Lie With Me

by Holloway, Taylor

  Trent grinned. His teeth were still just as straight and perfect as I remembered. “Thanks! I never would have figured that out.”

  I smiled back. You’re an Ivy League educated lawyer who graduated second in his class. You work for one of the most prestigious law firms in the country. I’m calling bullshit. “Happy to help. And congratulations by the way.”

  “Thank you. I see you’ve found someone too. I saw your pictures from the other night. How’s the long-distance thing?”

  Thank you, Lucas.

  Not having to be honest to Trent that I couldn’t find a guy to date to save my own life was freakin’ miracle. It wasn’t like I didn’t try. It just seemed like every guy I met in this city was looking for something I wasn’t. Eight and a half million people lived on top of each other in this city and I couldn’t find one good one to fall in love with me. Plenty of losers who sent me unsolicited dick pics, but no keepers. Just last month I’d gone on several incredibly underwhelming first dates. There would be no second dates.

  “It’s going good so far,” I said, shrugging and gratefully pretending like Lucas and I were real. “Who knows what the future will bring?”

  “That’s fantastic Rae. I’m so glad you’re happy.” His brown eyes were warm.

  “I’m glad you’re happy too,” I told him.

  Although I wanted to be cynical and mean because of the way our relationship had ended, I found myself meaning what I said. It was surprising to me, but I was happy that Trent was happy. He didn’t belong with me, but that didn’t make him a bad person. He was smart, intelligent, and decent. I was sure he was a great husband for Joanne. He was even buying her Chunky Monkey.

  We made forgettable small talk for a few minutes before going our separate ways again, but the conversation itself stuck with me for several days. Trent and I were wrong for each other on so many levels, not just because he needed a more traditional partner. Our personalities were similar, and our politics were aligned, but there was always something missing between us. The spark that would make a person bend their own needs and will for someone else’s was never there with Trent and me. It made us less likely to compromise, and that ultimately compromised us. There was no one to blame. It was just fate.

  I tried to live my life without dwelling on the things I couldn’t change. Mostly I was good at it. I managed to avoid focusing on why my brother Jarrod had to have such a difficult time in our world as a trans guy and focus on how I could help him. I also managed to avoid focusing on why my dad died of cancer when I was eight and focus on how I could love and support the family I had left. But when it came to my dismal and unsuccessful love life, it was hard not to focus on whatever it was that must be wrong with me.

  The feeling that there was something wrong with me stuck with me all week, until Lucas smiled at me again. Then it vanished like smoke. What could be wrong with me if he smiled at me like that? I basked in the warmth of his smile and let myself pretend, for just a second, that his smile was really for me and not Victoria.

  “How was your flight?” he asked, grabbing my rollerboard and putting it in his trunk. He’d been kind enough to pick me up at the airport this time. I’d flown in the afternoon before Annie and Kyle, so that Lucas and I could have some extra time to ‘date’.

  “It wasn’t bad,” I answered, smiling back at him. “To be honest, I’m just glad to be out of New York. This time of year, it’s always just cold, wet, and miserable.”

  Austin was eighty-five degrees and sunny. In October! It was a harvest miracle.

  “When does the rest of your team get in?” he asked. He opened the car door for me and I smiled at his polite gesture.

  “Tomorrow morning.” When he joined me in the car, I continued, “The due diligence process is going really well so far. I know you’ve only done this once before, but trust me, this is not how it usually goes. This has been the easiest deal I’ve ever worked on.”

  Lucas had sold his first app straight out of college. It had netted him a cool, low seven figures with which to fund his young adulthood. I didn’t know his net worth, but unless he was just terrible with money, he was probably still in the black.

  Lucas smirked at me. “I’m glad it’s been relatively painless for you and your team.”

  “You haven’t made us root through even one vermin infested basement yet, so yes. It’s painless.” I smiled at him. “I hope we haven’t been too awful to deal with, either.”

  “I’m not complaining.”

  A rogue thought killed my smile. “Did you look through the management agreements that I sent you?”

  Lucas stopped smiling as well. “I did.”

  “And?”

