Fake It 'til You Make It, page 23
She sighs. ‘I couldn’t just leave. Plus, the thing I hate most about what Andrew did to me was his cowardliness. If I just left, ran away, wouldn’t I be just the same?’
Her words strike an immediate chord. ‘Like me, you mean?’
She springs up to sit. ‘Gosh, no, I didn’t mean that. It’s not the same. You would have had media attention to contend with and—’
‘It’s okay. You’re right. I’ve been thinking it myself. It’s time to go and face the music at home.’
Her silence speaks volumes. She agrees.
‘So, do you want to dissect the lunch and tell me the finer details of your demise, or would you like me to tell you something interesting, maybe even quite cool?’
She pulls a face like an actress might pull for a theatre to show she’s weighing up the options. ‘Cool like the first man on the moon? Or like my own peanut-butter-making machine with an endless supply of nuts in my bedroom?’
I shake my head. ‘You’re such a freak.’
She smiles. Finally. ‘Pot calling the kettle black, my friend. Go on then, tell me something really cool.’
I tell her about my call with my accountants and Matt’s offer to speak with her about a job.
I’m met by a blank expression. Maybe I’ve got this all wrong. Maybe she’s more into acting than I’ve appreciated and possibly I let myself think she might not be because that would make her more accessible, more like someone I wouldn’t be as afraid to start a relationship with.
‘Mike… I need to tell you something.’
I still at the severity of her tone. What this time?
‘I’m not really an actress. I mean, I am. Kind of.’ She shakes her head, eyes to the ceiling, though I’m not following why she seems so exasperated. ‘When I needed a date for my parents’ party, Shernette and Dee set me up a Tinder profile and, given I was actually unemployed and, let’s face it, had a fairly dull job by most people’s standards, they set me up as an actress.’
Huh. ‘That’s not what I was expecting.’
She exhales heavily, like a weight has been lifted from her. ‘Then you made the assumption, understandably, that I was an actress and, well, I figured you wouldn’t want to even fake date an auditor. Not when you’re…’ She gestures from my head to my toes. ‘You. So I let you believe it.’
She lied.
‘But I also didn’t want to lie. So I asked Dee to get me a job on her set and she did. I was acting, just as an extra.’
So much slots into place with her words. So much doesn’t. ‘What about your apartment? How can you…?’
‘Afford it as an unemployed auditor?’ She sighs. ‘I blew my entire wedding fund on six months’ rent in a bid to fake it until I could make it. Except, I’m not sure what I’m trying to fake anymore. Then you’ve just told me something the old me would have been ecstatic and nervous about in equal measure and… I don’t want to mislead you anymore, Mike. I’m really sorry, and if you don’t want to go through with this whole façade anymore, I… I get it. But I’m really hoping you’ll stay.’
She’s been lying to me.
But she just shared the truth and it would be the perfect opportunity for me to do the same.
‘Abbey…’ I have to tell her now.
Except, my reveal would be much bigger, much worse. She thinks her white lies are despicable, when actually, I’m pleased she’s not an actress. I’m happy she’s normal. Normal is a great thing.
Her reveal only highlights how big and deep my deceit runs.
Or is now selfish? Is now about me and how much I’d like to lie her back on that bed? She’s had a shitty day and finally some good news. Better news than I even thought it would be earlier today.
I’m not going to ruin it for her.
God, I need some space. This is all too much and too weird and my head is an absolute car crash as it is.
Coward, coward, coward, coward, coward.
40
TED
I’m sitting at a table out on the back deck, a mug of coffee and a cinnamon bagel next to my laptop. Even though it’s my R&D Friday, I wade through work emails that I should have been dealing with yesterday.
Abbey heads outside from the kitchen, biting into a slice of toast smothered in peanut butter and holding a mug. ‘Are you ready to put on those hiking boots, Mr Athleticism?’
‘I’ll happily put on my hiking boots, but if we find a good spot for bouldering, I’m going to give you a piece of your own medicine, how does that sound?’
