Lessons in Faking (Hall Beck University #1)

Chapter 20

CHAPTER 20

The kitchen was littered with dough-covered bowls, flour and smelled like heaven when I came home from class the following Monday. It was a worrying sight. The last time I’d seen Wren bake like this, she had gotten a C on her final and caught Jason cheating on me, within the same hour.

Wren was a stress baker if I’d ever seen one. So the tray full of chocolate chip cookies and the dozen red velvet cupcakes were concerning, to say the least.

Sliding a third batch of something into the oven, she paused when she noticed me. Calculating each and every word, movement—even the way I breathed, because this was a delicate situation, if I’d ever seen one—I tentatively asked, “What happened?”

She unfroze, the tray rattling as she slid it all the way in, the oven door thudded when she closed it, and then Wren emerged from behind the island, back still facing me.

“Do you like him?” Her voice had an airy tone to it, eerily calm as she asked the question. Casually, she dusted off her white apron before taking it off, and placing it on the counter like she was a contender on MasterChef and had just been eliminated.

“Who?”

Wren turned on the spot to lean against the counter. Her hair still sat perfectly, even after a serious case of aggressive stress-baking. There was flour on the tip of her nose, and if I hadn’t been so confused, I might have thought it was cute. Her brows lifted.

“You’re not dumb, Athalia.” In other words, take a wild fucking guess .

I almost snorted at the suggestion. “McCarthy?” I asked. The only thing keeping me from laughing was Wren’s blank expression.

“ Dingdingding ,” she muttered sarcastically. “The one and only.”

“What about him?” My words were still as calculated as before, and I was on high alert as soon as his name had slipped out of my mouth.

“Let me paraphrase.” She nodded thoughtfully, her voice amused. “Are you two fucking?”

My eyes widened, I choked on air, and I swear I almost went into cardiac arrest trying to recover from the endless coughing. At the same time, I shook my head so quickly I felt dizzy. My eyes shot in Wren’s direction as soon as I could breathe again.

“What the fuck?” My words were no longer calculated.

Wren shrugged, her narrowed eyes were the only crack in the unruffled facade she tried to put on. “Why would you say that?” I added.

“Heather and I had lunch today,” she said casually. Heather—my brother’s best friend with the big mouth, that usually worked in my favor. This time, it didn’t seem that way.

I’d known them to be friendly, so I wasn’t too shocked by the revelation. I only said, “Oh,” before she went on.

“She’s one hell of a talker, isn’t she?” Wren was playing with me at this point. “Just talks, and talks, and talks forever. She doesn’t even need a prompt to go on for hours. And she says just… the funniest things.” Wren arched a brow. “Doesn’t she?”

“Like what?”

She ignored my question, and her eyes diverted for the first time. “Are you?”

I shook my head again. “Obviously not.”

“Right.” She snickered. “So you just kissed him?”She pushed herself off the counter, collecting the four glass bowls differing in size and beginning to wash them out. She turned her back to me again, and somehow that made thinking easier.

“How do you know about that?”

The water stopped for a second, the first bowl clinking when she maneuvered it into the dishwasher. “Heather talks,” she repeated, as if it was obvious.

And Henry talked to Heather. So for Heather to be talking to Wren, it meant—

“Don’t be so smug about it,” she muttered in the kitchen, not even looking at me. I was still standing in the living room, and I was looking smug, because it meant despite my doubts, the plan was working. The next bowl made its way into the dishwasher, louder than the last. “So?”

“The point of this is for them to think we’re—” For some reason, it felt wrong to say the word. So I just cut myself off, shrugging. “You know?”

Wren couldn’t muffle her laugh, but I didn’t think she’d tried. “Fucking?” she offered. “Screwing? Fooling around? There are so many words for what you two are supposed to be doing.” The third bowl made it into the dishwasher, clinking, rattling, cutting her off. It sounded like she broke the whole thing before shifting her attention onto the last one. “You’ve only ever been prude about these things with J—” She seemed to change her mind, grimacing. “He who shall not be named.”

I snorted at the unexpected choice of words. Then, I fully understood the meaning behind them and immediately fell quiet. Wren nodded as if she knew exactly what was happening in my mind, so I pushed it to the furthest corner of it.

“No,” I said with conviction. “I don’t like McCarthy. We haven’t fucked .” My nose crinkled with the word, but Wren’s observation rang through my mind, and I quickly went on. “Why do you care so much?”

The last bowl was dropped into the dishwasher harshly before she looked at me again, a whirlwind of emotions on her face for the first time. I flinched at the sound, and the sight.

“Oh, I don’t know.” She laughed, humorless. “Maybe it’s because I care about you, Athalia. Have you ever thought about that?” She sighed loudly, her eyes shifting again. “I don’t want to see you hurt. Again. I don’t want to pick up those pieces. Again. I just don’t want to see you like that.”

“You’re overreacting,” I spat, and I didn’t even feel sorry for it. “For any of that to happen, I’d have to care about him in the first place.” Which wasn’t what was happening.

“You do, don’t you?”

My reply came quick. “No.”

Wren wasn’t the type to get all up in your face when she was angry. Instead, it was the hand curling around the edge of the kitchen counter so hard her knuckles turned white, the added color in her cheeks, her flared nostrils: all signs she was well on her way to losing it. Not that she ever would.

“I know you,” she said, releasing the counter to dry her hands. “I know when you care, I know when you don’t. I know when you lie, and I know when you tell the truth. I know—”

I cut her off. “You don’t know everything, Wren.” Because you didn’t tell her everything , echoed in my mind. “And it seems you hardly know me at all, if you think that’s what’s happening.” I didn’t know if I was getting angry with her, or myself. Either way, my voice became louder, more fierce with every word.

I honestly wasn’t sure why I hadn’t told her about the kiss. At least the first one would’ve been safe territory, part of a plan that seemed to be working perfectly. A little too well, if my best friend was starting to doubt how fake this arrangement between McCarthy and me was.

I probably just didn’t want to think about it more by voicing the truth out loud. If I wasn’t talking about it, I could pretend it hadn’t happened. Right? I could probably pretend it hadn’t been that good a kiss, too.

Wren sighed again, eyes on me. Her head tilted, and something sad, pitying played in her expression. “You have awful taste in men, Athalia Payton Pressley.” I blinked at her. “I’m your friend. You talk to me about every peck at every party, and you obviously chose not to disclose this one, for some––well, the obvious reason.” Her brow rose. “That’s all I’m saying—I thought I was your friend,” she repeated. Faked indifference washed over her when she headed for her room.

If there was one thing worse than a fight, it was running away from it. I’d always been the type to face conflict head on. To solve it—to want to solve it, immediately. My ex-boyfriend had been the kind to run away from it, to want to wait a day before he could talk it out. I think that might’ve been the worst part of our relationship.

Someone walking away made me panic, made me think that if we didn’t solve it now, I’d feel this shitty for the rest of my life—that we might not get the opportunity to fix it later. So the next words were unhinged, uncalculated, raw, panicked me . Anything to continue this… fight? Right here, right now.

“I thought we were friends,” I sneered. “But clearly, you’re more interested in acting like a jealous girlfriend.”

She paused in her steps. Stopped only for a second, before thud . Then, click . And my best friend had disappeared into her room.