5. A Little Lie Never Hurt Anyone

5

A LITTLE LIE NEVER HURT ANYONE

LILA

I f I didn’t think this night could get any worse, I was dead wrong.

One, I’m trapped in four hundred square feet with my ex-situationship. Two, I just lied about having a new boyfriend to aforementioned ex-situationship. And three, I’m going to become an even bigger raging bitch if I don’t eat something soon.

When we step into the ballroom, I’m overwhelmed by the grandiose nature of everything, not at all comparable to the lackluster childhood I grew up with in tiny Moreno Valley. My childhood was good for the most part, if you don’t count my deadbeat dad who decided to abandon my mom when he found out she was pregnant. My mother got pregnant with me when she was still a teenager in high school, so she raised me all by herself while my father slunk off to bumfuck nowhere without claiming any responsibility for the life he helped bring into this world.

My mom’s a badass. She’s the most determined, hardworking, selfless person I know. While I was growing up in our one-bedroom apartment, she was busy working three jobs to keep us afloat, and even though she wouldn’t come home until the early hours of the morning, I’d always have food on the table and a roof over my head. My childhood wasn’t glamorous by any means, but it was mine, and I shared it with my hero.

She was always a haven of safety for me, of solace, of reassurance. When it seemed like the world had turned its back on me, she was there to remind me that I was loved, and that I always had a supporter in my corner. It wasn’t easy growing up without a dad—it wasn’t easy seeing all the other girls in my grade being dropped off by loving father figures.

My mom, though, understood my pain like nobody else in the universe. She’d sing this song to me—“Beautiful” by Christina Aguilera—and it would always calm me when my nerves were too difficult to corral. I struggled with self-worth thanks to my abandonment issues. But the song…it eventually became a source of empowerment. It tranquilized my heart when it beat too fast. It took all that self-hatred and fear writhing inside me and held it at bay so I could escape for four beautiful, uninterrupted minutes. And there’s not a day that goes by where I don’t listen to it—where I don’t cling to the comforting past my mother cultivated for me. She sacrificed everything for me, and eventually, I realized it was time I did the same for her.

When I became old enough to understand big grownup terms like “Section 8 Housing” and “SNAP benefits,” I realized I had to help my mother with expenses. So, after I turned fifteen, I went searching for jobs at our local mall, and I must’ve won life’s lottery ticket that day because I was scouted to audition for a modeling agency. I didn’t necessarily want to pursue a career in modeling, but it was a good source of income for me and my mother, so I stuck with it. And the longer I did, the more I grew to love it.

I’m lucky that I was tall enough for photoshoots to turn into runway shows. Nothing global or well-known, obviously. The agency had a small audience in California. It wasn’t until I began posting on Instagram that my career started gaining more traction. Now I’m here in good ol’ Riverside, loving my job but hating my coworker like every well-adjusted adult in their mid-twenties.

A crystal teardrop chandelier glistens overhead, sparkling with the brilliance of the night sky, and it accents the off-white sconces lining the walls, which are embellished with an intricate lacework of leaf designs. Pillars of expensive marble are stationed in pairs along the perimeter of the area, sandwiched by large ferns that nearly sweep the varnished floorboards with their overhanging leaves. The floor’s main design consists of concentric circles that resemble an antique sun dial, and the ceiling is garnished in matching golden trim, ultimately tying the whole slice of ostentatious heaven together.

Everything looks surreal, like a picture out of a royal architectural digest. I had no idea something like this even existed in Riverside. I’m so enthralled by the beauty that I almost forget about the eyesore right next to me, talking my ear off with how my very real lie holds no merit. Hundreds of sophisticated bodies mill around us—dressed from head-to-toe in designer outfits—and I make a mental note of the guys who seem like they’d be the easiest to convince to be my fake boyfriend.

When I stop without warning, Bristol nearly collides right into me, his cheeks saturated in a pink, embarrassed blush.

“You know, most guys buy me dinner before they get this up close and personal with my ass,” I jest, watching in delight as that oh-so-delicious blush deepens down his neck and renders him uncharacteristically flustered.