‘I’d expect nothing less, Mr Thomas.’
She seems so much lighter today as she leads me out to a garage which has more adventure kit inside than I have ever seen. What has the appearance of a triple garage from the outside is in fact car free and looks more like an extreme sports store than an outbuilding.
The walls are lined with shelves and on them are boxes full of hiking boots, ski helmets, snow boots, ropes and carabiners. There are road bikes, mountain bikes and electric bikes standing in racks. There are five surfboards, two SUP boards and two bright-orange kayaks attached to the walls with their paddles. A clothes rail is loaded with different colored ski jackets, what look like climbing jackets and others that look like they’ve been worn by hunters.
‘Here, these will fit you and I’ll get you a pair of hiking socks.’ Abbey hands me worn but clean but Gore-Tex boots, then she throws me a pair of socks from a box on another shelf and finally, hands me a cap.
‘I did bring a cap,’ I tell her, ‘but I’ll take the boots and socks, thanks. Do you have enough kit for the whole of the province in here?’
Abbey smiles. ‘Just the town.’ She grabs herself a pair of walking boots, socks, and a backpack. ‘Mom loves nothing more than playing host.’
‘Could have fooled me.’ It’s like the words fall out of me without my brain engaging first. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean that—’
‘Yes, you did,’ Abbey says straight-faced. She picks up a can of something from another shelf and puts it inside her backpack. ‘Bear spray,’ she explains, so casually I don’t know whether she’s pulling my leg. If she isn’t, I’m even more intimidated by her than I was walking into this trove.
My trepidation must be showing on my face because she steps close to me and pats my chest, with the ghost of a smirk about her mouth. ‘Don’t worry, big guy, I’ll protect you.’ Then she winks and sort of knocks me dead with it. The look, the sureness, the playfulness, her touch. I much prefer this version of her than seeing her cry into a pillow. Maybe her becoming an actress just to make good on a Tinder profile has had a silver lining.
‘And I probably should have said Mom loves entertaining people she wants to be here.’
I laugh, part in relief, part because of the honesty in that statement.
Around twenty-five minutes later and with little strategic input from me, Abbey and I have strapped two kayaks to a roof rack on an SUV that she assures me she can drive, despite never driving in New York. Abbey seems to have a full backpack, which she filled whilst I was changing into hiking-appropriate gear. She wedges it into the footwell behind her seat and we set off to a destination she has chosen.
About a half hour later, she pulls into a well-marked car park and after untying the kayaks, we lug them along a fenced pathway through some trees, which eventually make way to an incredible view of a vast lake. There are actually a couple of other people paddling kayaks in the distance, who look like they set off from the same spot we’re standing.
It’s been a while since I’ve squished myself into a kayak and all I remember from my last flirt with the sport is how much of a back breaker it is.
‘Where are we headed?’ I ask.
Abbey tucks her T-shirt into her shorts, then ties back her hair. ‘To the start of the hike.’
I really need to pull my attention away from her lips. From the urge I have to press mine to hers.
It took everything I had not to kiss her lips by the car before her lunch yesterday and only the thought that she might not have wanted it made me kiss her cheek instead.
I know all of the reasons that me kissing her would be a bad idea. A pointless idea.
But right this second, watching the breeze blow the fallen wisps of her hair away from her face, seeing the sun dance on her skin, her cheeks rosy with heat, I’m struggling to focus on them.
‘You’re really making me work for this walk,’ I croak, my throat hoarse. ‘I’m expecting big things from the view. Postcard perfection.’ Honestly, I couldn’t ask for more than I’m already witnessing. It seems like every time we step outside in Alberta, I’m gripped by some of the finest views on Earth, transposed into tranquility with one sniff of the wildest, freshest air.
‘Ready?’ Abbey says once we’ve hauled our kayaks to the lake’s edge, ready for us to nudge off the shore when we’re in position.
‘Let’s do it.’
