Things We Fake (Singleville #1)

Chapter One

Sue

“A blind date? Not today, of all days! Have all four of you gone nuts?” I shrieked, glaring at my girlfriends.

Heads turned to frown at the crazy woman that was disturbing the otherwise pleasant atmosphere at Rumors, the bar where my friends and I met up for drinks occasionally.

“Actually, it’s tomorrow. Do you have anything better to do?” Ange raised one elegant eyebrow, taking a sip of her dirty martini. Even on a late Friday evening, her dress was perfectly pressed and her makeup flawless.

“Touché,” Jesse said from her spot next to Ange. Her short, spiky red hair and red lipstick stood out in the crowd, in contrast with her tomboy appearance.

“You shouldn’t dismiss a man you haven’t met, Sue,” Nikki spoke from behind me.

I swiveled on the ridiculously small bar stool to look at my other two friends.

If, by some miracle, I actually managed to be the first to arrive at the bar someday, I would select a table with proper chairs instead of these precarious perches.

But since all my friends had legs as long as my entire body, getting up on one of these things was no sweat for them.

I might as well sit on top of a skyscraper.

Nikki raised her Bloody Mary to her mouth, reminding me of a vampire having a snack. She was dressed in unrelieved black, her blond hair pulled back in a sleek ponytail.

“Nikki’s right, you might actually like this man. You two might be compatible.” Lily gave me a smile as neat as her perfect chignon.

I rolled my eyes. “Don’t go all psychologist on me.”

Lily’s smile widened. “Why not? It’s free therapy.”

“What can I get you, Sue?” Lou, the middle-aged man with a fringe of gray hair, owned the bar and worked the late afternoon shift on Fridays. He liked ‘looking after the ladies’ and knew each one of us by name.

“How about a double vodka and soda?”

“Sure thing. Double lime, too?”

I winked. “You know me. It’s the fruit that keeps me healthy.”

He laughed. “Sure it is. I’ll be right back.”

Lou had been a backup musician for Bon Jovi, and he’d opened Rumors in 1996.

Although the girls and I lived in Greenwich Village—a place we’d lovingly dubbed Singleville, to reflect all of our current relationship statuses—we loved Rumors because it was close to our workplaces and Wall Street.

Rumors drew the doctors, lawyers, and stockbrokers who worked in the gilded skyscrapers of Manhattan—not the penniless free spirits, artists, and musicians we ran into in our neighborhood.

“What happened today that’s so bad?” Lily asked me.

“You mean other than my friends setting me up with a stranger?” I glared left and right. “You guys know I hate that kind of thing. You might as well put up an ad on a billboard: Single and desperate woman looking for hot hunk.”

“Hmm, that could work.” Jesse sipped her beer thoughtfully. “Not desperate, but we could start with Single, blonde, attractive…”

“Short and slightly chubby,” I supplied dryly.

“Curvy,” Lily corrected.

Nikki grinned. “Curvy, blonde, bilingual, Italian-American, teacher by day…”

“Promising freak by night,” Ange finished.

We all burst into laughter, the tension of the week relieved by humor and alcohol.

After a few moments, I blew out a sigh. “The way things are going, I wouldn’t have time to date anyway, even if I met the man of my dreams.”

“Why?” Lily asked.

I shrugged. “Mrs. West dusted off her favorite target today, and guess who that is?”

“You.” Jesse stated.

“Exactly. She has this uncanny ability to make my life harder. She could test the patience of a saint, and you all know I’m no saint.”

“Not a saint, but you could be an angel,” Lily said. “One of the guardian kind.”

“A guardian angel?” I laughed. “Highly unlikely.”

“I’m serious,” Lily said. “You’re always watching out for us, making sure we stay on the straight and narrow. You’re too serious. You need to loosen up, relax, and have fun. Most of all, you need to learn to say no.”

Nikki chuckled. “What did the Wicked Witch of the West do this time?” She had her own little nickname for Mrs. West, the principal at Everleigh, the private school where I taught seventh and eighth grade English.

I sighed. “Same ol’ story. She gave me more busy work I don’t need.”

“That’s because you don’t possess the no gene, and she knows it,” Jesse said. “You need to stop being such a people pleaser.”

“She’s not a people pleaser per se.” Lily toyed with a strand of dark hair escaped from her chignon.

“She has a strong desire to please her parents that borderlines on pathological. As the only one in her family who left her hometown she has a lot more to prove, and her mother’s constant pressure for her to get married doesn’t help. ”

“Why don’t you just tell your mother to stuff it?” Ange crossed her arms over her chest.