Bristol loosens his tie, clearing his throat in an attempt to maintain some semblance of composure. “I’d offer to buy you dinner if I didn’t think you’d poison my food,” he volleys back .

“You truly have to be obsessed with yourself if you think I’d go to the lengths of poisoning you. Wouldn’t waste that kind of effort,” I say indifferently. “Just following in the expert’s footsteps.”

He flinches at the jab, stripped of whatever witty comeback he had poised on the tip of his tongue, and when I go to move past him, he refuses to grant me passage.

From the time I spent getting to know Bristol, he’s a pretty passive guy. He rarely ever loses his cool. He’s not necessarily cold or unemotional, but he’s reserved, and there always seemed to be a part of him locked away—a part I never had access to when we were together.

But right now, glaring at him through my lashes, I see the briefest flash of that part I always craved—a vulnerability that’s been dormant for years. Though as quick as it appears, it’s gone in the same instant, tailed by a darkening of his eyes that shouldn’t look nearly as sexy as it does. I know it’s only been a year since he ended things, but he’s different. More hardened, if that makes any sense. Finally worn down by all the shit life’s thrown at him, and I have half a mind to wonder if it’s because of me.

“You really want to play this game?” he threatens, though there’s no true malice behind his words.

It’s almost worse that way. It makes me want to scream, Yes, I want to play this game! And not in a fuck-you tone but a fuck- me tone. My stupid, nutrient-deprived body is this close to mauling his face off like some sort of horny, rabid dog. I want his lips on mine, I want his hard body underneath my soft one, I want his tongue so far in my cunt that I forget why I’m even mad at him in the first place.

“Are you scared you might lose?” I purr, cranking up the tension a few notches as I run my manicured nails over his bicep. When his muscles jump, white-hot satisfaction spools low in my belly.

Bristol hesitates, gulping, and the quake in his voice betrays him. “I don’t lose.”

“You will this time. You have no idea what I’m capable of, Bristol. I can make this campaign a living hell for you.”

“Lila, getting partnered with you for this campaign was already hell enough. Nothing you can say or do will change the fact that I’m the idiot who’s still head-over-heels obsessed with you.”

Something sadistic coils inside me, spits its venom, and trills out a warning call like one angry rattlesnake. “Unrequited love hurts, doesn’t it?”

I expect Bristol to stand down and use that seemingly empty brain of his to make a wise decision for once, but as always, idiocy inflates that big head of his to preposterous heights. He steps into my space, crowding me with his imposing body, our noses mere inches apart from one another. One wrong move and we could be skin to skin, and I hate that some sex-starved part of me isn’t repulsed by that outcome.

His half-lidded eyes list over me, making a detour to my lips and then back up to my eyes, where he pretends like he didn’t just insinuate we go for a round of tonsil hockey in front of an entire room of people. This pleasure-pain ache brews between my legs, my cunt squeezing in anticipation against the thin gusset of my panties. In this moment, he’s entirely too perceptive, and he tabs the strain of my breath, my clenched jaw, my gaze that refuses to settle.

Bristol leans in next to my ear. “Don’t think it’s as unrequited as you think,” he whispers, his voice smoke-cured, irresistibly rich as it curls around me in tendrils.

I need to get out of here before I do something I regret. Or worse, before I give Bristol the impression that I’m no longer mad at him. My body’s already doing that for me—it’s practically waving a large, blinking ENTER HERE casino sign right above my hoo-ha.

My arsenal of insults abandons me in my time of need, and I fumble for a retort, trying to rifle through the cobwebs in my brain. I’ve exceeded ten seconds too long in response time, which means I’ve now entered “she doesn’t know what the hell she’s talking about” territory, and that territory is infamously known for crushing women’s dignities.

When a waiter passes us with a tray of wine glasses, Bristol snags one and offers it as some weird peace treaty.

“Wine might help with that blush on your face.”

I snort, though embarrassment acts as a thorn in my side. “Not a big wine fan.”

“No?”

“Not that it’s any of your business, but I’m more of a booze girl. Wine’s too sweet.”

“Then you haven’t had the right kind of wine yet,” he insists, his gaze tiptoeing down to my lips—where I somehow taste the phantom residue of wine on softened collagen.

