Faking Perfect (16 page)

Of course, being the best damn girlfriend ever came with some sacrifices, and one of them involved revealing my new relationship status to my mother.

“You’re shitting me,” she said when I told her the news on Friday evening, the day after the public unveiling.

“I can assure you, I’m not.”
Jeez.
It wasn’t a good sign when my own mother found it hard to believe that Ben would deign to go out with me.

She leaned into the bathroom mirror and made her open-mouthed, bug-eyed mascara face, the one that always used to amuse me as a child when I watched her get ready for dates. In fact, it still amused me. “The blond boy,” she clarified as she swiped on her first coat of mascara. “Rick Dorsey’s son.”

“Yes.”

Blinking, she moved back to admire her lashes, then dug through her makeup bag for her blush. My mother’s makeup routine ran longer than some of her dates. Earlier, when I’d walked in and sat down on the edge of the tub, she’d already been at it for twenty minutes, concealing and plucking and smoothing the years away.

“Well,” she said, dabbing at her cheeks with a tissue. “If he’s anything like his father, you’re in for a world of hurt. Rick Dorsey is a womanizer. Ever since his wife died, he’s been running around with a bunch of twenty-year-old gold digging bimbos. It’s pathetic. He’s older than
me
,” she added as she spackled on another layer of under-eye concealer.

“Ben isn’t a womanizer.” I was pretty confident on that. Whenever he dated someone, he focused all his attention and energy on her and her alone. After two days with him, I already felt like the only girl in the world when we were together. “He’s sweet and respectful.”

Mom smiled at her reflection, checking her teeth for lipstick smudges. “Sounds like Jesse.”

I pressed my lips together to keep from laughing. Her hypocrisy and lack of awareness astounded me sometimes. She’d called Ben’s father a womanizer, yet she was dating the biggest letch around. My mother was delusional.

“Okay, I’m leaving,” she said airily as she zipped up her makeup bag and gave her hair one last fluff. “I’m staying at Jesse’s tonight, so I’ll just go to work from there in the morning. Have fun, say no to drugs, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do and all that jazz.” With this parting wisdom, she blew me a kiss and flounced out of the bathroom.

Well. That had gone . . . exactly as I’d expected. My mother never did care much about the guys I dated. She’d taken me to her doctor to get birth control pills when I was fifteen and that was pretty much the extent of her input into my sexual health. She probably wouldn’t even care if she found out about Tyler and me having sex in my room. In fact, the main reason I’d insisted he enter my house through the window instead of the front door wasn’t because I thought she’d disapprove, but because I’d spent most of my life waking up to drunk male voices at three a.m. and watching strange men doing the walk of shame past our kitchen in the morning. I didn’t want my mother to think I was anything like her.

But I didn’t have to worry about that anymore. Tyler was history, and for the first time ever, I was a normal girl in a normal relationship I could proudly share with the world. With a boy everyone loved. Well, almost everyone. Ben
had
left a lengthy trail of bitter ex-girlfriends behind, most recently Tori, who’d quit student council and practically ran the other way when she saw Ben in the halls. And Kyla, the girl before her, who’d brushed past me yesterday after school as I stood alone at my locker and muttered, “Good luck, honey.” And most notably, Shelby, who seemed less than thrilled about Ben and me getting together. She kept her Ben-bashing to a minimum around Emily, but I’d heard enough over the past year or so to know where each of them stood. Their break-up had been messy, and Shelby getting knocked up by Evan a few months later didn’t exactly help matters. Basically, they avoided each other at all costs, and I worried that my new relationship with Ben might affect my friendship with Shelby.

“I’m fine with it, Lexi,” she’d assured me when I voiced my concern to her. “Ben wasn’t right for me, but he might be right for you. Besides, maybe he’s changed.”

Or maybe
, I thought as I got ready for my own date,
he’s just been waiting for someone like me.

For our first official date, Ben and I made plans to go to a movie and then hang out at a coffee shop or somewhere afterward. The prospect of being alone with him for several hours in a row made me insanely nervous. After Mom left, I spent a half hour in her closet, looking for a top Ben hadn’t already seen me in a million times. Finally, I chose the gauzy white blouse she’d worn the day she caught Nolan, Amber, and me on the computer in the spare room. It was loose on her, but on me it fit like a glove. I figured Ben wouldn’t be opposed to some cleavage.

