Fake It Till You Make It

by Anne Harper

  “I thought you’d be mad at me, to be honest,” Sloane admitted. “I lied to you. More than once.”

  Emma nodded. “You did; that’s true. But you were going through a lot, and you did what you thought was best to make it through.” She shrugged. “Was I hurt? Yeah, but sometimes, even best friends need some grace between them. I think now that we’re older, it’s easier for me to forget what you and Callum have gone through and are still going through. That, despite us being close, there are some things I just can’t force you to feel or do just because I want you to feel or do them.” She stuck her spoon into the ice cream, then reached out and squeezed Sloane’s arm. “I am so proud of you for putting yourself out there and standing up for what you want. And I mean that from the bottom of my heart.”

  Sloane, who had admittedly cried off and on since Callum had taken her home from the auditorium, felt a genuine warmth at her best friend’s words.

  Because she had taken a stand and she was proud of herself, too. Even if the outcome had hurt.

  “Thank you. And I mean that from the bottom of my heart.”

  Emma gave her arm one more affectionate squeeze before returning to the ice cream. They ate a few more scoops before she broke the silence again.

  “I came over here to support you in whatever way you needed, whether that be not saying a word or talking about everything. And I’m still going to do that no matter what your answer is, but now I have to ask—have you decided to stay, or are you still going to go?”

  Sloane was done with hiding the truth. She didn’t bother skirting around the decision she’d made lying awake in her bed earlier in the day.

  “After my parents died, I had a really hard time feeling comfortable with my life. Then I met Mrs. Baker and Raphael in Nashville and fell in love with helping people celebrate the big things—the important, filled-with-love things. Then suddenly I wanted to do it myself. And, maybe because I had a hard time really connecting with people, that felt like the only dream I could have. When Mrs. Baker offered to sell me half of the flower shop? That idea instantly consumed me. I could literally buy and cement the slice of life I’d become comfortable with. Preserve it. Never let it change… But then I published my secrets and realized that I wanted more—I want more—than one slice of comfortable. I want the whole messy pie.”

  The satisfying feeling of having an epiphany about her life waned into an ache.

  “That being said, I think it’s time for me to go back to that slice,” she continued. “At least for a while. I might be open to new possibilities now, but I still owe it to myself to see that through, too. Plus, I don’t think seeing one particular slice of pie around town all the time would feel too great. I might have confronted my past emotional self-preservation, but that doesn’t mean the urge to protect myself went away entirely.”

  Sloane gave her an apologetic look. Emma surprised her with an encouraging smile.

  “Then I’ll help you pack,” she said. “When you’re ready.”

  Sloane put down her spoon and hugged Emma tight. Then she smiled at the thought of her mother, years ago, standing where she was now. Eating ice cream and talking to her best friend.

  It made the pain in Sloane’s chest hurt a little less.

  …

  Brady was standing on the front porch, feeling a whole hell of a lot more than he should have been feeling while holding a paintbrush.

  Five days had gone by since the disaster at the auditorium. During those five days, he’d all but stayed in the apartment or out of sight at the bar. Business had more than picked up, but most of the patrons wanted to give him a piece of their mind one way or the other, thanks to the video Carol had streamed live going viral. His uncle and Dixon had been nice enough to cover for him, but Brady knew that couldn’t last.

  Just like the pit of despair in his stomach that hadn’t moved an inch since he’d left Sloane standing there, laying it all out on the line to him, wasn’t going to fill.

  But you left her, and then you disappeared.

  Feeling the shame of what he’d done wasn’t new, but that morning Brady had decided to clean his truck to keep his mind busy, and, when he found a paintbrush, he’d felt a whole slew of new emotions.

  It wasn’t just a paintbrush.

  It was the paintbrush.

  The one he’d kept in his mouth while hoisting Sloane up to grab the box in her brother’s garage. The one he’d been prepared to use to knock the larger-than-life spider off her back…before she’d stripped instead.

  The one he’d all but forgotten when she’d kissed him in the kitchen. The first time they’d done that alone.

  It was such a small thing in his hand now, but it had been powerful enough to send him into an emotional and enlightening tailspin. Even Dixon had picked up on the change. He’d given Brady something to think about before he’d left.

  “If you need to be Mopey Brady again because your heart hurts, I’m okay with that,” Dixon had said. “But just so I know that at least one person has said it out loud to you—if you miss her, there’s one really easy fix for that.”

  Dixon hadn’t said anything more, and now Brady was standing on Callum’s front porch with a paintbrush in his hand.

  He didn’t know what one thing had compelled him to drive there or to knock, but when Callum opened the door, he knew one thing was absolutely true.

  He loved Sloane, too.

  And he missed her.

  More than he’d ever missed anyone else, and it had only been five days since he’d seen her.

  He missed her talking his ear off, her laughing at her own puns, and every single blush. He missed her awkwardness and the face she made when she was annoyed but trying really hard to stay polite. He missed her superpower of making what should be a quick goodbye last for hours. He missed her uncanny ability to stumble into the weirdest situations and then try her damnedest to play them off as normal.