“O-kay, Mister Romance. I’ll make sure to consider that when I take my expensive limo down to Wine Country and waste the day away taste-testing wines.”

The more I engage in this not-so-harmless flirting, the more chances I give Bristol to squeeze his way back into my good graces. And that will never happen. Not even over my dead body.

So with what brain cells are still functioning, I figure that my best course of action is to walk away as soon as humanly possible. I hold my head up high, push my very revealing chest out, and mince off to the other side of the ballroom where Bristol’s silhouette thankfully gets swallowed up by the dance floor. He doesn’t chase after me—no surprise there. But even if he did, he wouldn’t make it two steps without running into an exhausted caterer or a horde of men so old they were probably around when the first railroad was built.

I have no idea where I’m headed, but when I breach a lapse in the crowd, I find myself by the stupid buffet table. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but would it really be so wrong of me to crawl under the table and wait out the rest of the gala? Bristol’s going to be sniffing after me like a bloodhound, the press is everywhere I turn, and I’m pretty sure they’re going to start asking questions soon—questions I have no desire to answer.

There’s only one other person scouring the hors d'oeuvres, and I try my best to squeeze past him and take a peek at what this glorified prom is offering.

Cameras, Lila. They’re watching. They’re always watching. Just hold out until after the gala. Plus, a Big Mac with fries in your comfy, stretchy sweatpants sounds way better than stuffing your face with mouse food.

“Pretty underwhelming, huh?” a voice says in that same rumbly baritone that I’m beginning to think all hot guys just magically possess.

I turn to the man next to me, pleasantly surprised at the handsome symmetry of his face, the rigid composure of his body, the professionalism evident in both his seamless suit and heavily styled hair. He’s perfection personified. His hair is honeycomb blonde—a far cry from the chocolate brown of Bristol’s hair. His eyes are a bright, glacial blue—not bourbon colored like Bristol’s. And his physique is lean, sophisticated—contrastingly different from the slabs of muscle on Bristol’s hulking, athletic body.

Why am I comparing him to Bristol? This man is conventionally attractive. Am I insane? Actually, I probably am, because this whole ordeal has definitely taken thirty years off my life span. Is there some invisible gas leak polluting my brain and tricking me into channel-surfing a Bristol-only station ?

He doesn’t deserve to be in my thoughts. He’s the last person I want to be thinking about right now, and yet, even with my efforts to keep a generous distance, I can’t seem to escape him.

“Hello?” the disembodied voice asks, tugging me back to the present.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt your…” I trail off, gesturing to the buffet table.

“You weren’t interrupting anything,” he insists with a smile, and I expect butterflies to wreak havoc in my gut, but there’s no fluttering sensation to be found. No spark. No nothing. Disappointment twinges inside me instead, and I’m not sure how convincing my smile is, but I strain my lips to make it believable.

“Plus, getting interrupted by someone as beautiful as you is hardly a nuisance.”

Ugh! He’s a total gentleman. Suave, smooth with his words, seductive in all the right ways. Any sensible woman would swoon at his feet.

I blink a few times, not sure why forming a simple “thank you” seems to be such an impossible task. “Oh, uh.”

The Ryan Gosling doppelganger leans in closer to me, engulfing me in the faintest hint of vanilla-tinged cologne. “I hope I’m not overstepping by asking you this, but are you alright? You seem a bit pale.”

Oh, that’s great. Just what every girl wants to hear—that they look like a walking corpse.

“I’m okay, thanks. Just…a bit all over the place,” I admit, dismissing him with a wave of my hand, and I think I’m so used to Bristol’s combative, concern-driven interrogations that I’m surprised when this man accepts my bold-faced lie.

As I set my sights on the bodies in motion around me, wondering how everyone else is faring during a night that’s supposed to be nothing short of exhilarating, a particular head of brown hair jockeys through the congested mass, headed right toward me with frightening determination.

Shit. He found me. Which, given the volume of people in here, is actually quite impressive.

Now, kicked into full throttle, dignity on the line, I turn toward the man next to me and blurt out my hilariously unbelievable truth.

