Best Served Fake

thirty-six // what-the-actual-fuck o'clock

I groaned my tiredness into the phone. "Jame, I love you, truly, but stop being horny and go the fuck to sleep. I can make tomorrow work, but get back to me in 8 hours after you've slept a full night, and we can discuss plans then."

"I wasn't horny, I am a connoisseur of tasteful erotic literature."

"Okay."

"No, seriously. It was an academic pursuit. Investigative science. A product of a curious mind with an interest in exploring all genres of the written word."

"Go to sleep, Jameson."

"I'll see you tomorrow, Valerie."

A respectable nine hours later, Jameson pulled up in front of my house. He was seated at the wheel of some sort of BMW monstrosity that no eighteen-year-old had any business in driving, looking like a cologne model, with sunglasses perched on the bridge of his nose and his hair windswept and casual in the kind of way that only an expensive haircut and even more expensive shampoo seemed to achieve.

Mum's spoon paused on the way to her mouth, and she rose from her seat, looking a little dazed. "Is that a BMW?"

I peered through the window. "I think so."

"Do you think it would damage your relationship with your new friends if I stole his car?"

I shrugged. "He probably has another one. I say go for it."

Mum looked longingly at Jamie's car as he stepped out of it, waving enthusiastically at our faces in the window.

She turned to me with a disbelieving frown. "Why do you suddenly have an ever-revolving door of hot people coming to our house?"

"Jamie is one of Kai's friends." I turned away from the window to gather the meagre pile of things Jamie had instructed me to bring on our 'adventure'. At Mum's pointed look, I said, "It's not like that with Jamie. I promise. We're just friends. Also, stop calling eighteen-year-olds hot, you're too old for that."

"Not for me," Mum said. "For you. They're objectively hot people. And I want pretty grandchildren—" at my frown, she added, "—though I promise to love them even if they are uggos."

"Thanks, I think," I said, as Jameson rapped twice on the front door; a businessman's knock. I pointed toward the entryway. "I'm going to get that, try not to be weird, m'kay?"

Mum pulled a decidedly weird face, and I shot her a warning look as I opened the front door.

Jameson was leaning against the doorframe in some approximation of casualness, but his fingers tapped a frenetic pattern against the expensive material of his tailored pants. His outfit wasn't over-the-top—simple pants and a t-shirt—but it was evident from the soft fabric and the carefully selected colours that brought out the green in his eyes, and the perfect way it sat on the contour of his body that the outfit was expensive. Designer, and most likely selected by a wardrobe expert.

I waved him in, and he unstuck himself from the wall and strolled through the entryway as if he owned it, which, to be fair, he could probably afford to. That walk wasn't coached, I didn't think, but it could've been; it so effortlessly told the entire story of Jameson Miller's life—the story he wanted to tell—in just a single arrogant, charming swagger.

"Hey," I said, with the friendly awkwardness of inviting a new friend to your house for the first time.

Jamie's lips quirked. "Hey." He tweaked my hair affectionately, before turning to Mum with a broad smile that seemed trained; charming, effortless, million-dollar. "And good morning, thank you for having me. You have a really nice home, and a passably nice daughter. I'm Jameson, Valerie's best friend."