23. Anthony
CHAPTER 23
anthony
Waking up to Shoua in my arms was the most natural thing in the world. I watched her as her cheeks still flushed after a long night of us making love. I couldn’t contain my grin as I buried my face into her hair. She smelled of us, of cedarwood mixed with a bit of coconut. I let out a soft chuckle, but it immediately died in the back of my throat.
Hold up.
My brows creased together and the corners of my mouth tugged down. Did I just call what we did last night making love ? My jaw dropped as I immediately shifted and pulled my arms from under her and clamored loudly out of bed with my thoughts racing and heart pumping loudly in my ears. With a hand over my dropped jaw, my eyes widened at my sudden thoughts.
Love? Whoa. That was a bit ? —
I watched Shoua stir from her sleep in slow motion. First, her head turned in my direction as she flipped to her side and then her eyes slowly fluttered open. I tried to wipe the horror and distress off my face but failed to do so in time.
By the time she blinked, she had already registered it all and immediately sat up in bed. With my bedsheets still tangled around her body, an unreadable emotion morphed her expression.
“Morning,” she said weakly.
“Good morning,” I mumbled back. I cracked a wobbly apologetic smile, trying to gain some control over the look on my face. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have woken you up.”
“No, no. It’s . . . okay.” A sliver of a smile touched her lips.
I nodded as silence fell over us. “So . . . about last night,” I started as my heart continued to hammer in my chest.
“It was fun.” I watched as Shoua bit her bottom lip, nervously looking up at me.
“I—I—Yeah, it was fun,” I agreed. I climbed back into bed, feeling awkward about standing in front of her butt naked even though her eyes were now glued to her hands. She was tightly gripping the sheets.
“But it was a mistake.” Her words slurred together as if she was drunk. It took me a second to realize what she said.
“A mistake?” I echoed. It sounded so distant and anguished I almost didn’t even register it as my own.
My heart hammered so intensely that my rib cage started to ache. A mistake. I blinked as my poor attempt at a smile collapsed instantly.
“W-we’re still friends. Right, Anthony?” Shoua’s voice was never shaky, so when I heard it, my spine straightened. Then she sniffed, and I knew this was proving to be much harder for her than it was for me. “I don’t want to lose you.”
I felt like an asshole, freaking out about how my mind was just being hazy, tired, and fucked senseless. I was certain that was why those thoughts of love floated around so easily. It was because Shoua and me were exhausted. Judging from the dark circles under her eyes, we probably shouldn’t have stayed up until four a.m. making love?—
Fuck!
“Anthony?” Shoua called out. Her voice was full of worry.
I smiled at her, making sure it was a wide, gentle, and genuine grin to reassure her. I reached across the ocean between us and tucked a stray strand of her wild bedhead out of her face. That simple movement revealed her face lined with tight features and cloudy and unreadable eyes.
It was my fault. I should’ve never suggested we be real for a night, because look at what I did. Shoua was right. Last night was a mistake despite how everything felt strangely perfect with her.
“You’ll never lose me, Shoua. Never, ever.”
She reached out to touch my arm, igniting a wildfire that immediately engulfed my body and soul. My heart began to race again as the trails of her light fingertips slithered their way to my hand. She gave me one quick squeeze before pulling away.
“You’ll never lose me either.”
“Of course.” I bumped my elbow playfully into her arm. “We’ll always be best friends.”
Her hard expression softened. My heart skipped an aching beat, and I tried not to think too much about it as I attempted to hold onto the remnants of my grin. If I faltered, Shoua would only get confused and may get hurt by my lack of control over my expressions.
“Of course, Anthony.” Her answer was as light as a feather.
While Shoua showered, I started making our coffee and breakfast. It wasn’t long before she came downstairs in nothing but a black T-shirt I gave her to slip in to. Upon seeing her in it, I flashed her a quick grin and then turned back to the pan and kept my eyes glued on it.
She looked good in my plain black T-shirt, and I refused to let my mind wander all over her body as if I was just any other man leering over her perfection. I was her friend, I reminded myself, and friends don’t look at each other the way I just gawked at her.
“Thank you,” she said when I placed this morning’s huge breakfast in front of her at the kitchen table. Her brows shot up, surprised. “You made omelets and blueberry pancakes?”
I felt my cheeks flush as Shoua looked up at me with eyes that caught the morning light and glittered like all the stars in the universe contained in them. “I—I—yeah,” I stuttered. The heat of my blush kept creeping up higher and higher until I was certain I was as red as the tomatoes I used for our omelets. “I thought we were going to come home piss drunk last night so I prepped everything yesterday.”
That wasn’t entirely true. I only decided to whip up the pancake batter and throw in all the blueberries I had in my fridge after she got the shower started. They were supposed to be for my plain yogurt, but I felt like doing something special since I knew she loved them. Although . . . there shouldn’t be anything entirely special about the fact that I slept with her last night.
She had a cute little smile as she dug in. We ate in silence for some time, just enjoying the meal and coffee I made in each other’s company. This was the first time in a long time that neither of us had anything to say to each other with such an awkward air between the two of us.
