparks of electricity sizzled up my arm. I knew I was going to have a hard time letting go of him when we made it back to reality.

  Man, my heart was in trouble.

  20

  Carter

  Ava and I arranged to go shopping the next day. So after doing my Sunday morning yoga and meditation session with my family—a tradition my dad and Dawn had started after a trip to India a few years back—I showered, grabbed a quick bite to eat, and then headed toward the garage with my jacket in hand.

  I was just walking past my dad's office when I overheard his voice coming from inside. He didn't usually take business calls on Sundays since he said if the good Lord got to take one day off a week, he deserved to take a day off, too. So it was rare to hear him on a call at this time, instead of doing his weekly planning sessions with Dawn in the sunroom.

  "You tell me not to worry but I did the math," my dad's voice cut through the air as he spoke to the person on the other end of the line. "And I can't help but suspect that you made up the story about the miscarriage."

  The what?

  I frowned and stopped in my tracks, not used to hearing the word miscarriage in my dad's every-day conversation.

  My dad paused for a moment, as if listening to whoever he was talking to. Then he said, "Yes, I understand." Another short pause. "Okay, we'll talk about it when you come to town." He sighed, and I could imagine him running his fingers through his hair. "I know. Things were crazy back then, but you…" His words trailed off like he was flustered and trying to think of how to finish his thought. "I just don't understand how you could keep this to yourself for eighteen years. I mean, do the girls even know?"

  The girls?

  Who was he talking to?

  I inched closer to the door, hoping it would help me figure out what my dad was talking about. But he must have sensed my presence or something because his footsteps came closer and then he shut the door to block me from hearing any more of his conversation.

  Weird.

  He'd said things had been crazy eighteen years ago—which was about the same time he and Dawn had been separated and I'd been conceived. Was it possible my dad had gotten another woman pregnant at the same time and had assumed until now that it had ended in miscarriage?

  He said something about girls knowing something. Did I have sisters I'd never met out there somewhere?

  For my dad and Dawn's sake, I really hoped he was talking about something completely different. They'd barely survived the last time he came home with a random child—me—and I didn't know what would happen if history repeated itself.

  Ava was waiting in the school's lobby when I made it to the academy. She'd told me to text when I arrived so she could just walk out. But since I had a part to play and I'd always gone inside the school whenever I would pick up Sofia for our dates in the past, I decided to do the same for Ava. For all anyone else knew, I was just taking my girlfriend out for a day date, and so I intended to make it look exactly like that.

  "Such a gentleman," Ava commented when I opened the passenger door of my truck to let her in.

  She wore a fitted teal V-neck that looked amazing next to her tanned skin and a denim mini skirt that hugged her hips in just the right way.

  As she stepped up into my truck, I allowed myself to take her in a little more. I didn't know how she did it, but she seemed to get prettier and prettier every day.

  I pushed the thoughts away though, because getting a crush on my fake girlfriend was not part of the plan. And even if I'd relived our kiss in the woods about a million times since last night, it didn’t mean that anything would ever happen between us.

  Because I didn't have time to date anyone for real this year, and she also deserved to have a math tutor who was more concerned with helping her pass her tests instead of trying to make passes at her.

  That would be so unprofessional.

  Plus, who was I to assume she'd even be interested in dating me for real, anyway?

  I shook my head to push the nonsensical thoughts away. Once she was seated comfortably and reaching for the seatbelt, I shut the passenger door and walked around to climb in on my side of the truck.

  We ended up at a clothing boutique across the street from The Italian Amigos, and it didn't take too long for Ava to find an outfit and boots that she liked enough for me to plop my money down on.

  "Isn't my boyfriend the best?" Ava said to the cashier as she rang up the items. "I tried to tell him that he didn't need to get me anything for our one-week anniversary, but he insisted. Didn't you, sweetie?"

  I should probably be wor
ried about how easily Ava could spin a story and make it sound authentic, but when the cashier gave me the total, I tapped my debit card against the card reader and said, "Anything for my girl."

  If the cashier thought it was strange for me to spend a hundred dollars on my girlfriend after being together for only a week, she didn't mention it. She simply handed Ava her bags and me the receipt and told us to have a fantastic anniversary.

