Best Served Fake

forty-four // mass exodus

But when I grinned at Kai, and he grinned back, I still thought he had to be the best-looking guy there.

"Wanna go in?" Kai asked.

"Sure."

Isabelle bounced out of the front seat. "I haven't seen Zac in ages! I told him that if he isn't going to visit, he better have bought me a present."

Ah. Zac. I'd spent a lot of time thinking about the long-lost Delaney brother lately. Kai and Isabelle, to my knowledge, bore no grudge against their eldest brother, but I held my reservations. When I remembered that house and Maria, both falling apart faster than Kai could patch them up. Hours toiling at the garage, that vacant smile, Isabelle's excitement over a new dress.

Zac Delaney was entitled to a life of his own, maybe, but that didn't mean I wasn't allowed to be pissed about it. Not that I was going to start a fight about it at a wedding, where I was an unknown guest.

"You'll have to introduce me to everyone," I said to Kai. He would have to introduce me to everyone, but not as he had at the lunch table only a few months ago. The wedding was the implementation of our plan; Kai Delaney would be introducing me as his girlfriend. And hopefully, in a few short hours, it wouldn't be fake.

"I barely know anyone, either," he confessed. "I know Zac, obviously, and the bride and groom. And Elena has a friend called Julian she introduced me to, once. But otherwise, I'm as lost as you are."

I grinned. "I'll have to introduce you to Cole's friend, then. Lena Montez."

"Why, what's she like?"

"Rich."

Kai laughed, and I knew that he, better than anyone, understood what my meaningful rich meant. Rich like the kids at our school, not just like me, who was well-off enough, but rich even by the standards of an expensive private school; rich like Cole Knight or Jameson Miller; rich in the kind of way where your last name seemed to hold more weight than your first, like your family was more significant than your identity. It didn't mean you were an asshole, or unlikeable. It was just something noticeable. A significance.

"And hot," I added, because it was true.

"Don't care," said Kai easily. "I have a girlfriend, haven't you heard? And she's really hot; couldn't notice someone else if I tried."

I liked the sound of that. I even thought he might mean it.

I didn't bother searching for Lena Montez during the ceremony. My eyes were entirely fixated on the man standing next to the groom; I couldn't have mistaken him for anyone else; Zac was all Delaney dark hair and good looks, with stubble on his jaw and wrinkles around his eyes from smiling that betrayed his age. He was broader than Kai, an image superimposed, a window to what Kai would look like in five years.

I barely had time to even examine the bride, even though Elena Montez was beautiful. The vows she exchanged with Jack were heartfelt, and I heard a chorus of enthusiastic sobbing from some of the pews toward the front.

Kai grabbed my hand when the celebrant prompted Jack, and the groom planted an enthusiastic kiss on his new bride's lips. He wasn't looking at me, eyes steadfastly forward, but he tangled our fingers together and squeezed gently, and even though I could only see his side profile, there was an expression settled into the corner of his lips that I'd never seen before. Something almost tender.

My heart thudded against my chest, that tell-tale beat, he likes you, Valerie.

He didn't untangle our hands even as the reception kicked into high gear. Everyone under 16 was ushered into the care of a babysitter, or the older children, and glasses of champagne were dispensed with voracity. In a few short hours, I was planning on asking Kai Delaney out for the second time, except this time, it was real. I accepted the first glass offered to me and poured it down my throat like it was water.