Best Served Fake

fifty-six // the whole time

Kai raised the glass of sangria Isabelle had forced into the hand that wasn't preoccupied by being wrapped around me, offering a cheers to his best friend. "Thanks, mate."

Jameson did not have the same casual reaction to Will's revelation. "You knew?" he exclaimed. "And you told no one? Et tu, Brute!"

Will didn't look impressed. "If I told you, everyone would know. Which they evidently did not want, or they would have told you."

"I can keep a secret," Jameson protested, pointing at Sebastian, who clearly had not expected to be singled out and had been absorbed in a conversation with Cora. "Seb, tell him."

Seb responded to Jameson's meaningful glare with a shrug. "I mean, if you threaten him a lot, he can be okay. I usually suggest smashing every expensive bottle of whiskey at the mansion, or castration. I've found the first one seems to be oddly more effective."

"That's because I know that you're into dudes," said Jamie with a sage nod. "You would never destroy such an exemplary artifact of our people. But I know my bottles aren't safe."

Seb looked skyward, as if calling to some far-away gods for patience.

"But I can be a good secret keeper, if it's important. It's like, I didn't even tell anyone about the time you went to the Horny Corny with David Hillshore and he gave you that massive hick—"

Seb met Will's eyes, the latter of whom was sporting a decidedly disappointed frown. To Jameson's credit, he was on the way to hammered already, but that didn't have much impact; he was never going to be the group vault. Seb sighed. "He cannot keep a secret."

Will looked from one Delaney sibling to the other; Kai was muffling his laugh into the junction of my shoulder, and Isabelle was engrossed in her task of nursemaid. "And you're sure this is who you want to move in with?"

"Oh, you're such a bitch, Kennedy," Jameson said, sipping daintily from his own sangria, which he'd topped up with a hearty pour from his own vodka flask. "I am going to be a delightful roommate."

"Of course, you are," said Isabelle. "You're the one with the money."

"Who needs money when we have you to handle the furniture?"

Isabelle had built half the furniture in the Delaney house. I'd spent the past two nights with Kai there, helping to pack things away and label boxes, sorting through a lifetime of knick-knacks and old sporting trophies in between long rounds of kissing against the door of whatever dusty room we were tackling. It was as if we were making up for lost time; in the course of three months, I'd only kissed him three times, and two had been in public. Those two nights I'd stayed over, I took any available opportunity to plant my lips on his, which was most of the time. Isabelle took to throwing socks at us, whenever she caught us.

But the main source of pride, the one thing Kai wanted to show me, was all the pieces Isabelle had made. She loved to make furniture; her first had been the rickety table in the living room, the one she'd learned to make because she wanted them to have someplace to eat their dinner that wasn't the wine-stained couch.

Jameson was bankrolling a collection of high-quality wood for Izzy to work with to create the furniture for their new place. When the Delaneys had protested the cost, Jamie had scoffed. So, what, I should just pay someone else to make our furniture? I'm just buying the materials; you're doing all the labour for free. And trust me, my hands don't do manual labour; I will never put Ikea furniture together. To be more accurate, the Millers were funding it; Jamie was right, they wouldn't buy him a house, but they were willing to pay him a monthly stipend that would cover anyone's expenses.