The doorbell rang while I was working on my makeup.
Oh crap
. He was fifteen minutes early. I swung open the front door, my face still partially naked, and then relaxed when I saw it was just Nolan.

“Did I leave my Jenga game over here?” he asked. “Amber just told me she’s never lost a game of Jenga, like, ever. So naturally I have to test her claim.”

I vaguely remembered borrowing his Jenga game a few months ago because Grace saw a commercial for it on TV and wanted to play. “Um, I don’t know. I’m kind of in the middle of getting ready to go out, but feel free to search my room if you want. It’s either there or buried in the family room somewhere.”

“Cool.” He came inside, taking in my half-done makeup job as he brushed past me to the stairs. “Where are you off to?”

“The movies with Ben.”

“Ah,” he said, nodding, and then he continued downstairs without another word. Nolan was trying his best to act indifferent about me dating Ben. He didn’t really like him, but he knew how I felt about him and wanted me to be happy. For the most part he kept his opinions to himself, aside from one subtle dig when he first heard the news. “Good thing we quit smoking,” he’d said, reminding me of the incident a few weeks ago when Ben had thrown my pack of cigarettes in the trash and Nolan dug them out. Come to think of it, Nolan never did give me back that pack.

The doorbell rang again five minutes later. It was Ben . . . ten minutes early. I still hadn’t finished my face, so I told him to come in.

“You have freckles,” he said, sounding surprised.

I resisted the urge to cover my face with my hand. He’d never seen me without my trusty armor of liquid foundation. “They’re dorky, I know.”

“No, they’re cute. I like them.”

I smiled. He looked pretty cute himself. The swelling around his nose had faded completely, and he wore jeans and a light blue Oxford-style shirt under a plain black jacket. I couldn’t recall ever seeing him in a T-shirt or hoodie or anything wrinkled.

“Is your mother home?” he asked as I led him up to the kitchen.

“No.” I gestured to the fridge. “Can I get you something? I’ll just be another five minutes or so.”

Instead of answering, he moved closer to me and placed a hand on my hip. My cheeks burned, because he was seeing my freckles up close and because he was staring at my lips like he wanted to kiss them. For the first time ever. Here. Now. In my kitchen. Did
all
our romantic moments have to take place in utterly unromantic locations?

“I didn’t want to wait until the end of the night to do this,” he said, leaning in. I closed my eyes in anticipation, but all I got was the tease of his breath on my lips before the sound of heavy footsteps clomping up the basement stairs broke through the silence. Ben reeled back in surprise.

“Found it!” Nolan called from the entryway, and then the front door closed with a bang.

I’m going to kill him
, I thought.
I hope his Jenga tower collapses on his head and buries him alive.

Ben regained his composure and glanced toward the doorway. “Was that . . . ?”

“Nolan. Yeah. He just came over to get something.”

“Oh.”

I looked at Ben expectantly, waiting for him to come close again so we could pick up where we’d left off when Nolan had so loudly interrupted. But he stayed where he was, a small frown on his lips. “The movie starts in twenty minutes.”

I blinked.
Awk-ward
. “Right. Um, I’ll just . . . finish getting ready. Be back in a sec.”

Our town wasn’t big enough for its own movie theater, so we drove into the city. Ben was a little quieter than usual on the way, probably because he was disappointed with our failed attempt at a first kiss. I knew I was. I’d only been dreaming of that moment since I was fifteen years old. Nolan barging in, however inadvertently, had never been part of my fantasies.

Ben seemed to perk up as we waited in line to buy movie tickets. He held my hand, and kept holding it all through the movie. It wasn’t as good as a kiss, but it was something. I had a feeling the physical aspect of our relationship would progress very slowly, which was fine. After Tyler, I could do with a slow, sweet romance. Fast and fiery hadn’t worked out so well for me.

After the movie, we walked down several blocks until we came across a cute little coffee shop called Jitters. Inside, we bought hot chocolate from the tall, black-haired girl behind the counter and sat down at the only vacant table in the room. The place was bustling with caffeine addicts of all ages and types, waiting out the chilly rain that had recently begun to fall.