“Okay, this is going to sound crazy, but I need your help. There’s this guy, right? He’s my ex-fling, and he’s coming this way, and I kind of totally lied about having a new boyfriend, and you just so happen to be right here, and I will literally pay you to pretend to be my boyfriend for the next ten minutes. He can’t know I lied. And I know I should’ve been truthful with him from the beginning, but we didn’t really end on good terms, and I want to show him that I’m totally good with the fact that he broke my heart.”

I glance back to gauge the time I have left to convince this stranger to partake in some harmless cahoots, but thanks to Bristol’s stupidly long legs, he’ll be here within two to four strides.

I’m just about to say something when Bristol butts into the conversation, the mask of courtesy stuck to his face slowly cracking along the edges. “There you are. I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Some reporters want to ask us questions about the campaign,” he informs me, completely ignoring the other person in the vicinity.

“I’m kind of in the middle of something,” I hiss through gritted teeth, inclining my head toward my—fingers crossed—new fake boyfriend.

Bristol gives his competition a languid onceover, his lips quirking down. “I can wait,” he replies, widening his stance and crossing his arms over his chest.

Bristol has at least five inches over I-never-even-got-his-name , and even if my partner in crime tried to stand up to him, Bristol would undoubtedly take him between his forefinger and thumb and squish him like a pathetic bug. He stands by my side in guard dog mode, never once taking his eyes off the man next to me, singeing a jealousy-lined hole into his skull.

Oh my God. I can’t believe him! He’s so fucking obnoxious. If there weren’t a hundred plus witnesses around, I’d take a kebab skewer and shove it right into his eye socket. I’m running out of excuses; I’m running out of lies. I can’t speed-walk my way out of this one.

And then, by some miracle, my knight in shining Armani slings his arm over my shoulder, pulls me into his side, and delivers the most Oscar-worthy performance of a lifetime. “Babe, who’s this?” he asks, really hammering the nail in the coffin with a squeeze to my shoulder.

Bristol momentarily loses his cool, unable to downplay the cocktail of shock and anger battling for dominance over his features, and that forehead vein of his—the one I’ve nicknamed Colosso because it’s so fucking big—gets dangerously close to bursting. “Babe?”

Suck it, Bristol Brenner.

“That’s right,” I say smugly, resting my hand on my fake boyfriend’s chest and batting my eyelashes. “Uh…”

“Glifford,” he supplies.

“ Glifford here is the boyfriend I was telling you about.”

A growl curdles in Bristol’s chest. “Really?”

Glifford shrugs, unfazed. “Believe what you want. But me and…”

“Lila,” I whisper to him.

“But Lila and I are in love with each other,” he insists, catching me off guard when he plants a rather sticky kiss to my forehead. It takes every ounce of my willpower not to shudder, and anxiety begins to close in on me .

Bristol examines us closely, searching for a lie-ending fault in our fa?ade. He pauses for a few seconds—subjecting all of us to unbearable silence—and then he breaks the tension with the worst thing he could possibly say. “Prove it,” he orders.

I sputter, feeling sweat break out over every inch of my exposed skin, my heart rabbiting against my ribs. “ Prove it? ”

“If you two are so in love, you’ll have no trouble proving it.”

Fuck. He’s driven me into a corner, and either I surrender and admit everything was a lie, or I swap spit with a complete rando. Glifford and I look at each other, both internally panicking, and I’m about to swallow my pride when Glifford grabs me, dips me, and smashes his lips onto mine.

Everything happens so quickly that I’m not even allotted time to react appropriately, and I squeeze my eyes shut, keeping my mouth in an unbreachable line. It’s not a bad kiss by any means, but it’s not a butterfly-inducing kiss that makes my brain short-circuit and my tongue go numb.

When we pull away from each other, I’m met by Bristol’s withering gaze, his upper body strife with tension, a muscle in his jaw jutting out prominently. He’s practically shaking with wrath, a second away from making a scene, and I’ve never been more afraid in my life. I’m playing with fire right now, and the flame I’ve been stoking is about to swallow me in a blistering blaze.

I foolishly think I’m in the clear when Bristol shouts at the top of his lungs.

“What the ever-loving fuck?”