Chapter 12
Mo didn’t deserve the Murphy family. Throughout the rest of their stay, they treated him as they always had, even though they must have sensed the tension between him and Adam.
Mo would love to believe that tension didn’t exist, but he hadn’t yet mastered lying to himself at that level.
The stiffness in Adam’s shoulders as they sat together on the couch transferred through two ugly Christmas sweaters.
It only softened momentarily when Chuckie opened her present from Mo to reveal a Magna-Tiles building set.
Chuckie flung herself at Mo’s knees in delight, screeching thank-yous at a pitch only dogs could hear.
He tried to walk it back a little, when they had a break between breakfast and dinner on Christmas Day and he caught Adam in a rare moment alone. “I didn’t mean we have to stop, like, sleeping together. Just—your family is so nice. I don’t want them to get too attached.”
For once, Adam hadn’t blushed, and for what felt like the first time since this charade started, Mo had no idea what he was thinking.
They’d been back in Phoenix for a week—or Mo had, anyway.
Adam got back just in time to catch a team flight out east for an extended road trip.
That left Mo in the awkward position of trying to figure out what to do now.
They’d agreed to fake break up, but beyond the fact that they’d be telling Adam’s parents first—something they hadn’t settled on a timeline for—they hadn’t ironed out the details.
Mo half-hoped he could get Adam to agree to pretend it was a mutual decision and that they were still on good terms, but if Adam needed to make Mo the bad guy, well, it wasn’t like he didn’t deserve it.
He couldn’t expect Adam to take the fall with his own family. He should get to have them on his side.
His fake side, because this was the fake breakup of a fake relationship.
One they’d only started to reform Mo’s image long enough to stay on his parents’ good side, and to preserve Adam’s sterling reputation.
It had worked. The breakup was earlier than expected, but surely, they could keep things publicly civil, and Mo could get out of this mess with what remained of his reputation—and his heart—intact.
Either way, Mo suddenly had time to kill and no convenient Adam to fill it with. That was probably what made him text the old club crew to go out for drinks at New Year’s.
It should’ve been fun—dancing, flirting, drinking.
Mo had always enjoyed the attention he could get with a slutty little shirt and a pair of jeans that fit right.
But even though a sloppy public midnight kiss would’ve been a good way to “organically” spread news of his breakup with Adam, he found himself turning away when Bruno went for it, and got a kiss on the cheek instead.
He went home alone, almost sober, just after twelve.
Most of his “friends” didn’t notice.
Naturally, the one person he didn’t need commentary from chimed in first.
“Oh my God, what are you even doing awake at this time on New Year’s Day?” Sage gasped dramatically from the screen of Mo’s phone. “Wait, is it awake, or still awake? That would make more sense.”
Mo poured himself a second mug of coffee. “Happy New Year to you too! Look at all the commentary on your life choices I’m not making.”
Sage laughed. “You love my commentary. Seriously, though. I haven’t heard from you since before Christmas. I’m glad you’re not dead. Text me someday, maybe.”
Yeah, okay, Mo could’ve done that. “Sorry. Christmas was a weird time.”
“Oh, I bet. First holidays with the in-laws.”
“Fake in-laws,” Mo protested. “Or, uh, they were. We fake broke up.”
Sage’s brows disappeared off the phone screen. “Did you. A fake breakup and then a sober New Year’s Day. Something fishy’s going on.” They paused. “What’s with the breakup, anyway? Does your man think he met someone better? I can put a hit on him. I know people.”
“Take it down a notch, killer. I’m the one who said we should call it off.”
“Oh. No, that makes sense.”
Something about their tone made Mo think he ought to be offended. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He expected an eye roll, but Sage just shook their head. “Please, sweetie. Give me some credit. What excuse did you use?”
Fuck. Was blushing contagious? It couldn’t be, right? Mo’s cheeks just felt hot right now because… of the residual alcohol his body was still processing from last night.
Alcohol he hadn’t drunk enough of to blame.
“It was fake, and it wasn’t fair to let people think it was real.”
“Wasn’t fair.” Sage arched a brow.
Mo groaned. “They were really nice, Sage. Like these are people who unironically decorate trees together and wear matching Christmas pajamas.” He couldn’t bring himself to look at the screen, to meet Sage’s eyes, even virtually. “They were excited about meeting me, about Adam having a boyfriend.”
“So you felt bad about lying to them.”
