Table of Contents

  Faking It

  PART 1 | 1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  An... Unusual Interlude

  PART 2 | 12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  Faking It

  Kimber Montgomery

  ©2022 All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any manner whatsoever without the express written consent of the publisher, save for brief passages quoted in the context of reviews or scholarly works. This book is a work of fiction. All elements are creations of the author, or are used fictitiously. No similarity between any institution, product, or individual, living or dead, is intended or should be inferred, and if such exists is purely coincidental. Cover images: Gelmis Bartulis and Justin Morgan, via Unsplash. Used under license. Published by Inept Concepts. Reviews sell books, and help inform your fellow readers. Please consider leaving an honest review if you enjoyed this title, or, yes, even if you didn't.

  PART 1

  1

  "So here's what I was thinking," Elizabeth said, staring across their shared desk. Jason favored her with an exaggerated, questioning stare. His dark hair still had the tousled look it maintained until gravity inevitably reigned it in – usually just in time for lunch – and his blue eyes had that faux-alert, post-coffee gleam that suggested he was almost fully aware of his surroundings. Liz set aside the pencil she'd been nibbling as she worked and pushed her glasses back into place. There was an antiquated saying, Men don't make passes at girls who wear glasses, but no one would ever apply that tired old chestnut to Liz, not with her naturally blonde hair and classic sweetheart-next-door looks.

  "I'm waiting," he grinned. Lord, that grin. How many of her girlfriends had been roped in by that grin, only to blame her when things, somehow, never quite worked out? She'd stopped setting Jason up with her friends three years ago, avoided even introducing him ever since the Maya incident, and these days just accepted the fact that her best (guy) friend was also far better off being her best-kept secret.

  "I haven't had a date in a while..."

  "Uh-huh." Now he was smirking.

  "And I couldn't help but notice that you've been free dang near every time I suggest Netflix night, or I'm in sudden need of an emergency brunch buddy..."

  "True."

  "So I'm guessing things aren't so hot for you in the romance department lately either."

  "Guilty as charged."

  "So I was thinking..."

  "Here? Now? What if Dean Allen walks in?

  "Har-de-har."

  He waited. Having slipped his little joke in, he had nothing else to say, as he had no idea what she was building up to.

  "So," she said slowly, "I was thinking..."

  "You said that."

  "Okay, fine," she blurted out. "I was thinking about psychology."

  Jason leaned forward, stroking his chin. He hadn't shaved today – or yesterday, it seemed – and it suited him.

  "Psychology...," he repeated. "Okay. I'm intrigued." He made a show of setting aside the papers he was grading. "Continue."

  "Oh, so I have your permission."

  "You do."

  "I didn't ask for it."

  "I guess I'm just a giver."

  She rolled her eyes. Impossible.

  "So anyway," she plunged ahead, "I was thinking about all the girls who just throw themselves at you when we're hanging out together..."

  "I am unaware of any such phenomenon," he said, furrowing his brow. She couldn't quite tell if he was kidding or not.

  "And, similarly, seems like the boys just stare when I'm out hanging with you."

  "Don't let your ego get away from you. I have it on pretty good authority that those boys are all gay."

  "Look, the point I'm trying to make is that we garner interest galore from members of the opposite sex when we're hanging out together, but lately neither one of us can score a date to save her – or his – life."

  "If you're trying to depress me right before lunch you're doing a terrific job."

  "It's psychology. I think I'm a pretty good catch. You... have your moments..."

  He raised a single eyebrow at this.

  "...but when people see us together, when they think we are together, suddenly we're that much more desirable. It's like it flicks a subconscious switch somewhere: 'Here's one of the good ones!' You see what I'm getting at?"

  "Of course. The grass is always greener. No, wait. Sour grapes, or the opposite of that. So the opposite of sour grapes stir-fried with the grass is always greener. It's human nature, old as the hills."

  "I lost track of how many idioms you just massacred."

  "I think the word you're looking for is mastered, not massacred."

  "Or possibly idiot, not idiom." Her subsequent smile lit up their cramped little office and he couldn't help but smile back.

  "Cold blooded," he declared.

  "You know it. So do you want to hear my idea, or not?"

  He nodded.

  "Okay. I think we should date."

  "Whoa," he said.

  "Not really date. Fake date."

  "Fake date?" He did not look convinced.

  "Hear me out. We start spending more time together, like lots more time. Change our Facebook statuses to 'In a Relationship'. Maybe you sleep over a couple times a week – on the couch. Before you know it, everyone starts quacking away, 'What does she see in him? She could do so much better!' Then when the quacking reaches a fever pitch we break up and collapse into the arms of all the suitors who, by then, will be desperately chomping at the bit for a shot at," she indicated herself, "this!"

  "Sounds kind of one-sided."

  "Well I'm sure a couple of slovenly bimbos will take note and develop a mild interest in you, too."

  He stared at her for what felt like a long time. It wasn't, but it sure felt like it.

  "Okay," he finally said, "I'm in. But I'm setting my Facebook status to 'It's Complicated'."