  When we made it out of the store and back to my truck, I asked Ava, "So do you usually celebrate each week of your relationship with a guy?"

  "No," she said, eyeing me with a mischievous smile on her lips. "But if you want to make it a habit, I think I saw a few more things I wouldn't mind you buying for me next week."

  "Nice try," I said, pushing the button to turn on my truck. "But if we're still doing this thing next week, I'll let you take me shopping for our two-week anniversary. It can be a trade-off."

  "I don't know if I can afford this relationship." Ava chuckled. "You know, since my mom is the one who's rich and not me." She glanced sideways at me and winked, referring to our conversation the day before when I'd told her my dad and Dawn were the ones who were rich.

  We ate lunch at my favorite wood fire pizza place called La Piazza since I remembered from our interview session that pizza was Ava's favorite food—yes, I was basically the perfect fake boyfriend to remember such things.

  As we ate our pizzas—a pepper jack for me, a margherita pizza for her—we chatted about what she had planned for the rest of the day.

  "Scarlett is working on some project for homecoming week and asked if Elyse and I would help her find some photos from the old yearbooks that she can use for it."

  "And you couldn't think of a nice way to turn her down?" I asked, folding my slice of pizza in half to take a bite.

  "It doesn't sound too bad." She shrugged. "Plus, I thought it might be a chance for me to see if they have yearbooks from the time my mom was here. She never really told Elyse and me very much about going to school here, so it would be interesting to see what clubs or sports she did. Maybe see if she had any old boyfriends she never talked about."

  "I guess that could be interesting if you're into that kind of thing," I allowed. "My dad and Mack's dad both graduated together, so I've heard stories here and there. Mostly about how Mack's dad always dominated on the basketball court while my dad was the ladies’ man who got voted Most Preferred."

  "That's fun." Ava's eyes lit up. "I didn't know Mack's dad was friends with your dad, too."

  I leaned back against the booth seat. "They've been best friends since they were kids. Been with each other through everything."

  "And they’re neighbors now, right?" she asked.

  I nodded. "Yep. My dad sold Mack's dad a few acres when he moved back after medical school and he built the house next door."

  Ava seemed thoughtful as she sipped her water. When she set the cup back down on the table, she said, "I think that's cool that they've stayed so close through all these years." She picked up the piece of pizza she'd been working on. "I have Elyse who's been like that for me, but I always think it's such a cool thing when I hear about adults who have been friends for decades and have all sorts of shared memories together. My mom wasn't like that. She kind of said something before about having a close-knit group of friends in high school, but it sounds like something happened after high school that caused her to lose touch with them all."

  "Didn't my dad say he was good friends with your mom back in the day?" I asked, remembering what my dad had said when he met the twins on Saturday.

  "I think so."

  "Maybe they just lost touch when they went off to college?" I shrugged. "Or when my dad got married to Dawn. I think it's harder to maintain friendships with the opposite sex when you have to worry about a wife getting jealous of the friendship."

  "Are you saying that if I want to have a lifelong friend from Eden Falls, I should probably stick with Scarlett or Cambrielle since your future wives—yours and Mack’s, Hunter’s, and Nash's—wouldn't be able to handle you guys being close friends with someone as alluring as me?"

  So she wanted to be friends now?

  I didn't know whether to be happy that she enjoyed my company enough to want to be friends or worried that I might be on my way to the friend zone.

  My subconscious must have been trying to figure out how to get the best of both worlds because I found myself saying, "Or you could just do like Mack's parents. They were friends in high school and managed to stay friends."

  "I would hope they were still friends since it sounds like they're married and all," Ava said, a smile in her eyes.

  I laughed. "Yes, well, I guess that does make a difference."

  "Is this your way of proposing to me, Carter?" Ava raised a teasing eyebrow. "Because we've only been pretending to date for less than a week. I think I might need to get past the two-week anniversary mark before I'm ready to make that kind of commitment."

  My cheeks heated with her flirtatious comment, because while I obviously hadn't been proposing anything, the thought of having a relationship for real with Ava wasn't as objectionable to me now as it’d been just a few days ago.

  Which couldn't be good because it would complicate everything.