This. This is the version of Abbey who has me utterly captivated. Her sense of adventure, her inner wild, her ease in her own skin. This is the Abbey I lo—
Whoa, hold up there, Theodore.
Like the most. That’s what my next thought would have been. And with my jumble of thoughts comes the stark reality that today is the day. I’m going to tell Abbey who I really am. I have to do it because I care. I care a lot now about how this is all going to end. At some point, this trip has stopped being about escaping New York and started being about Abbey and me.
Maybe it always was and I just didn’t know it. Or maybe there has been a shift and that’s why she revealed her story to me last night.
‘I’ll hold it steady for you,’ she says, crouching down and putting a hand on my kayak.
I’m actually grateful, given I know this will be more of an inelegant, grunting struggle into the seat for me and my big frame, but there’s no way I’m looking like a wimp who can’t help himself.
‘I’ll be fine, you do you,’ I tell her, knowing that I shouldn’t bother offering my help in the reverse. There’s a fine line between manly and anti-feminist.
It feels like Abbey clicks her fingers and lands perfectly into her seat, as if a wind has pushed her off the shore and gently set her sailing. She’s already gliding her paddle through the calm waters of the lake, sending picturesque ripples that sparkle under the sun’s light in my direction.
Then she stops moving forward, turns in her kayak and catches me watching her – gormlessly, practically drooling over this impressive woman.
Yes, I definitely care too much to continue the lie.
With one foot onshore and one in the boat, I lower myself toward the seat.
Maybe if she can see how much I genuinely feel for her, she’ll see past the lies.
I lift my standing leg off the shore and come to sit in the kayak but… ‘Holy shi—’
I crash into the lake. Waves bow around me as I’m fully submerged in the cold water and thrusting my arms and legs against the stone-covered bottom to come to stand. Chest high and completely saturated, the only sound I hear above my own heavy breathing is Abbey’s laughter bellowing out around the lake.
She paddles toward me, her amusement making her breathless as she says, ‘So much for being an athlete.’
She’s dead right. I’m not. And now seems as good a time as any to confess.
Her kayak comes close to me and I reach out for her paddle to gently bring her my way, except she raises it to paddle and we’re in an unintentional tussle until—
‘Arghhh…’ She’s in the lake with me, gasping and splashing around until she’s standing in front of me, shoulder-high in the water. ‘I can’t believe you just did that.’
‘I genuinely didn’t do anything, all I did was grab your paddle. You—’
She cuts me off by resting her hands on my chest and through my wet T-shirt, I feel her gentle warmth, a contrast to the cold bite of the lake.
Silencing me with the way she looks so deeply into my eyes, she says, ‘Shut up and kiss me, Mike.’
So I do. Without any doubt or apprehension. I kiss her because I’m desperate to. Because not kissing her these past days has been agony.
41
ABBEY
Finally, his lips crash against mine and I match his ferocity, entirely consumed by him, by lust, by want and need. A desire I’ve never felt in my life.
My stomach knots, my pelvis nudges forward toward him and my hands seem to move without instruction from my brain to the hem of his wet T-shirt, the feel of his hips. My fingertips slide onto the skin of his lower back.
His breath hitches with my touch and he breaks our contact briefly, his gaze still on my lips, his chest rising and falling as quickly as mine.
Then he reaches out to my cheek and with his other hand, he pulls my back until I’m fully pressed up against him.
I don’t think I’ve ever been described as a sexual person. I don’t think I would have considered myself to be a sexual person.
Before now.
Mike drops his forehead to mine and groans. ‘God, I’ve wanted to do that for days.’
Never have I ever been looked at the way he’s looking at me right now. Not in all the years I was with Andrew did he look at me like he wanted to tear my clothes off, like he’d stop at nothing to get what he wanted, and that what he wanted was me.
It isn’t someone looking at me out of jealousy and wanting me purely because he thinks I’ll come crawling back, the way Andrew looked at me in the hotel yesterday.
This is what it feels like, what it looks like, to be yearned for.
