CHAPTER 9. Noah #5
As the Scotts give Dad their gifts, I catch Connor’s gaze across the room.
He’s still sitting on the sofa, his cheeks flushed, his eyes a little panicked.
He gives me a subtle nod, asking me to come back over, but if I open my mouth in front of everyone right now, I’m going to say something I can’t take back.
So instead, I nod toward the stairs.
Follow me.
Connor hesitates for half a second, then gets up.
I lead him up to the landing between the first and second floors, where there’s a small window seat tucked into a little nook.
It’s private enough that nobody downstairs should be able to hear us.
We don’t sit, though. I’m too riled up, and Connor looks like he isn’t sure whether he’s about to be yelled at or pushed out a window.
“Well,” he says, giving me a sheepish, guilty-looking smile. “That spiraled fast.”
I don’t have it in me to smile back.
I take a breath, trying to hold it in, but the anger is already pushing its way out.
“What the hell was that?” I ask, keeping my voice low even though my chest feels like it’s about to crack open. “That was a little too much, don’t you think?”
Connor runs a hand through his hair, messing up the careful styling. “I’m sorry,” he says, and he actually does look distressed. “Did I overdo it?”
Okay. He regrets it. I can see that.
I should calm down.
“Overdo it?” I repeat, frustration bleeding through anyway. “That’s putting it mildly. I’m screwed now, thanks to you.”
Connor blinks, clearly taken aback.
I pause, trying to understand why I’m so angry, because it isn’t just the dog or the apartment or the fact that my mother somehow managed to bring up a wedding without anyone stopping her.
It’s him.
It’s the way he made all of it sound so easy. Like none of it costs him anything. Like he can sit beside me, hold me, smile at my parents, tell them we’re moving in together and getting a dog, and not understand that they’re going to be hurt when it ends.
Like he doesn’t understand that I’m already hurt.
Which is stupid. I know it’s stupid. This was the deal. He was supposed to play my boyfriend, not become one. He doesn’t owe me anything.
Except he was so fucking convincing that some pathetic part of me believed him too.
“I’m sorry,” Connor says again. “I didn’t want to shut them down when they were so excited. I was just trying to go along with their questions.”
His face makes it worse. The guilt in his eyes. The fact that he really does look sorry.
And I’m still pissed.
Because he doesn’t get it. Not really.
“Go along?” I repeat, incredulous. “Connor, you just told my parents we’re moving in together and getting a dog.
” I put stress on the last words, because maybe if I say them clearly enough, he’ll hear how insane they are.
“That’s not going along with them. That’s creating an entire fucking fictional future. ”
Connor looks down, jaw working for a second.
Then he says, for the third time, “I know. I’m sorry.
” He leans back against the wall beside the window, the dim light catching in his eyes.
“I got carried away. But I didn’t think it would be that big of a deal, Noah.
You don’t have to tell your parents we’re breaking up next week.
You can take your time. Do it in a month or something. ”
A month.
Like that solves anything.
“It won’t make a difference,” I say, hating the bitterness in my voice.
“I’ll still have to end this at some point.
Tell them we didn’t work out.” I gesture vaguely between us, then immediately regret it, because I’m pretty sure I just made myself look insane.
“But after everything you just gave them—the apartment, the dog—it won’t feel like a normal breakup.
They’ll think we were building an actual life and I somehow ruined it. ”
“Well, there’s nothing I can do now, is there?” Connor says, his jaw tightening. “I already said I was sorry.”
“I know you’re sorry.” I exhale, trying to drag myself back from the edge. “But sorry doesn’t change what happens after this. I still have to explain why the guy they thought I was planning a future with suddenly isn’t there anymore.”
“Look,” Connor says, the last of his patience clearly wearing thin. “It was an honest mistake. I got carried away, and it was stupid. The apartment, the dog, all of it. I just didn’t think everyone would take it so fucking seriously.”
His words hit me like a physical blow.
Because yes, it is stupid. Of course it is.
And he’s right—I did take it too fucking seriously.
Not just the apartment or the dog or the whole ridiculous future he accidentally built in front of my parents.
Him. I took him too seriously. I let myself turn a favor into something real in my head, because apparently I am a desperate, lonely idiot who managed to fall in love with the guy pretending to be his boyfriend for the weekend.
And the part where my parents get hurt—that’s on me too.
Not Connor. I’m the one who came up with this stupid fake-boyfriend idea.
Well, technically, Britney did, but I’m the one who turned it into an actual plan.
I’m the one who dragged Connor into this messy little romcom plot and made him lie to my family because I couldn’t face the ex who broke my heart.
The real problem isn’t that Connor went too far with the lie.
It’s that I went too far with my feelings for him.
Somewhere between Connor kissing me against our bedroom wall, holding me on the ridge while I fell apart, letting me curl against him in the hot tub, and lying beside me in bed like Ireland was a real plan and not another lie we made up for an audience, I forgot how to separate the act from reality.
I forgot that him touching me, protecting me from Rick, smiling at my parents, making this whole fake future sound easy, doesn’t mean any of it is mine to keep.
And it still hurts so fucking much to hear it from him.
“You’re right,” I say, the words leaving me hollowed out. “It’s on me. This was a bad idea from the start. Fake boyfriends only work out in movies, not in real life.”
I almost choke on the last words, because I feel so stupid I can barely stand it.
For a second, Connor just stares at me. Then the frustration fades from his face.
“Noah,” he starts, his expression softening into something that looks dangerously close to pity. “Listen…”
“Don’t,” I say quickly, not even sure what he’s about to say. I only know I can’t hear it right now. My cheeks are burning, my chest feels bruised from the inside, and if he tries to be kind to me, I might actually lose it. “Let’s just get through this dinner, okay?”
Connor stares at me for a long moment, his expression impossible to read. Then his gaze flicks over my shoulder, and whatever he was about to say dies on his tongue.
The look on his face sends my pulse into my throat.
I turn, dread already pooling in my stomach, and find Maya frozen at the top of the stairs.
Fuck.
She’s fresh out of the shower, her hair still damp at the ends, wrapped in a huge plush robe—and she’s staring at us like she can’t make sense of what she’s seeing. Then her eyes move from me to Connor and back again, and I see the exact second her confusion turns into hurt.
How much did she hear?
The silence stretches for one beat.
Then another.
“Can I talk to you?” she says. Her eyes flick to Connor, then back to me. “To both of you.”
Both of us?
Connor pinches the bridge of his nose, looking like a man who has just accepted the worst possible outcome, and lets out a quiet, “Shit.”
“Yeah,” I say, and my voice comes out small. “Yeah, okay.”
Well. We’re officially screwed.