  He missed her sundress.

  And yet he’d been the one to end it.

  “What are you doing here?” Callum crossed his arms over his chest and gave Brady a look that could have killed. “You know Sloane left two days ago, right?”

  Brady winced, though he already knew. The gossip of her leaving town had spread like wildfire. One that burned its way right to Brady, despite his mostly self-imposed isolation.

  What had he expected after basically telling her to go back to her old life?

  “I know,” Brady said quietly. He held the paintbrush up for a second, deciding that he’d tell Callum he was really there to return it. Instead, what he said came straight from the heart. “I’m in love with her, and I’ve been a total ass about it all. I need your help.”

  Callum, who had every right to slam the door in his face, narrowed his eyes for a moment, as if waiting for Brady to say just kidding. Brady took the opportunity to plead his case to the most important person in Sloane’s life.

  “I love the bar. I mean, really, I love it. To me it’s family and the only dream I’ve ever had. Then Sloane slapped her hand over my mouth outside of the bathrooms and begged me to keep her secret. After that? I went from a guy who didn’t really like people to wanting to be the Guy. Her guy. Her person. One second I was worried only about the bar, and the next I was reading labels on aloe bottles in the grocery store.” Brady let out a long breath. “I don’t know how she did it, but Sloane made me want to be a better person without me even realizing it.”

  “Then why did you reject her?” Callum’s tone was harsh, and Brady deserved it. “She told you she didn’t love Marcus anymore. And, in fact, told Marcus that right after you left.”

  That was news to Brady. The video Carol had streamed live online had stopped after Brady had left the lobby.

  “Did you think she was lying?” Callum asked.

  This had been one of the questions that had slunk around the
edges of Brady’s mind the last few days.

  Did he really think Sloane was still in love with Marcus?

  He shook his head.

  No. He didn’t.

  “I believe her now, and I think I did then, too,” he admitted. “But reading that blog post just reminded me that she had a life outside of Arbor Bay. One she shouldn’t have to give up for me, a guy who had to fake being nice to people because he’d turned into an asshat after his heart had been broken.”

  When Sloane had said she wanted him, Brady had wanted more than anything to kiss her right then and there. But not everyone could ignore their insecurities.

  He hadn’t been able to then.

  “Then why are you here now?” Callum asked, repeating Brady’s internal monologue before he’d even knocked on the door. “What do you need my help with?”

  Brady motioned to the paintbrush in his hand.

  “Because, for the first time in my life, I think I might have a new dream.”

  It was a simple, honest answer.

  One he wanted to share with Sloane, not her brother.

  “I just need to find a way to make everything right.”

  There it was.

  The truth without any insecurities attached.

  Brady wanted Sloane, and he was willing to make it work.

  If she’d still have him.

  Brady tensed, half expecting Callum to tell him to beat it. However, Callum uncrossed his arms. Then he stepped aside.

  “So let’s figure out a plan.”

  He motioned for Brady to follow him but not before pausing long enough to give a warning.

  “And, Brady? If you hurt my sister again, you’re going to feel the wrath of every De Carlo, living and from beyond the grave, coming for you. Understood?”

  Brady knew a promise when he heard it.

  “Understood.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Mary and Rebecca Saunders had three hundred wedding guests. It was one of the largest Sloane had seen at the Jane Hopper Estate, droves of well-dressed people pouring over from the main hall where the ceremony was held and into the grand room where the reception had taken place.

  It was a nice wedding. Fun, too. Even the head chef in charge of the food, one of her bosses, Raphael, had commended the event as a favorite. He’d even gotten a bit misty-eyed when, before the bride and bride walk-out, both sets of parents had decided to give one last toast.

  Sloane had expected the sight would hurt her a little. But she’d surprised herself.

  She smiled at how much love was in the room and was one of the first to clap when they were done.

  Now, an hour or so later, Sloane was back in the main hall. She had a trash bag in her hand but was staring at the metal archway still standing at the end of the room.

  She sighed. She had a lot of hopes of what came next. She hoped that soon she could become co-owners with Mrs. Baker at the florist shop, finally owning that piece of her comfort. After that, she hoped she had the courage to bite the bullet and start her own event-planning business. One where, unlike the florist shop or her odd jobs now, she would be the sole boss. The one who built something from nothing and watched it grow.

  That is, if her brand-new literary agent could sell her blog as a book to help make both dreams a reality. Now that it had an ending, Rizzie had said she was almost positive she could. Especially since it had ended with a twist.

  The Girl Who Said Nothing wasn’t a chronicle of a girl too afraid to tell a boy she loved him. It was the journey of a girl who had been too afraid to love at all. But then that girl had become a woman. One who’d finally let herself fall for someone. To connect.

  Even if it hadn’t turned into a happily ever after.

  “You took a chance, and it didn’t work out,” Rizzie had said after Sloane came clean to her about lying. “That’s all any of us can do, and that will be something everyone can relate to.”

  Sloane had seen the truth in her words after her viral status had doubled down after Carol had streamed the live video from the auditorium. The sound for Brady hadn’t come in as well, but Sloane’s voice through the speakers was crystal clear.

