“You do?” I said.
“Yeah. So.”
“Wait—wasn’t it tonight?”
“Wasn’t what tonight?”
What was going on? He had asked me out, right? I hadn’t dreamed it, had I? “What’s going on?”
He frowned at me like he had no idea what I was talking about. “I’ve just got friends over, so … Kinda busy.”
He started to swing the door closed.
On instinct, I tried to use the Robby trick of blocking the door with my foot—forgetting, of course, about my ridiculous footwear—and Jack wound up shoving the door closed on it, the metal weather stripping slicing my toes and breaking the leather sandal straps.
The pain shot up my leg like a rocket. I snatched my foot back, let out a string of curse words, and then hopped around for a minute before I noticed I was bleeding.
“Ouch,” Jack said in a sucks-to-be-you voice. He watched me without any detectable sympathy—mostly just looking bored.
When I’d settled, he said, “Anyway,” and moved to close the door again.
“Wait!” I said.
Jack gave an irritated sigh.
“What about…” I started. But I didn’t know how to ask the question. I held up the bottle of wine.
“You can just leave that on the porch,” he said, like I was a delivery person. “I’ll get it later.”
“Jack!” I said then, finally standing straight. “Wasn’t tonight our date?”
Jack frowned like he had no idea what I meant. The utter noncomprehension on his face was enough to flood my whole body with humiliation. Then, as if pulling a vague memory from the deep mists of time—and not, you know, yesterday—he said, “Ohhh.” Nodding. Like that explained everything. “The date.”
What the hell? He’d asked me out twenty-four hours ago. Was he joking? Sleepwalking? Drunk? And who accidentally injures another person—another living creature, even—to the point of bleeding all over the doorstep and just stands there like a psychopath? What was happening?
I turned the situation around in my head like I had one last puzzle piece, but it just wouldn’t fit.
But then Jack slid the piece into place for me.
He tilted his head, and in a voice nothing short of saturated with pity, he frowned in mock sympathy and said, “Did you think that was real?”
Everything in my body just stopped at that moment. My heart stopped beating, my blood stopped flowing, my breath stopped moving in and out.
Maybe time itself stopped, too.
Jack looked at me like I was supposed to answer that question—and waited. His face was all curiosity.
“Was it not … real?” I asked, when time started up again. My voice seemed like it was coming out of someone else’s body.
Jack’s eyes made an expression I can only describe as “incredulous disdain.” “Of course not.”
Of course not.
Then Jack added, “You really bought it? You believed me? That’s so funny.”
“Wait—so…” I shook my head. “Yesterday? Everything that happened?”
Jack gave a little shrug. “Fake,” he said.
I couldn’t seem to stop shaking my head. “You were…？” I didn’t know what I was asking.
“Bored,” he confirmed.
“So you pretended…？”
“I was doing a thing they call acting.”
“So … the thing where you”—the question stung my mouth with humiliation, even as I asked it—“chose me over Kennedy Monroe…？”
But Jack just nodded big, like I’d made a great point. “I know, right? I got both of you with that one. A twofer.”
I felt myself sinking. “You were acting,” I said, trying to absorb it.
“Just another day at the office.”
“But…” I still didn’t get it. “But why?”
Jack gave a short sigh, like Try to catch up. “Do you remember when my mom said I really wasn’t that great of an actor?” Jack asked then. “That felt like a personal challenge.”
“You pretended to like me,” I paused for a second, putting it together, “to show up your mom’s assessment of your acting skills?”
He shrugged. “It was something to do. Right? How else do you keep busy in the middle of nowhere?”
My head just kept shaking itself. “So … yesterday? All that … kissing?”
“Choreographed,” Jack confirmed with a nod.