Page 106 of The Fake Out

“Two days ago?”

“I honestly forgot I put in the offer until the realtor called me the morning after the wedding that the buyer had accepted. But then you were gone when I came back.”

“Oh,” I sighed out, realization dawning on me of how I broke my own heart.

“And then you texted me asking what we were supposed to tell everyone.”

Dammit. I had ruined it. It had been me who broke his heart. Not the other way around.

“It really hurt, V.”

“I thought you left like everyone else does,” I explained.

I didn’t want to tell Blaise that Olivia picked me up that morning and I cried my eyes out all day. She plied me with chemically made junk food, and I cried because, for the first time, I found someone I thought I could love, but he left me like everyone else. Like my mom did, like Seth, like every friendship I had before I met Liv. Liv doesn’t allow you to stop being her friend, which was what I loved about her.

Blaise pulled down a back alley and into the driveway of a townhouse. The house had a brick facade and a classic Philly style to it. I peered up and saw it had a rooftop deck. Rittenhouse Square was ritzy, and on Blaise’s salary, he could afford it.

He cut the engine of the car, and we quietly got out of it together. He walked me inside his house, and it became clear he had just moved in because while he had furniture set up, everything else looked bare.

Blaise took my coat and hung it up in the closet while I walked into his living room. I froze when I saw the painting of him leaning up against the wall.

My painting.

The one his dad had bought at my art show after he asked why I looked so sad. Until I burst into tears, and Hal pretended like he knew how to handle when women cried. He doesn’t, for the record. Which probably explained a lot about Blaise’s sister Maja.

Blaise saw me staring. “Oh.”

“You have my painting?”

He nodded. “Um…yeah, my dad might have thrown it at me after yelling at me to fix things with you.” He shuffled his feet and looked towards his kitchen. “You want a beer?”

I nodded but couldn’t speak. I wasn’t sure what I should even say to this man. He walked into his kitchen, and I heard him grabbing beers. He came back into the living room and handed me a 611 Ale.

I took the beer. “Oh. This is what we drank at the brewery the last time we went.”

He took a swig of his beer. “Yup.”

“Blaise.”

“Yeah, sweets?” he asked, but he wasn’t looking at me. He was looking down at his beer and picking at the label.

“Do you know what I did the day after the wedding?”

He shook his head but still wasn’t looking at me.

“Liv picked me up, and I cried the entire way home. Then I sat on my futon, ate a bunch of carbs, and cried the rest of the day.”

His head snapped up, and my heart wrenched when I saw his eyes were shiny. “Why?”

I wiped at my face, now realizing the tears were welling up in my eyes and a few had fallen. “Because I fell in love with you, and I wasn’t supposed to.”

He sat on his couch and put his beer on the coffee table. Then he patted the space next to him. “C’mere. Sit with me.”

I went to him, putting my beer next to his and gingerly sitting beside him. He put an arm around my shoulders. “I’m sorry.”

“What do you have to be sorry for?” I asked.

He caressed my cheek, and his thumbs wiped away my tears. “I never wanted to make you cry.”