  Self-growth and epiphanies aside, that still hurt a week later.

  Sloane suspected it would keep hurting for a while more.

  She sighed and bent down to grab a discarded program from beneath one of the seats. It was an awkward angle, so she had to twist to try and reach. Her arm wasn’t long enough, but she was stubborn. She put her bag down and went lower in another attempt, but someone’s hand got to it first from the other direction.

  “Oh, thanks,” she said, fully expecting it to be one of the other staff members on clean-up duty. However, when she straightened, it was none other than the Golden Boy of Arbor Bay.

  “Marcus?”

  He was dressed down in jeans and a Star Trek T-shirt. His signature winning smile was on. “Hey.”

  Sloane knew she looked like a wackadoodle. She was in Nashville, at her job, and Marcus was acting like it was normal for him to be there. She just stared at him until he started talking again.

  “We never really got a chance to talk the other day, so why not do it now?”

  That shook Sloane out of her confusion. As much as the last two weeks hadn’t been about Marcus, they kind of had been at the same time.

  “Me first,” she hurried. “I just wanted to say again how sorry I am about the whole creepily writing about you for years and then not even having the courage to tell you about it thing. And then, well, telling you before admitting that—”

  “That you don’t really love me,” he finished.

  She nodded, feeling oddly apologetic. “Do you remember the day we spent at your family’s garden? We were seventeen, and you had that broken arm from football?”

  He nodded. “You came over with Ms. Peggy while she got something from Mom, right? Then I found you at the fountain.”

  “Yeah. What I don’t think I told you at the time was that it was the day after the anniversary of my parents’ deaths, and the whole reason Ms. Peggy dragged me along with her was because I’d been really depressed. It was…it was just too hard. Being seventeen was bad enough, but everything just reminded me that it was just Callum and me. But, that day in the garden with you did something that hadn’t happened to me yet. Somehow, just for the moment, I forgot about the empty house. The pain. Instead I was just a girl talking to a boy wearing a cast, throwing rocks into a fountain and laughing.” Sloane smiled. “That feeling, I think, is what I fell in love with. That simple happiness that had been really hard to find. I should have told you, but, well, it was easier not to. I’m sorry.”

  That was it.

  The simple origin story of The Girl Who Said Nothing.

  The boy with the cast was now the man with the Star Trek shirt and the same smile.

  “You have no reason to apologize. For any of it,” he said. “In fact, one reason I’m here is to tell you that, as far as I’m concerned, we’re friends for life, Sloane De Carlo. Small town or not.” He took in a long breath and let it out. “Another reason I’m here is to actually apologize to you. For Carol. Please hear her out.” He turned toward the entrance of the room. “Carol?”

  Sloane could have been blown over by a feather at how surprised she was when Queen Bee herself peeked around the corner at them. She had something in her hands.

  Marcus pumped his smile once more and then walked to and past his twin, who was walking right up to Sloane like it was just another normal afternoon.

  Carol stopped a few feet from her. A moment or two crept by. Sloane wasn’t sure Carol was going to say a damn thing until, finally, she did.

  “You were right. You are right. I’ve been a total bitch to you and to Brady and, well, to a lot of people. For no reason other than jealousy, which is a cop-out reason, I
know. See, my family has a lot, and I should just be grateful for that, but there’re certain expectations that come with it all.” For the first time since Sloane had known the woman, she actually looked like she felt guilty. “I’ve grown up in the spotlight, and at some point I guess I became afraid of ever living outside of it. When you showed up and then you and Brady became the center of attention? Well, I’m not like Marcus. People…they don’t come easy to me. Instead of trying to be a part of your story, I tried to find a way to make it mine. If you can’t join them, beat them.” Carol shrugged. “It’s not a good excuse, and not much better than being a stereotypical mean girl, but it’s the truth. One I think it’s finally time to work on.”

  Sloane didn’t know what to say, but then Carol gave her two things Sloane never thought she’d get from the woman.

  “I’m sorry for everything I did, Sloane. I really am. But I didn’t think you’d believe me, so I thought I better have something to show I made an effort.”

  Then she handed Sloane a picture.

  “I don’t know if you have a copy of this or not, but I found it in my mom’s old book club boxes and thought you might want it.”

  Sloane had done a good job of not crying in public for the last three weeks. She hadn’t cried when she told Brady about her parents, and she hadn’t cried when he walked away. But now? Tears instantly rimmed Sloane’s eyes.

  “It’s me and my mom.”

  It wasn’t the best-quality photo, but somehow that made it feel more real. There was a young Stella De Carlo, caught mid-laugh as the very young Sloane stood next to her on the lip of the Robertson fountain. Her mom was holding her hand; Sloane was smiling.

  They both were happy.

  “I—I don’t have any pictures like this,” Sloane said around the lump that had formed in her throat. She ran her thumb over a precious moment frozen in time.

  “I looked through every box and photo album through the years to see if there were any more, but that’s the only one I found of her. Mom said she might have some in her office and that she’d look—”