Page 35 of Fake it ’Til Fall

“You wound me.”

“You’ll survive.”

I shouldn’t say what I add next.

I know that before it leaves my mouth.

Still, it comes out.

“You always do.”

Her expression shifts.

I see the words reach a place neither of us meant to touch.

For a second, there’s no bickering. No sandwich surveillance. No dog between us acting like an overly invested chaperone. Just Daisy looking at me, and me realizing I’ve said something too close to what I actually think.

That she survives.

That I notice.

That I don’t know why it makes me angry that she has to.

She lowers the sandwich to the wrapper. Her thumb brushes at a crumb near her mouth, missing it entirely.

I could tell her.

I could reach across the table and wipe it away.

I could do one small, stupid, intimate thing and ruin the careful distance we keep pretending is enough.

I don’t move.

Daisy drops her gaze first.

“Well,” she says, her voice lighter than her face, “someone has to. I’ve already saved for October’s rent, and it feels rude to waste the achievement.”

I let her have the joke.

For now.

Daisy reaches for her sandwich again. I open the book.

“You’re doing it again,” Daisy says.

“Reading?”

“Brooding with props.”

“I’m not brooding.”

“You absolutely are. The book is just there for plausible deniability.”

I turn one page. “I’m absorbing.”

“You haven’t absorbed a single sentence.”

“Maybe I’m a slow learner.”