I feel like more of a woman standing in this shockingly cold lake, wearing sports clothes, with messy tied-up hair and make-up free, than I have ever felt.
Perhaps it’s less about the clothes and more about the way people, someone, can make you feel.
If we were anywhere more practical than submerged in near freezing water, I don’t think I’d let this end.
Solely because voices of other hikers reach my ears do I lessen my grip on Mike’s body. With his loss of contact, in the space between us, I can feel the imposter in my subconscious coming back, telling me to be wary. Either those thoughts, or the water, turn the heat I just felt between Mike and me into a shiver.
He drapes an arm around my shoulder. ‘Let’s get you out of here. There’s something I need to tell you.’
I feel his body sigh against mine, then we’re dragging our kayaks back to shore and I’m afraid. I don’t want to burst the bubble we’re in. I don’t know if I want to hear what he has to share.
So as we stand on the pebbled waterline, I tell him, ‘Let me go first, please.’
He takes a deep breath in, as if he’s also feeling the enormity of what just happened in the lake. Okay, here goes…
‘I’m nervous, Mike. Nervous and terrified because I think I’m falling for you. I’ve fallen for you.’
Finally, he exhales.
‘But you’re a sports star. You date models and live in San Francisco.’
‘Abbey—’
‘No, wait. Please let me say this. I’ve changed my life for someone before. I moved across the continent for him. And I was burned by his lies.’
Mike’s eyes narrow now, as if he’s truly processing my reservations, listening to me.
‘I’m also afraid I’m just a rebound fling to you and you have the potential to be so much more than that to me. I guess I’m saying I’m afraid because I just don’t want to get hurt again.’ I puff out my next exhale, my shoulders dropping from where I didn’t realize I was holding them, by my ears. ‘But just for now, for the rest of today, I’d really like to put everything and everyone else out of our minds and pretend, for real, that we’re free to enjoy each other and be whoever we are and want to be whilst we’re in the refuge of the Rockies.’ I reach for his hand and lock my fingers through his. ‘Can we do that? Can we just have one day?’
He stares at me for so long that I think he’s going to say no. Then he brings my hand to his mouth, where he presses his lips to my skin. Then he kisses my temple and tugs me into his side, so that we’re both looking out in the same direction, across the lake, up to the mountains, where fellow hikers have moved on and the only sound is the chirping of grey jays.
‘Abbey, I can be whoever you want me to be for another day. But just promise me something. When this week is through, please remember that not everything is a lie.’
It’s not a confession of love. It’s not even an admission of like. It certainly isn’t confirmation that at the end of this week, we might be left with something real.
But for today, I rest my head onto his shoulder, content enough, for now.
‘Abbey?’
‘Mmm?’
‘What the hell are we going to do about these wet clothes?’
42
TED
We’ve done exactly what Abbey wanted us to do. We’ve lived the day like it was just us, as if none of the reasons Abbey and I can’t work exist. We’ve kayaked, hiked and bouldered, laughed and joked, touched each other and got lost in each other, given fellow hikers something to talk about once or twice.
It’s so unlike me, us, I think, to cut loose, to be truly liberated from all the noise down below. Chatting like two old friends who have a thousand things in common and so much to catch up on. It’s better now that she’s a numbers girl; I like that about her. The multiple colors of her personality seem to fit, not that my instinctive mistrust of her has vanished. When we have fallen into silence, it hasn’t been awkward. I’ve not searched for the next words to fill the void; we’ve been content in each other’s company.
I just like being around her. Almost as much as I like the sensation of her lips on mine, the feel of her in my arms.
The way she kisses me takes me to another world, one where I’ve never been kissed.
Because I haven’t, not the way she kisses me.
It’s urgent yet gentle. Hot, yet tender. And I believe, when we’re locked in these moments, that she wants to be with me every bit as much as I need to be with her. Both frustrated that we’re on a rock in one of the most beautiful places in the world and so many other people seem to know it and want to walk here, too.