  “I guess Azure Group really wants to make sure they have a way to get rid of me the moment I think for myself.” His voice was more resigned than bitter. I let out the breath I’d been holding.

  “That’s the general idea, yeah. I’m sorry.” I felt weirdly ashamed of how shitty the agreements were. Usually it would be a platitude when I said as much to a client, but in Lucas’ case it was true. I was sorry that he’d be losing control over his company. He seemed like he really believed in it.

  But Lucas merely shrugged. “It’s not your fault. My lawyer told me it would probably be like this.” His voice held no recrimination.

  I was glad he had a good lawyer. Having to explain to Lucas that I had no control of this part of the negotiation would have been difficult. I was basically just a conduit of information anyway. The truth was that I was more client wrangler than lawyer at this point.

  “Well I hope you’re ready to get out and enjoy the sunshine,” Lucas said, changing the subject. “You did remember to bring your swimsuit, didn’t you?”

  He’d texted that I should bring one. Butterflies flapped around wildly in my tummy. Of course, he would want pictures of me in a bikini to really make Victoria jealous. But it would also mean I’d get to see him in a bathing suit.

  “We’re going to Zilker Park,” he told me as he eased his sleek Tesla out of the waiting line at the airport. “There’s a natural swimming spot there called Barton Springs. You’re gonna love it.”

  12

  Rae

  I’d never been as freakin’ miserable in my entire life. The water in Barton Springs was deep, clear, and so incredibly, freakishly, nightmarishly cold that my toes cramped up. I scrambled out of the frigid water like a cat that fell into a bathtub and panted on the concrete. Somehow, it felt even colder outside the water.

  “What the fuck, Lucas?” I cried between gasps. My voice was shrill. He’d challenged me to a race across the pool and stupidly, I agreed. I only made it about ten feet after jumping in.

  From the icy cold water, Lucas laughed his ass off. “Cold huh?”

  No shit.

  “I thought you meant it was a hot spring, not an ice bath!” I was lying flat on my back, staring at the blue autumn sky, and shivering. I turned my head to see a concerned expression had appeared on his handsome face. He quickly swam toward the edge of the pool.

  “Oh, no. Not a hot springs. Just a regular springs. It’s sixty-eight degrees all year-round.” He pulled himself smoothly out of the water, giving me an excellent view of his chiseled abs and pecs, as well as his sturdy shoulders. I ought to be panting from the sight of him, but I was too damn cold to care.

  He scooped me up by the shoulders and settled a towel around me, half pulling me into his lap. The towel did next to nothing to warm me, but his body heat helped ease the cold. I sunk guiltily into the feeling of being held, even like this. It had been a long time since someone had held me.

  “Shit, Rae. I’m sorry, don’t be mad.” His voice came through as a rumble with my ear against his chest. He had a really nice voice, smooth and low. The combination of the voice and his lanky, muscular body was impossible to ignore. Even being plunged into the awful, cold water wasn’t enough to distract me from Lucas.

  “That was a mean trick,” I told him, pouting. In New York we
don’t go swimming in water that cold. Not ever. At least, not on purpose. If we get accidentally shoved into the Hudson, then sure. But no one would ever consider a dip in sixty-eight-degree water to be a healthy, normal activity.

  “I’m sorry,” Lucas said. His expression was total contrition and his incredible hazel eyes were wide and innocent. He looked genuinely sorry, but I wasn’t about to let him off the hook so easily. He just tricked me into jumping into frigid water. The fact that other people—children even—were swimming in the pool didn’t excuse it. Apparently, people in Texas are completely and totally crazy. Their summer heat must have driven them insane, or maybe it was the politics. These were the people that put jalapenos on a burger. In hindsight I probably should have known.

  “I’m gonna get you back for this,” I promised him fake-menacingly, leaning in until I was just an inch from his ear. “Somehow, some way, I’ll get you back.”

  I pulled back and stared at him with my meanest, most unpleasant face, but when his eyes went wide when he started to wonder if I was really mad, I couldn’t keep it up. I giggled, and he joined in a moment later. Relief was evident in his laugh. He rocked me lightly in his arms and I laughed even more.