  Wouldn't it?

  But since acting all flustered and uncomfortable at her assumptions would only make it obvious that I might be getting the tiniest crush on her, I put on my most unaffected expression and said, "I suppose I'll have to hold off on the ring shopping for a little longer then."

  21

  Ava

  "I guess I better let you go now," I said when Carter pulled up to the front of the school to drop me off after lunch. "I wouldn't want to make you late for whatever you have scheduled next in that planner of yours."

  "Is this your way of saying that having a routine makes life boring and predictable?" Carter asked from the driver’s seat of his truck. "Because I don't know how we'll make it to our two-week anniversary if you're going to make fun of my beloved bullet journal."

  "I would never dare make fun of such a thing," I said sarcastically as I unbuckled my seatbelt.

  "Sure you wouldn't," he said. "But the jokes on you because I actually let my wild side out on the weekends and try not to schedule anything. Hence the reason why I was able to fit in this spur-of-the-moment shopping trip."

  "You wild thing," I said in a joking tone. "Who knew that my math tutor was so good at living life on the edge?"

  Carter chuckled, and I liked the way it sounded—deep and throaty and not anything I would have expected after that first day I met him when I thought for sure he was a hoity-toity arrogant snob who couldn't be bothered by mere mortals like myself.

  But here we were, talking and laughing like we'd known each other for far longer than a week.

  It was actually strange to think just how much things had changed in a matter of a few days. At the pizzeria, I'd briefly mentioned wanting to make the kind of friends that lasted a lifetime while I was at the academy. But the more time I spent with Carter, the more I was finding that he was getting higher and higher on my list of possible lifelong friends.

  Sure we had that other thing going for us, where the slightest touch from him made my body feel like it’d just been touched by a livewire, and which would probably bother his future wife. But the more time I spent with him, the more time I wanted to spend with him.

  This had never happened to me before with a guy or anyone, for that matter. I'd always assumed it was because Elyse and I had our whole twin thing going, and so no one could ever rival that connection. I knew it seemed strange, but what I had with Carter felt a lot like it. Like we had some sort of intangible connection that just clicked.

  I'd thought it had to be a mostly physical attraction, since let’s face it, the guy was hot. But it was like our energy fields were the perfect match for each other, and once the initial connection was made, we couldn't be satisfied with being mere acquaintances anymore. We
needed more.

  Or at least, I needed more. I guess I couldn't really speak to how he felt about me since I couldn't read his mind.

  Though I couldn't help but think that we were like Bella and Edward in Twilight—just less vampiresque. Where Bella was Edward's exact blood type, Carter was my exact brand of human.

  But that was weird, wasn't it?

  More likely I was just drawn to the guy because he'd given me the best first kiss of my life yesterday and my mind was trying to think of an explanation for why I couldn't stop thinking about it.

  "So, are you going to get out?" Carter said from beside me, and I realized I'd totally just zoned out for a moment.

  "Yes, sorry." I reached for the door handle. "I guess you mentioning how you don't follow a strict schedule on the weekends just shocked me so bad that I forgot what I was doing."

  He chuckled. "Sure."

  He reached behind him to grab the shopping bags from the backseat, the movement causing his T-shirt to slip up at his side and give me a quick view of his tanned abs. And before I knew it, I was saying, "Actually, do you want to come in?"

  "What?" He gave me a confused look. "You want me to walk you in?"

  "No…" I tucked some hair behind my ear, suddenly worried I may have misread all our interactions from today. Were we not the kind of friends who hung out just for fun? But since I'd already started, I had to finish my invitation. "I, um, I just wondered—since you said you didn't have plans for the rest of the day—if you might want to come scavenge the yearbooks with me." Then just to give him a way out, I added, "But I totally understand if that's not your kind of thing. I'm sure you have better things to do at that mansion of yours."

  He handed the shopping bags to me and with a shrug, he said, "I guess I could help out for a little while."

  "Yeah?" My body flooded with relief and excitement at the same time.

  He wanted to spend time with me.

  His blue eyes studied mine for a second before he said, "I mean, it would probably help our little arrangement seem more believable if I spent most of the day with my girlfriend, right?"