“So, what did you want to talk to me about last night?” Shoua asked, breaking the silence as we finished our food.
“Hm?” I blinked, unsure of what she was talking about.
“Before we left for the bar last night, you mentioned that you wanted to talk about something when we got home.”
I took a sip of my iced coffee, suddenly remembering. It seemed like I fucked up again . I completely forgot that I was going to tell her we should end this fake relationship. Now we were in another mess.
“We’re staying at a six-bedroom house right by Millerton Lake and I know you’ll love it,” I blurted out quickly without taking a breath.
“We’re going to be staying at a house right on the lake?” Her pretty lips parted in excitement and awe, and my eyes instinctively flicked to them.
They were soft and so fucking kissable. In a knee-jerk reaction, I leaned forward only to realize what I was doing mid-way through. My naked chest was hovering over our empty plates as my hands braced the sides of the tiny kitchen table.
I was getting ready to kiss her.
“Anthony, what are you doing?” she asked. Her brows furrowed together, worryingly.
“An eyelash,” I mumbled, stupidly.
“What?” she said, looking confused as I reached to her face and pretended to swipe off an eyelash from her cheekbone.
“An eyelash.” My voice was firmer this time as I flashed her a fake small and unbothered smirk.
“Oh.” Her hand came up to wipe off the remnants of my fingerprint on her skin as if to wipe me clean off her. “Make a wish then.”
I shook my head as I blew her non-existent eyelash to the ground. “Nah, that’s not necessary.”
She smiled as she continued to eat the strawberries on the side, easing us out of what just happened. “You could wish for June to pass by faster so all of this could end.”
My smirk fell as I sipped on my coffee. “You want June to end?”
Her eyes were on the strawberries as she shrugged. “I’m just tired of Evelyn.”
I leaned back in my chair and let out a long, exhausted sigh. I scrubbed my face with the palm of my hand. “Who would have thought she had it in her to ambush me?”
“I saw it from ten miles away and you refused to believe me.”
I scoffed. “Are you going to believe me about Kelvin then?”
She took a single glance at me. “Maybe.”
“Oh, so you won’t believe me. But you’re telling me I should trust your instincts?” I raised an eyebrow at her.
“It’s not that I don’t believe you. Kelvin and I barely exchange more than a few words any time I see him. But I’m not claiming he’s harmless either. I’m just saying that he’s keeping his distance.” She crossed her arms across her chest.
My eyes narrowed at her as my lips pursed. “He’s only doing that because I’m always around you. Did you even realize he followed you and your friends to the bathroom last night?”
“You mean the same way Evelyn did to you? Yeah, of course I knew! You were the only one giving her the benefit of the doubt. She’s not all sugar and sweetness, Anthony. I thought you knew that.” Shoua let out a long sigh.
“Fine,” I grumbled. “You were right! She was a bigger threat than Kelvin. So what? I doubt she’ll keep insisting we’re fake after that kiss.”
An awkward silence fell over us for a moment now that we were reminded of what we did last night again. I quickly glanced at the hickey I left on the nape of her neck and tore my gaze away.
“But we are fake,” Shoua said softly.
Her unnecessary reminder cut to the bone as I looked anywhere other than at her. “Yeah,” I breathed shakily.
“I don’t know, Anthony . . . maybe we should just stop all doing this.”
Her clear and unwavering voice sucker punched me in the face. It came out of nowhere, draining all the air from my chest. I could hardly breathe as my lungs burned from the hit of her statement.
“What?” I rasped.
“Maybe we should just call off our master plan to deceive Evelyn and Kelvin. If she’s already hot on our trail, then she’s bound to expose us anyways. I don’t know what she gains from it, but I guess we can give it to her for lying these past two weeks.”
“No, if we want to tell anyone the truth, then it’s on our terms. Not because she’s backed us into a corner.” Frustration was apparent in my voice as Shoua’s expression turned neutral.
She nodded when her phone started to vibrate ferociously on the table. One glance at it and she let out a low, frustrated groan.
“It’s my mom.” She quickly picked it up and answered with a short, “Hello?”
Her mom’s loud voice sounded furious and whatever she was saying was coming out in rapid fire. I heard my name several times, and the heated tone of her voice made my mouth dry. The blood coloring Shoua’s face immediately drained as the conversation continued, and her neck became stiff.
“Okay,” she said simply and then hung up.
“What’s wrong?”
Shoua blinked and then swallowed before saying, “My mom heard about us being together.”
I wasn’t sure what kind of gossip Shoua was worried her mom would be up to if she knew about us. But with the way she captured her bottom lip between her teeth with apprehension, I knew this wasn’t a good thing.
“It seems that your mom and Aunt Sue went out to the farmers market yesterday. They bumped into my mom there. Aunt Sue and my mom swapped numbers and started talking,” Shoua explained. “Apparently she told my mom all about our relationship , and she’s furious that I’ve been lying to her the whole time about us.”
My stomach dropped. I thought the only people we had to worry about were Evelyn and Kelvin. I was so blinded by them that I didn’t even realize that we had the moms to worry about.
Aunt Sue was easier to deal with. But I couldn’t say the same about Shoua’s mom.