  When our laughter subsided, we found ourselves wet and almost naked in each other’s arms on the side of the pool. The noise around us, a cacophony of children playing, swimmers splashing, and people talking, receded. They all but disappeared. I was only seeing Lucas.

  I became hyperaware of everywhere our bodies touched, his arm behind my shoulders, my palm against his bicep, the soft curves of my chest pressed to the muscles of his, and most especially, where my ass rubbed against his lap with only thin, wet fabric to separate us. My nipples were so hard from the cold that they ached. In fact, my entire body had started to ache with an urgent, dull feeling. Not from the cold. For him.

  My breath flowed out of me in a rush as I stared into Lucas’ incredible hazel eyes. I thought I saw my own shock, and my sudden wanton need, reflected there. Seeing his desire multiplied my own tenfold. My heart hammered against my cold, exposed ribs. Neither one of us seemed to know what to do with our feelings. We were caught up in a moment, and I think it shocked us both. I felt his cock growing long and hard against my backside. It was impossible to ignore, and I didn’t want to. I wanted more.

  “Look at you two lovebirds.” The voice that ruined it was throaty, female, sarcastic, and oddly familiar. Lucas and I both looked up. My mouth dropped open.

  “Victoria?” Lucas stuttered.

  Lucas’ ex-girlfriend Victoria was Victoria Priestly. The lead singer of Edelweiss, an indie rock band whose debut single was on heavy rotation on every alternative rock radio station that didn’t suck from coast to coast, Victoria Priestly was about to become famous. She was poised right on the edge of stardom.

  Lucas’ ex was a fucking Rockstar? That’s just not fair.

  I wished I didn’t know who she was, but I did. I’d actually known about her for almost a year, well before her music got big. Edelweiss played a super trendy club in Brooklyn that I’m still not sure why I was allowed into, but I’d bought the album that night. It was still my go-to jogging music. Her voice sounded like an edgier Adele crossed with a more polished Janis Joplin, low, throaty, and full of wild emotion. She had a voice that was meant for rock and roll and a look that matched. I liked her. Or I had until this moment.

  Victoria was quite a bit taller than me. I realized this fact when Lucas and I both scrambled to our feet in a rushed, ungainly tangle of limbs. She was at least three inches taller than me, and I felt small and fragile by comparison. Never had my perfectly respectable five-foot six-inch height felt so thoroughly inadequate. In fact, almost everything about me felt inadequate by comparison. Having this conversation while we were all wearing swimsuits made it about a thousand times more awkward. At least her tits were a lot smaller than mine. She barely filled out the triangles of her yellow, polka-dotted bikini.

  “Hi Victoria,” Lucas was saying at my side. He’d wrapped an arm around my waist possessively and pulled me against his erection, presumably to hide it from her. He was smiling confidently and with such cool, total nonchalance that I would never have known it was a moment of a lot of conflicting feelings for him if I couldn’t feel his hard cock pressing firmly against the cleft of my ass. “Rae, this is my old friend Victoria.”

  “Hello Victoria. It’s very nice to meet you,” I told her, putting my emotions on lockdown and extending a hand. I bent forward a bit and rubbed my butt against Lucas’ cock just a bit to remind him that I was aware of it. My face was a neutral, impenetrable mask. “Lucas has told me so much about you.”

  “Nice to meet you too Wren,” Victoria said smoothly, shaking my cold, wet hand with her warm, dry one. Her meticulously made-up green eyes lingered on where Lucas’ palm sat firmly atop the curve of my hip. They narrowed dangerously.

  “Rae,” I corrected with a big smile.

  She adjusted her view from my midsection to my face. “What?”

  “My name. It’s Rae, like Rachel. Not Wren.”

  She smiled a very fake smile. “Oh, Rae. I’m so sorry. I’m just horrible with names.”

  I shrugged. You’re not sorry, I thought to myself. Dislike for me was practically radiating off of the gorgeous woman in waves. The feeling was becoming increasingly mutual.