“Sue would never do that,” Nikki said. “I know her mom, she’s scary as hell. Besides, her parents sacrificed a lot so Sue could go to college without student loans, so she feels she owes them a lot.”

I waved my hands, irritated. “I can say no. I do it all the time. I said no to that guy who wanted to take me home and introduce me to a real man last week.”

“That was only because he was piss drunk and ready to pass out,” Jesse pointed out.

I scrunched up my nose. “I said no to the Truffle Prince, didn’t I?”

The Truffle Prince, also known as Neil Langley—bona fide scumbag and my ex-fiancé—was a dark, dark shadow from my past back in Warwick.

His family specialized in unique and high-demand crops, like truffles and saffron.

When I’d first told my friends about him, Jesse immediately nicknamed him the Truffle Prince, and bombarded me with jokes about pigs and truffles.

Neil was now married to my ex-friend, Sally, who was supposed to be my maid of honor at my wedding with Neil.

Of course, when I found Neil playing hide the salami with Sally, I dumped his cheating ass using words I could never repeat.

For reasons I wasn’t ready to explore, I kept that humiliation to myself.

Not even my mother knew why I’d broken my engagement, so she kept pushing me toward Neil—even after I’d canceled the wedding and moved to New York a decade ago.

Despite his disappointment that I wasn’t staying to help with the family business, my dad had been the only one who fully supported me.

“Dumping that loser was the best thing in your life,” Ange said. “Now, change of subject. What did The Wicked Witch voluntold you for this time?”

“She named me the school’s representative on the Parents’ Committee,” I muttered.

“It meets monthly on Saturday mornings. Also, I’ll be the liaison between the school and the company providing the new software the school purchased.

The first committee meeting is tomorrow at nine.

When I argued that I had plans, she told me to change them.

” I mimicked the principle and her overly-articulate tone.

“Ms. Morelli, this is a private school and we’re all expected to pitch in with extracurricular activities.

You’re young and unmarried, so that shouldn’t be a problem. ”

“I suppose to her, thirty seems very young.” Jesse gestured with her beer. “Why can’t Mamma Morelli agree? Even I am sick of her trying to marry you off.”

Jesse and the girls had nicknamed my mother Mamma Morelli, and made it sound as though we were some Italian mob family instead of modest winemakers.

“It’s easy for you to talk.” I scowled. “You’re only twenty-five, the baby of the group. The rest of us have our biological clocks ticking in our ears.”

“So, say no to Mrs. West.” Lily eyed me, raising her margarita to her mouth. “But you can’t, can you?” She shook her head. “One of these days you’ll have to trade in the spaghetti noodle spine you have for a real one and put your foot down.”

“It’s not that easy.” I took a large sip of vodka. “I may not be crazy about Mrs. West, but I love my job, and I can’t go back home to Warwick with my tail tucked between my legs.”

Ange shifted on her seat. “Honestly, Sue, I don’t see what’s so bad about that.

The committee meets once a month, it’s no big deal.

Maybe you’ll meet an attractive single dad there.

Who could be better for a teacher than a father who takes time out of his busy schedule to sit on a parents’ committee?

As for the computer thing, if the cute dad angle doesn’t work out, maybe the geek squad wannabe will, and you’ll have a lot of fun liaison-ing. ”

“Maybe, but does she want to get involved with anyone like that?” Nikki mused.

I hated it when she spoke as if I wasn’t there, but since we were both from Warwick and I’d known her my entire life, I was used to her idiosyncrasies.

She hadn’t made friends easily back home.

While she was the newest member of our friends’ group, everyone had accepted her—with conditions.

Nobody could be as smart as Nikki was without losing a few people skills, and knowing when to stop talking about her job as a forensic scientist was one of them.

If we wanted to stop someone from hitting on us, we would just nudge Nikki to talk about her work.

Nothing kills a pickup line faster than a cheerful rundown of body decomposition.

“If it’s a father,” Nikki continued, “odds are he’ll just be shopping for a mommy substitute. And the tech guy? His idea of intimacy is downloading updates first. No, Sue needs a man who’s emotionally available and at the peak of his sexuality.”

“If you find an extra one of those, send him my way.” Jesse finished her beer, took out a few bills from her pocket and set them on the bar. “Sue, shall I call our Uber?”

“Yeah, we’d better get going. Tonight I plan to give myself a little TLC—manicure, facial, bubble bath, the works. And then I plan to finish off that new suspense novel. Never a dull moment in my life.” I took a mouthful of my drink.