Ben and I talked about the movie for a while, and then the hot chocolate, which was positively sinful compared to the sludge they sold at the chain coffee place in Oakfield. That evolved into a conversation involving the importance of supporting local businesses over large corporations. Once we’d exhausted that subject, Ben steered the conversation to my friendship with Nolan.

“You’ve known each other a long time, right?” he asked, sliding his empty mug to the side of the table.

“Since we were four,” I replied, wondering where he was going with this. Nolan was an odd topic of discussion for a first date. Or any date, really.

“You guys have never gone out?”

I shook my head. A curious, tentative kiss when we were twelve did not count as going out. “We’re just friends.”

The frown from earlier made another appearance. “So he just sort of... drops in at your house? Whenever?”

“Sure,” I said with a shrug. “We drop in and hang out at each other’s houses all the time. Like I said, we’re friends. He has a girlfriend,” I added when Ben’s frown deepened. I nudged his knee with mine and smiled. “What, you don’t believe a guy and a girl can be just friends?”

“No,” he said, his gaze steady on mine. “I don’t.”

My smile held on, quickly turning plastic. “
We
were just friends for two years,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, but you said you were attracted to me the entire time. See what I mean? I don’t think males and females can be friends without at least one of them wanting more. Usually it’s the guy who wants more from the girl though.”

“I’ve never been attracted to Nolan.”

The corner of his mouth lifted into a slight smirk. “I can understand that, but I’d bet anything he’s at least a tiny bit attracted to you. I mean, look at you.” His eyes traveled from my crossed legs to my cleavage to my face, which was probably tinged with pink. “Just because I’ve never asked you out before now doesn’t mean I didn’t admire your”—he cleared his throat—“uh, attributes.”

I laughed and flushed harder, letting his opinions on male-female platonic relationships—opinions I disagreed with wholeheartedly—slip by without comment. We’d have plenty of time for debating later. At the moment, all I wanted to do was get the hell out of the crowded coffee shop.

We slowly made our way through the light rain back to Ben’s car, not talking much. A cacophony of honking horns, loud voices, and screeching brakes filled the quiet spaces between us, making our frequent pauses seem less awkward. At the car, Ben unlocked the doors and held mine open for me, always the gentleman. As I brushed past him to get inside, I purposely let my “attributes“ skim along his arm. He paused, noticing, and I was sure he was going to grab me right then and there and mash his mouth into mine. Instead, he waited for me to get in the car and then shut the door behind me.

He didn’t say a word as we left the city behind and veered onto the highway that would take us home. I didn’t say a word either, not then and not when he suddenly turned off at the wrong exit and pulled into the parking lot of an elementary school, dark and deserted for the weekend. There, he shut off the car and, still not saying a word, leaned over the center console and kissed me.

And it was . . . nice. He was a good kisser. No, a
great
kisser. Even so, everything about it was sweet and chocolaty and nice. No fireworks, no heat, no magnetic, uncontrollable pull between our bodies. Just a normal kiss with a respectable boy. Just like I’d always wanted.

When I looked at it that way, it was easy to convince myself that I was exactly where I was supposed to be.

Chapter Sixteen

M
y father and I had been emailing each other for a little over a month when he broached the possibility of a phone call.

At first, I was reluctant. Hearing his voice, talking to him, would make him seem even more real. Email felt safer. But curiosity trumped my denial once again, and on a Friday evening in mid-May, while I was at the Bruces’ house and safely out of earshot of my mother, I shut myself up in Nolan’s room with my cell. Exactly at seven o’clock, the time we’d agreed upon in our last email, my phone buzzed with a long-distance call.

“Lexi?” His voice sounded as clear as if he was in the next room instead of three thousand miles west.

“Hi,” I said, sitting down on Nolan’s bed. “It’s me.”

“It is you. Wow, I can’t believe—you sound like a young woman.”

I laughed nervously and reached over to pet Hugo, who was curled up in the middle of the bed on a discarded sweatshirt. “Well, I am.”

“True,” he said, laughing, too. “It’s just the last time I saw you, you were learning how to print your name and ride a tricycle. That’s how I remember you, I guess.”