“The worst.” He finally looked at Sage. Their face was soft, understanding. So he found the courage to say the next bit. “But it wasn’t just the lying. They were getting attached?”
“To you?”
Mo flinched. “To the idea of me. Adam went from never even telling them about a boyfriend to inviting his squeeze of three months for Christmas.”
“Ah, so you weren’t just the boyfriend, you were the one true love.”
His mouth twisted unhappily. “Pretty much.”
“I’m going to ask a question, and maybe I’m way off base here, and you can tell me to buzz off, but have you thought about, I don’t know, not-fake dating instead of fake breaking up?”
“You say that like it’s an option,” he huffed.
Sure, Mo knew that was one way to end their fake relationship, but in the way he might also recognize a sidewalk as a route out of a traffic jam: not seriously.
Both options were ridiculous, not socially approved, and would probably result in mass casualties.
“It’s not?”
“Sage. Be serious. We’d have to want to date each other for that to work.”
“And you don’t—want to date each other, that is.” Sage was still watching him, one eyebrow raised.
“Of course not. Why would we? We’ve spent almost a decade very publicly not getting along.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Girl, stop it.”
“What?”
“Implying shit,” Mo snapped. His skin felt too tight. “We’re not going to date for real, Adam doesn’t want to, so we’re going to fake break up. He’ll probably tell his family I got spooked by all the togetherness and kicked him to the curb.”
“Which you kind of did.”
“Which I kind of did. But in a nice way?”
“Sure, in the nicest way anyone can possibly reject another person because of their family.”
Mo covered his eyes. “Can’t you just tell me something nice and distract me from my soap-opera life?”
The next New Year’s surprise arrived only a couple hours later—a call from Claire.
“Moritz, darling, tell me you and Adam are free for dinner on Tuesday. We ought to ring in the New Year with family once he’s back in town.”
God, he hated her happy-families tone. He swallowed and searched for the courage to say what needed saying. Going to a Du Pont dinner with an Adam as tense as he was on Christmas was a horrifying enough prospect to unlock his jaw.
“We broke up.”
“Oh, that’s a shame. Probably to be expected, really, but the timing…”
A maelstrom of emotion—hurt, anger, mortification—churned within him, filled his chest and stomach, heated his cheeks, and stopped his tongue.
“Well, if you kept things quiet for now, that would be for the best,” Claire said thoughtfully.
Mo blinked, swallowed. “Why—”
“Is that Moritz?” Orson’s voice carried down the line, despite clearly coming from across the room.
“Yes, dear. He says Adam broke up with him.” She didn’t even pull the phone away from her face.
“Well, damn. Couldn’t he have waited to make a mess of things?”
“I’m sure he’s not trying to vex us.” Her tone suggested she wasn’t, in fact, sure of that but also didn’t want to deal with any argument resulting from Mo’s selfishness.
“Well, tell him to keep a lid on things—we don’t need his drama in the papers right now.”
If Mo were a more spiteful person, he’d point out that no one worried about gossip in “the papers” anymore except for out-of-touch fossils. If he were braver, he’d tell them both to fuck off—his romances (or lack thereof) were his own business.
But he wasn’t. Not with his parents, anyway. So he said nothing except to agree that dinner with Adam would not be a good idea, and no, he wouldn’t make any sort of public announcement of the end of his relationship.
Not that either of those promises were a hardship. Mo wasn’t exactly eager for this new round of embarrassment to hit socials. His parents wouldn’t be the only ones to assume Mo had fucked up or that Adam could do better.
He hung up the phone and pulled up his text chat with Adam, which had grown quiet since Christmas.
Hey, can we hold off on public announcements? Parents asking me to keep it on the dl.
Mo stared at the text he’d drafted. Reread it. He added an eye-roll emoji and hit Send. Then, because he should probably explain more, he added:
Sorry. It’s a business thing and I just don’t want to deal with their drama.
He chewed his thumbnail and waited. And waited. Bubbles appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again. God, this was agony.
Then the first text got a thumbs-up reaction.
Okay.
Well. If that wasn’t a text to obsess over.
Mo threw his phone onto the couch and slouched. Then, almost immediately, he stood up, grabbed his phone, and headed for the garage. He needed to be busy. Idle hands and all that shit.
Adam wasn’t back in Phoenix for twelve hours before Mo’s first text came through.
U up?
Jesus.
Adam rubbed his eyes and set the phone face down on the table, ignoring the lizard part of his brain that wanted to reply, even snarkily. It was noon. Of course he was up.