Page 48 of Frosted Fakes

The bell over the door chimed, a delivery driver carrying a large box.

"Delivery for Elliott Sinclair?"

Elliott frowned. She hadn't ordered anything. "That's me."

She signed for it and carried the box to the counter. When she opened it, her heart stuttered.

A stand mixer. Professional grade. The same exact model as the one Julia had broken. But new and shiny and perfect. She looked up. Julia was watching her with an expression that was equal parts hopeful and terrified.

"I know it doesn't fix things," Julia said quickly. "I know you're angry, and I know money can't actually solve problems. But I didn't know what else to do. It's the only thing I'm good at, throwing money at problems, and I know that's pathetic, but I just wanted to do something to make it better…"

"Julia."

"I'm not trying to buy your forgiveness, I swear, I just couldn't stand the way you've been looking at me."

"Julia."

Julia stopped talking.

Elliott looked at the mixer. Looked at Julia, with her nervous eyes and her bitten lip and her arms still wrapped around herself like armor.

She thought about what it must have cost Julia to order this. Not the money, that was nothing to someone like her. But the vulnerability of it. The admission that she didn't know how to fix things except in this one fumbling way.

Julia wasn't spoiled. That wasn't the right word at all. She was just lost. Rich and lost and so desperate to please everyone that she'd never learned how to please herself. And Elliott couldn’t hold it over her anymore.

"Thank you," she said.

Julia's eyes went wide. "Really?"

"It doesn't fix everything." Elliott ran her hand over the mixer's smooth surface. "But it's a start."

"Okay." Julia's relief was palpable. "I mean, um, thank you. For accepting it."

"For what it's worth," Elliott said, "I don't think you need to prove yourself. At least not to me."

Julia huffed a laugh. "You’re probably the only person I know that thinks that."

"Eh, you might be surprised. Jamie feels protective over you. I bet he doesn’t think he’s in competition with you."

"Right. Mind you, by the looks of things, he’s going to be occupied fighting off my mother for the foreseeable future."

"The things he does for you," Elliott said. "I’d better put this mixer away."

She was halfway to the kitchen door when Julia spoke again.

"Elliott?"

"Mm?"

"Thank you. For earlier. When my mum was here." Julia's voice was soft. "You didn't have to do that. Hold me like that. Make it look real."

Elliott paused, her back still to Julia. She thought about the way Julia had felt against her side. The weight of her. The warmth. The way Elliott's arm had tightened instinctively, protectively, when she'd seen how small Julia had become.

"It's what fake girlfriends do," she said.

She didn't mention that it hadn't felt fake. Not entirely. Not in the ways that mattered.

"Right," Julia said. "The deal."