Don't Go Faking My Heart (Sweet as Sugar Maple, #4)

by Kate Watson

Presentations are just persuasive crowd control. Kind of.

Rusty gets me better than pretty much anyone, and this text is his way of acknowledging how much I hate being early. Yet, he doesn't come across as judgmental or pushy. Waiting makes me feel like my skin is crawling. Rusty, on the other hand, likes waiting. He finds it calming. So he knows whatever time he gives me, I'll be late, and he'll be fine. He's the perfect friend for me.

I finally brought it up after we'd been dating for four months, and he said, "That explains a lot. I’ll just have to love you in spite of it." Isn't that gross?

"I know exactly what you mean," I say, because dreams are random like that. Also, Ash has the best dreams. And by best, I mean intensely weird and weirdly riveting.

I duck my head and catalog the compliment. I don't know if she's aware of how often she compliments me, but I am.

Every six weeks, she dyes a single lock a new color, and it always matches her glasses. She coordinates outfits around that stripe. I hope she's still doing it when she's ninety.

How this woman talked me—a guy who’s up before the rooster crows—into abandoning my post and staying up all night is no mystery. I'm madly in love with her.

Meanwhile, Ash figured it out the moment she noticed me using an accessibility feature on my phone. All she said was, "Oh, do you have dyslexia? Cool. I have ADHD. Our brains are going to be best friends." Then she high-fived me, and that was the moment I started to fall.

Wherever it is, my heart is floating there, twelve thousand miles from my body. That's how far gone I am.

She snorts, and I catalog that, too. I love making her laugh. Now if I can only make her swoon.

No matter how blank a stare she gets or how dumb a question, she soldiers on, all quirky and gorgeous and flipping her hair to make points in a way that almost mesmerizes me.

"How'd these girls get in here, anyway?" Bill asks, pointing to Parker and Lou. "You want to phrase that differently," Tripp says, not asking.

He's a small, scared fool whose only power comes from making other people feel small. My breath is choppy as I squeeze my fists to the breaking point. I want to move Tripp aside and turn his threats into a reality on Teddy's face. Not her. He doesn't get to do that to her.

I shouldn't have said it. I shouldn't have let Bill get under my skin. But no one makes Ash feel small around me. No one.

"I can't lose this," she whispers. She leans her head against my shoulder, but it's for support, not affection. It's the way she'd treat one of her brothers, not the way I want her to treat me.

Her lips tug downward, but to the side, too, like she wants to believe me but can't. "Why are you so good to me?" Because I love you. Because you're the person I want to be good for.

And I pine. For every second of the next hour, I pine.

What have I gotten myself into? I don't have this kind of time! No one has this kind of time! If I never had to sleep or work my day job again, maybe I could do it.

A lengthy to-do list forms in my mind, but every single item fights for first place. Where do I start? Who do I prioritize? How do I prioritize?

This golden hammer with his buffed nails and his expensive Italian shoes is touching the woman I love. He’s holding her casually but possessively, like a spoiled little boy who just got a present he doesn't really care about but he doesn't want anyone else to have.

The thinking part of my brain shuts down, and instinct takes over. I stride to Ash, tap Philip's shoulder, and say, "I'm gonna need you to get your hands off my girlfriend."

His eyes jump between mine earnestly, supportively. "If you were lucky enough to love a woman like her, you'd do anything to keep her in your arms." Shoot, that was smooth.

I could eat his frustration with a spoon.

Holy sensation, Batman! His lips barely touch my skin—it's like he's trying to play his part without crossing a boundary—but tell that to my body. My skin explodes into goosebumps, and I reflexively lean into him, unable to stop myself. I squeal and giggle, swatting Rusty's chest. His very firm chest.

Best. Actor. Ever.

oh hun.

Rusty pauses. “‘My grandpa owns a Van Gogh.’ Did you mean to say that out loud?”

hahaha!

"You've created campaigns that turned boutiques into juggernauts. The world knows, gorgeous." "Oh, you." I stare at him in awe. Rusty is always sharp and witty, but sometimes he's so quiet, if you breathe too loud, you'll miss it. He's not quiet right now.

He looks at me with so much faith in his eyes, if he wasn’t already my best friend, I’d fall in love with him for this look alone.

Rusty stiffens. Like, every muscle I'm touching—and I'm touching a lot of them—goes totally rigid. Wow, he is super muscly. I pat his stomach. Hello, tummy waffles.

My existence was a constant blow to his ego. His rejection was a constant blow to mine.

I realized I wasn’t offbeat but rather ahead of the tempo.

How do I say that the reason I was able to turn it on like that is because, for the first time in the year I've known her, I wasn't acting?

I lean against the wall, trying to hold myself together. She is triumphant, and I'm in agony, and that's the way every minute of the rest of my life will play out now that I know what it's like to touch her cheek and the curve of her jaw, what it's like to bury my face in those curls and have my arm around her like she's mine and I'm hers.

I've held Ash one time. I've stroked her cheek and let my lips glide across her skin one time. Those motions have imprinted into the sinews and fibers of every single muscle in my body. My muscles will never forget. And my heart—the hardest working muscle in the human body—will never recover.

but they've also hinted that Ash has a thing for bad boys. I thought they meant biker dudes who grunt a lot. I didn't realize they meant American Psycho.

My throat closes, thick with emotion that I don't dare show anyone, not even these women who can see through me like a window, and especially not my best friend who … can't.

If only I could learn how to be attracted to guys like Rusty instead of jerks like Philip.

I close my eyes to heighten my sense of smell—is that a real thing?—and I breathe in deeply. Eucalyptus. And something minty. I love mint. I take another whiff. And of course, that's when Rusty stirs. "Am I dreaming, or are you smelling my hair?"

"What's new?" "I'm fake dating Ash," I say. "How did that happen?" "Her ex came into town, and he's a manipulative piece of crap."

"No. Grief is a beautiful thing, son. It's a sign that you had someone in your life who mattered that much to you."

"If you take away the pain of grief, you take away the love from life. You can't have loss without love."

If my love for Ash disappeared, the pain would go with it, but so would the joy. It is a privilege to love that woman, close or far.

"Some trophies can only be won once," Mrs. Beaty says. "That girl's heart is one of them."

Mrs. Beaty laughs and completes her canasta, winning the round. She pats his hand. "Next time you try to hustle a hillbilly, work smarter, not harder."

Rusty still hasn't responded to my joke. Is he okay? Or have I … broken him? Broken us?

I smirk, and the movement makes his lips bump into my teeth. "Is that it?" "I'm trying to be respectful," he says, and he's smiling, too, and that only makes me smile more now we're just teeth bumping into teeth.

"I'm sorry," Rusty says into his hat with endearing uncertainty. "Uh, no," I say. "You don't apologize after kissing someone like that. You say 'you're welcome.'" He drops his hat as people surround us. "Are you thankin' me?"

"You okay?" he says. His hand is on my elbow, and why am I suddenly cold everywhere else except there?

"You know that feeling when someone's taking a picture of you and you don't know what to do with your hands?" "Yeah?" "That's how this feels!" "Come again?" "I feel so awkward! How am I supposed to act?" "With your hands?" "No! With me? Us? We kissed!"

He exhales slowly. "You are the most important person in my life." My screensaver freezes. "All I want to do is protect your heart. I'm not going to do anything that puts you in jeopardy of being hurt again."