  It certainly didn’t help that she was fucking gorgeous. Tall, willowy, with bright orange hair that fell around her perfect face in ringlets, Victoria looked more than a little bit like a wild, fairy princess. Her fay look was accentuated by a variety of tattoos and piercings, a razor thin figure, and elaborate winged eye makeup. I felt decidedly ordinary and, well, fat next to her. At least my black, scalloped bikini was cute, and I filled it out nicely. I may not be tall and skinny, but I’m not exactly hideous either.

  I’d imagined that when I met Victoria, I would feel some sort of sympathy for her. Part of me had convinced myself that I was doing some sort of good deed by helping Lucas and Victoria get back together. But now that I was staring at her, I didn’t feel anything positive whatsoever. Actually, I felt possessive of Lucas, which was ridiculous, because he wasn’t mine.

  I forced those feelings away and tried to focus on the conversation that Lucas and Victoria were having.

  “I didn’t know you were in town,” Lucas said to Victoria, and I could very well have believed that it was true if I didn’t know it to be bullshit. There’s not a chance that Lucas didn’t plan this. He was just too damn clever for that. I just wished he had let me in on his plan. A warning would have really been nice.

  “I still live here!” Victoria replied with another big, white smile. She laughed lightly. “Although,” she added with a dramatic sigh, “with all the traveling we’ve been doing, it’s hard to remember that sometimes. Sometimes I just feel like a gypsy on the road. But I’m here for at least the next month or so while we recuperate from the tour.” She paused for a moment. “We’re playing the Zilker Hillside Theater tonight.” Her green eyes searched Lucas’ face. “You should come. We could hang out afterward.”

  Lucas had explained to me that the hillside theater just across the street from the pool was a popular venue in the summers. Which explained why she was here. And why he knew she would be. Damn scheming Lucas. He was lucky he was so damn hot and charming. Otherwise I’d probably be really pissed off. As it was, I could only work up a mild irritation.

  “I wish we could,” Lucas told her, shaking his head in obviously fake sorrow. His wet hair flew everywhere, and I wanted to push it back. “But we’ve got date night plans. Reservations you know.”

  “Too bad,” she replied, pouting. “But we’re sold out anyway. I doubt you could find tickets.”

  Lucas and Victoria proceeded to make meaningless small talk that was a poorly veiled verbal sparring match. She would make a snippy, borderline rude comment, he defused it, and then she pushed harder. Each time, he calmly redirected the conversation, which only w
orked her up more. It was like watching someone stoke a fire. Sooner or later, she’d ignite. I was pretty sure I didn’t want to be around when she exploded.

  She was ignoring me entirely, which was fine, since it gave me a better chance to observe her. Everything about her radiated tension and jealousy. Her arms were crossed in front of her chest. Her eyes darted around Lucas’ face urgently. Even her toe was tapping restlessly. When her attention did slide to me, her expression was dismissive.

  Lucas had to have known that she had a personality that was highly motivated by jealousy, but now that I saw Victoria in action, I could see that it was very, very true. I was slightly afraid of her, truth be told. I’m not one to intimidate easily, but I don’t seek out conflict or drama, either. It seemed to me like Victoria thrived off it.

  “So, Rae,” Victoria asked me. “How long have you and Lucas been together?” Her eyes looked me over like she expected the answer to be “ten minutes ago” and “we met on Craigslist’s escort section”.

  Why she was asking me and not Lucas was a mystery. She clearly didn’t mind ignoring me. I decided to be cautious and succinct with my replies. I didn’t want to be drawn into any traps, and I’m not the best liar.

  “Not super long. A few weeks.” I smiled up at him and Lucas pressed his lips to my forehead. As first kisses go it was unimpressive, but it was enough to make Victoria’s left eye twitch and her smile freeze on her face.

  “That’s just wonderful,” she said, using the same tone of voice that I would use if I got off the subway to find it was raining and I’d forgotten my umbrella. I smiled like Mona Lisa. Then she struck, “Jason and I have only been together a few weeks too. Isn’t new love fun? It’s the best part.”

  Lucas had gone still at my side, but a feeling of competitiveness had been growing in me during the entire exchange with Victoria. I wasn’t about to let her come out of this conversation with the upper hand. And Jason, whoever the hell he was, didn’t seem to be around.