Faking Christmas(14)
“I’m just kidding. It’s not…it’s a different Miles.”
“There can’t be more than one Miles in Stanton.”
“Why are you more apt to believe me when I told you that it was Miles, the guy I didn’t like from my school?”
“I’m not saying I believe you yet. But please. You liked him. You wouldn’t whine so much about him if he didn’t get under your skin.”
I made a face in the mirror across from me. “That is NOT—"
“Tell me how it happened!” she interrupted. “Did he ask you out first? I had a feeling he liked you. Guys don’t tease like that unless—"
“He just asked me out to coffee one day after school. To talk about a mutual student.” My eyes widened as more words expelled from my lips. “And there you go. Simple. I didn’t want to make it a thing with everyone until it was more sure.” There. That sounded pretty good.
“And what about your no-dating-anybody-you-work-with rule?”
“That’s why we’re being so casual and taking it extremely slow. I don’t want to relive the whole Brian fiasco.” Correction. I would never relive the whole Brian fiasco. Now I was kicking myself that I’d used Miles’s name and that, at some point, I had told my sister about him. UGH. Bad Olive.
I moved all the toiletries from my bed into the pockets of my suitcase. The truth was, I wasn’t against dating. I wanted to date people. A hot, flannel-wearing lumberjack sounded great to me. But not this week. And not Glenn Foster.
“So anyway. There you have it. My dating life in a nutshell. I guess one of us should mention this to Mom so she can warn the Fosters before they get there.”
“Mention to Mom that you’re suddenly dating somebody that nobody knew about? Somebody who nobody will see during this trip? And that your relationship is so abnormally casual and the timing is just perfect enough that it doesn’t sound quite real?”
“Well, maybe not with that tone.”
She snorted.
Her voice was now riddled with wariness. But I had made my bed, and I now had to jump in.
“Listen. You don’t have to believe me, but I am dating Miles Taylor.” The words came off my tongue with frightening ease, but it still hurt to say them out loud.
She spat out a dry chuckle. “Fine. I’ll tell Mom so hopefully it will get Glenn off your back, but I will need to see your eyes when you tell me this is real. If I still feel like something isn’t quite right, and if you’re lying to me, so help me, you’ll pay for it.”
“I just got chills.”
“Thank you. And when I say pay for it, I mean by way of a sexy mountain man that I will find in Vermont. And when I find him, you have to go on a date with him.”
“Not when I’m dating Miles.” I would now take this to the grave if I had to.
Chloe snorted. “I want to believe you, and I’m halfway there, but listen, Ben just got home, so I’m going to go talk to him, but we will definitely be revisiting this tomorrow.”
I smiled. “Fine.” I had twenty-four hours to come up with some details. And then lock myself in my cabin.
When I got off the phone, I sat on my bed in a stupefied silence. It was weird thinking about Miles like that, even if he would never find out. This was a lie. And lying was wrong. But this was also a lie that wouldn’t hurt anybody else. If anything, it would save me. I’d lean into this idea of a boyfriend back at home to get me through the next six days and get everybody off my back. I’d wait a couple weeks and then tell Chloe. She’d forgive me because she really did owe me one. Then we’d all move on.
Miles would never find out.
FOUR
“My life is a perfect graveyard of buried hopes.”
L.M. Montgomery - Anne of Green Gables
The next morning, the spotless trunk of my gray Honda Civic held my luggage, books, and an extra pair of winter boots. I slammed the trunk closed and ran back toward my house to lock the front door, with my hood covering my face as the snow pelted down. The next house I bought in upstate New York WOULD have a garage. That was the only downfall to my otherwise steal of a house deal. Once everything was locked and secured for the week, I tucked myself inside my car and slowly made my way toward the highway.
My phone rang as my tires trudged through the slushy mess of snow on the road. I briefly glanced at the ID on my phone and debated answering. Eventually, I flipped the phone on speaker.
“Hey, Mom.”
“You’re dating someone?!” her voice demanded into the phone.
Well done, Chloe.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she continued. “Chloe said it’s been going on for weeks.”
A bolt of regret struck me as my mom obviously seemed crushed by the news. Since she had gotten remarried, the frequency of our calls had dwindled in number, which was a far cry from speaking two to three times a day the past year.
“To be fair, I didn’t tell anyone.” Including myself.
She made a noise that sounded like my excuse did nothing to alleviate the hurt I’d caused.
I checked the rearview mirror for cars as I inched my way through the tiny town of Peru just north of Stanton on my way up to the northeastern tip of the state before I could cross the snow-covered Lake Champlain and enter Vermont.