  2

  In a perfect world they might have kicked off their little deception by having lunch together that very afternoon, but they often ate lunch together so it was unlikely anyone would make anything of it. So Liz kicked it up a notch, laughing extra hard at all of Jason's little quips, trying her best not to look around and see if anyone was noticing. When he pointed out that maybe she was selling it a bit too hard she reluctantly agreed and opted to take hold of his hand instead. It felt weird, holding his hand like that. He didn't exactly cooperate, and it was kind of difficult, eating with only one hand, but she stuck it out. They were still in the very earliest phases of her little scheme, and she was still quite excited about the possibilities and wanted to get to it.

  Jason, for his part, figured she'd lose interest by the end of the week. In fact, it being Friday, he gave the whole thing 48 hours, tops. He was so not committed to the idea, in any practical sense, that when a load of extra work landed on her desk at ten minutes to, he didn't even offer to wait for her, dashed off a quick "G'night!" as he breezed out the door, and took the ferry back to the mainland on his own.

  Needless to say, he was mildly taken aback when he logged onto Facebook later that night.

  "I just found out I'm in a relationship," he told her when she picked up.

  "Neat, huh? Shouldn't have trusted me with your password."

  He hadn't been able to figure out how to set up a business page, and now he was paying for it. The mostly theoretical "business" wasn't even a going concern anymore.

  "So we're really doing this?"

  "We are doing this!"

  He scrolled down his feed. Already, a handful of congrats and one "I knew it!"

  "Jason. Liz. I just realized what our couple name should be: 'Jiz'."

  "Post that and by all that's holy and all that ain't, I swear I will slay you."

  "Pretty theatrical, there."

  "I'm reading student submissions. It rubs off."

  "Cripes, you're still at work?"

  "Uh huh. Lost track of time. I'm glad you called though, because we need to keep this momentum going. What do you say to, I dunno, a picnic tomorrow?"

  "I've never been on a picnic."

  "You've never gone on a picnic?"

  "Not with a girl. I've been on huge, sprawling family picnics with a dozen adult relatives I barely knew and thirty unsupervised cousins running around screaming and raising hell. I learned how to build a balloon bomb from one of those cousins during one of those picnics."

  "My version has more chicken salad, less bombs."

  "Couldn't we just meet at Taco Jocko? Three-for-one if you get there before noon."

  "No! Jason, we're supposed to be a fresh new couple, excited and in love. People in a new relationship put in the effort. Taco Jocko comes like, two years after you move in together."

  "We just went to Taco Jocko last week. You drank too many margaritas."

  "That's when we were friends, Jason. We're playing couple now. It's like... reality theater. We have to embrace the illusion."

  "The scam, you mean."

  "Illusion."

  "Okay, fair enough. Where and when should we meet..." He caught himself. "I mean, when should I pick you up?"

  "Now you're getting it!" He could almost hear her beaming through the phone. "Um, I'll catch the last boat, in bed by midnight... Let's say eleven, in front of my building."

  "Done and done. What should I bring?"

  "I'll take care of the food. Drinks? And you pick the place. Someplace really visual, with a lot of natural beauty. Remember, we're going to be documenting this."

  3

  She was waiting out front, and she had a big ol' picnic basket and a checkered blanket and everything.

  "Good morning!" she chirped as she clambered into his battered, antiquated Fiat Spider, deftly kissing him on the cheek. He tried and couldn't remember if she'd ever done that before, even in jest.

  "So what did you make?" he asked, carefully pulling out into the late morning weekend traffic.

  "Ham and cheese sandwiches on toasted wheat, a half-assed salad to share, yogurt cups, and semi-fresh chocolate chip cookies."

  "Semi-fresh?"

  "Fresh baked... two days ago."

  "Ah." He grinned. "No offense, but this relationship is off to a half-baked start."

  "It's what I had in the house!"

  "We should've met earlier and gone shopping first, really loaded up on proper picnic supplies."

  "Oh my god! We should have! It would've been so cute and maybe someone we knew would have seen us!"

  "We still can."

  "I hate to waste this food I made..."

  "We'll just throw it out the window, or give it to some homeless person."

  "Yeah, that's what I want as our first 'couple' social media post, littering and fraternizing with the homeless."

  "Well, I, at least, rockstarred it in the drinks department."

  "What did you get?"

  "Wine for the photo op and Aquafina for when we're not behaving like lunatics."

  "Expensive wine, I hope?"

  "We can turn the label away from the camera."

  They'd been driving for quite a while.

  "Is this a picnic or a kidnapping?" Liz asked.

  "You wanted scenic, you're getting scenic. Nothing is too good for my fraudulent girlfriend."

  "So where are we going? I would've been cool with the park." Fayhaven only had the one – named, in a flash of municipal brilliance, "Fayhaven Park" – but it was a nice one, sprawling and picturesque, and it was the perfect place to be seen having a picnic.

  "Too obvious," Jason assured her. "Any starry-eyed dingbats can have a picnic in the park..."

  "Speak for yourself," Liz quickly interjected. He was undeterred.

  "... but I know a nifty little spot no one visits, absolutely gorgeous, photogenic as all hell..."

