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A dull ache echoes through me. That ache is a bridge too far. I drag on the joint and hold in its smoke, calming myself, telling myself that ache’s only there because she’s Ren’s. Because the one good person in my life, who I haven’t managed to scare away, loves her fiercely and protectively.
“Friends,” I repeat on my exhale.
The wind whips back her hair, revealing her profile—that long straight nose, a cascade of cinnamon-spark freckles. She shrugs. “Yes. Friends.”
“What would you tell your brother? He’s not going to be suspicious that suddenly I’m friends with you, too?”
Ziggy bites her lip. “I’ll think of something. It would have been recent, obviously. Maybe it started when you and I talked at the wedding, which isn’t a lie. We did talk.”
I am not thinking about the fact that we talked on that terrace. I’m thinking about watching her lift up her dress like a dream come to life, sinking her hands into the fabric—
Don’t think about her taking off her panties. Don’t think about her taking off her panties.
I growl in my throat and massage the bridge of my nose.
“We bonded over…something,” she continues, oblivious to my suffering. A frown wrinkles her nose. “I’ll figure out what to tell him, he’ll believe me because he’s Ren, and that’ll be that. Friends. Totally plausible.”
A sigh leaves me. “Ziggy, I don’t exactly bond with people. I’m not the ‘friend’ type. I’m not sure how ‘plausible’ that would be.”
I watch her frown deepen in profile, seeing as she still won’t look at me. Her eyes stay on her knotted hands. “You’re friends with Ren.”
“Yes, but that’s because your brother is a saint with a complex about saving unsavable things.”
“Then it won’t be so implausible that I could view you the same way. Besides, you’re not unsavable,” she says matter-of-factly. “No one’s unsavable.”
There’s that ache again. An anxious band squeezes my lungs. “You’re very wrong, Ziggy dear.”
“I’m not. But I’m also not trying to save you. I’m just trying to leverage what’s advantageous in your terrible reputation, and I’m willing to barter with my spotless one.”
The panic tightening my ribs loosens. I know I disappoint Ren, even though he hides it well. I know he still hopes for me to redeem myself from the shithole existence I’ve dug myself into. And while I appreciate that it makes him stick with me, the truth is, knowing I’ll fail him one day like I’ve failed everyone else is a burden.
But with Ziggy, there’s no such risk.
Ziggy Bergman has on her shoulders a surprisingly level head. In two sentences she’s conveyed that she sees me much more realistically than her brother ever has.
And since that’s the case, since there’s no danger of my disappointing—and thus hurting—Ren’s little sister, who am I to say no to her when she’s offered me the perfect solution to my very pressing problem?
Slowly, I sit up and ease down my aching foot, bracing my elbows on my knees. “So…we’d pretend to be friends?”
She shrugs. “In a nutshell, yes.”
“You’d want us to be seen. Out and about.”
“Exactly. We do some things that polish your image, some things that rough up mine. When we’re both satisfied with the results, we’ll stop pretending and just act cordially.”
Cordially. It’s like one of Ren’s words, like carousing. I smile but hide it behind my hand, dragging my knuckles across my mouth. “Well, then. I’m in.”
“You mean it?” she asks.
I’m not someone whose word means anything. I’ve made promises and broken them. I’ve lied and sworn up and down I was telling the truth. But here, there’s no promise I can’t keep. I’m not vowing to change, knowing I’ll backslide. I’m promising only to look like I’ve reformed, to pretend to have experienced a positive transformation while she pursues her own.
Still, I’ll have to be careful. Putting myself regularly in Ziggy Bergman’s company, agreeing to deliberately dirty her name while letting her clean up mine, is going to require a considerable amount of care and effort on my part so I don’t do her any lasting damage.
I don’t make a habit of caring or exerting effort in anything except hockey. And fucking. And occasionally, drinking to incredible excess. But what else do I have to do for the next few weeks while my foot heals? Sit around in my underwear, waiting for my public-image crisis to magically resolve itself?
Pretend friendship has a nice ring to it. I don’t have real friends, besides Ren, and I don’t plan to find one in Ziggy. I don’t let others in, only for them to realize how much I’ll disappoint them. I don’t allow myself to care about people, because it’s too easy for them to disappear when I need them most.
Ziggy threatens none of that. She won’t be my real friend. I won’t let her in. And I certainly won’t care for her. It’ll be easy, once we have our plan in place—a transactional, mutually beneficial publicity stunt, nothing more.
