“Oh sorry, princess. I forgot you’re with Freddie now. You probably don’t know what a huge?—”
“I’ll have you know,” Alex cuts in, curling into Freddie’s side, “I’m very satisfied with my man’s equipment.”
“And that’s more than any woman’s ever said about you, Ethan,” Freddie adds with a smirk.
While they bicker, I find myself asking Tara, “What were you saying about the mural?”
“Just that it’s surprising,” she says, some of her usual fire returning. “Not very black and gray. Not very you.”
“I own a pink shirt now,” I counter automatically.
“You looked great in it.” Her eyes flash to mine, something soft and dangerous there. “God forbid we add any actual color to your perfect grayscale world.”
“What if I like it that way?”
“Oh right, because it would be just terrible if anything was bright or joyful or—” She catches herself, realizing how heated her voice has become. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter now anyway. I spoke to Janine. I’m working with Maria; she said you and Jonny are getting on well with the rest of it.”
“Maria?” I sneer.
The air between us feels charged, loaded with everything we aren’t saying. I don’t notice Troy’s head snap up at the tension in his sister’s voice, don’t catch his eyes narrowing as he looks between us.
“What’s going on with you two?” Troy asks slowly.
My throat tightens. I’ve imagined this moment a hundred times. Troy finding out I fell for his sister, that I pushed her away, that I’m a gigantic douchebag. But now that it’s happening, I can’t find the words.
“The weather. It’s making us all feel a little crazy,” Alex replies quickly. Too quickly. “Some people say the mountains can cause headaches.”
An uncomfortable silence falls. I watch Tara fidget with her napkin, her fingers tracing the edge like she does when she’s nervous. I used to catch her doing that during family dinners, when my mother would make some thinly veiled comment about her background. I’d wanted to reach for her hand then too.
“Okay, what the hell is going on?” Troy looks around the table, his instincts clearly kicking in. “You’re all acting weird. Did something happen?”
No one speaks. Ethan suddenly becomes very interested in his beer label. Freddie and Alex exchange glances that say everything.
“Nothing happened,” Tara says, but her voice is tight and sounds like she’s trying not to cry. The sound makes my chest ache. “Everything’s fine.”
“Bullshit.” Troy’s eyes narrow, and I see the moment his suspicion crystallizes into something darker. “Especially you two”—he gestures between Tara and me—"are being weird. You haven’t stopped glaring at each other all night.”
Because I can’t look away,I want to say.Because I’m scared if I do, I’ll forget how it felt to make her smile, to watch her face light up when she talked about fossils, to hold her while she slept.
“I’m going to get another drink,” Troy announces, pushing back from the table. “And when I get back, someone better start explaining.”
As soon as Troy heads toward the bar, Ethan sighs dramatically. “You know we’re going to have to tell him about the whole fake dating thing eventually. Better to rip the band-aid off?—”
“Tell me about what?”
The color drains from Ethan’s face as Troy appears behind him reaching to grab his wallet he left on the table. My stomach drops. This is it, the moment I lose my best friend.
“I can explain…” I start, already preparing to take the full blame, to tell Troy it was all my idea. But Tara cuts me off.
“No,” she says, standing. “I’ll handle this.” She looks at me, really looks at me, for the first time all night, and the hurt in her eyes feels like a physical blow. “You’ve handledenoughlately.”
The jab lands exactly as intended - she knows I can’tstand seeing her hurt, knows it kills me not to protect her. But that’s why we’re in this mess, isn’t it?
I’m itching to stand up as she leads Troy outside of the bar, her pink dress looking fucking fantastic.
“Well,” Ethan says into the silence, “this should be interesting.”
Alex kicks him under the table, but I barely register it. I crane my neck to get a better look at her. I’m too focused on Tara’s hands. She’s explaining very dynamically to Troy.