  "And no one else knows about this place?"

  "Just the gun-toting drug cartel that grows their marijuana there."

  She rolled her eyes, indicating that she knew he was joking.

  Probably.

  And suddenly they were pulling over, right there on the highway.

  "What's wrong?"

  "Nothing's wrong. We're here."

  She slid her sunglasses down her nose, looked around, looked at him.

  "It's lovely," she deadpanned just as a passing semi voiced its displeasure by laying on the horn.

  "Maybe I better pull a little further off the road."

  Putting the Spider into gear, he cut left so that he was half in the breakdown lane, half in the field alongside. He triggered the hazards, then favored Liz with a big, goofy grin even as she lasered him with the look.

  "Relax," he said, climbing out of the car and scampering around to open her door for her. "This isn't the place." He indicated a sizable copse of trees that couldn't have been more than, oh, a hundred miles from the highway. "It's that way."

  "Are you kidding me?"

  "C'mon, it's not even a mile. The exercise'll do you good."

  "And what is that supposed to mean?" she jokingly demanded, hands on her hips.

  "Trust me, it'll totally be worth it."

  Liz wasn't so sure. Despite the early-autumn bite in the air she'd worn her pleated, blue-plaid skirt, because she looked great in that skirt, damn it, and she didn't exactly take to the idea of marching "not even a mile" through a field of grass up to her knees that might be concealing all sorts of...

  "There's no rats," Jason assured her, as he barged ahead, her picnic basket in one hand, his plastic grocery bag of drinks in the other. "The rattlesnakes take care of that."

  "Jason!" she squeaked, a sound midway between a whine and a laugh. He was infuriating sometimes!

  But, okay, it was kind of funny too.

  He stopped and turned back to her.

  "I'm kidding. Honest."

  "Promise?"

  "Promise."

  "On our friendship."

  "On our friendship and on my vinyl."

  Jason's collection of obscenely rare new wave records was his pride and joy.

  "Well, if you're willing to ante up your vinyl..."

  "Look, I'll carry you if you want."

  "And the basket? And the wine?"

  "Hop on my back."

  "For real?"

  She balked, though she wasn't sure why. It would be cute – almost too cute – riding piggyback to this mysterious picnic site. Real, cheesy, new-love type stuff. That's the angle they were shooting for, right?

  So why did she suddenly feel so weird?

  "It's okay," she said, waving him on. "I'll risk it."

  4

  They encountered no rats, or snakes, but on the far side of the copse of trees was something far, far worse.

  Dead bodies.

  "A cemetery?!" Liz gasped.

  "Relax!" Jason moved to ward her off even before she hauled back to slug him. "This isn't it! It's a little further yet! I promise, this will all be worth it."

  She plucked twice a dozen burrs off her knee-high socks, one off the hem off her skirt, and still another clinging to the bottom of her faux leather jacket.

  "It better be," she grumbled to herself. To Jason: "How'd you discover this place, anyway?"

  "Back in high school we used to sneak out here at night to run around in the catacombs..."

  "Catacombs? What's that?"

  "Tunnels, beneath the cemetery here." They were weaving in and old of the tombstones now. Ancient, they were; she didn't see any death dates later than the early 1940s, and there were lots of birth dates from the nineteenth century. "No idea what they're for, but they're huge. You could drive a car through them. So, boys being boys, we parked on the highway there, crept through the field, and then ran around down there with flashlights, scaring ourselves silly."

  Liz looked doubtful.

  "Oh, there's nothing down there," Jason assured her. "We had a ball convincing ourselves otherwise though. Anyway, one day I decided to come here in the daytime, and after walking around the graveyard for a while I decided to push further back into the trees..."

  They were entering these trees now. There was a gurgling sound, she realized, and she recognized the unmistakable smell of fresh, clean water.

  "...and that's when I stumbled across... this!"

  She froze in awe.

  A clearing, dominated by a deep pool of the bluest black, fed by a tiny waterfall gurgle-rushing at least twenty-five feet down a wide, natural pyramid of granite. Languid, late-season bumblebees flitted from depleted flower to depleted flower; a bunny rabbit on the far side of the pool stared at them for a moment, baffled, before hopping off; and somewhere, invisible, a bird scolded them with a sharp, irritated Chirpy-chirpy chirpy-chirpy-chirp!

  It was breathtaking.

  "How is this a real place and no one knows about it?" she asked herself out loud.

  "You should see it in the springtime," Jason said, spreading the checkered blanket on the grass.

  "So I'm not the first girlfriend you ever brought here."

  "You're the first fake girlfriend I ever brought here."

  "I'll take it. And I'll take a bottle of that water, if you don't mind."

  He tossed it to her.

  "Anyway there's the real reason nobody knows about this place." He indicated a cracked, weathered, plastic sign indifferently nailed to a tree. PRIVATE PROPERTY – TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT.

  "Shot, huh?"

  "Hasn't happened yet. Well, once, but that relationship wasn't going anywhere anyway."

  "How many?"

  "Hmm?" He sat down across from her, digging into the basket and handing her a sandwich.

 

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