Moonlight Kisses

real and fake

jordyn.

Ever since I told Kat about the deal, there's been this looming cloud over me that serves as a constant reminder that I have yet to tell Sophie. It's unpredictable how she'll act, she'll either applaud my efforts or be disgusted in the path I chose to take. I'm pretending to be her brother's girlfriend, if I were her, I'd be repulsed and proceed to kick me out of her house. Out of her life, for that matter. But I'd be even more pissed if I had to find out from someone else and not my best friend. I have to be the one to tell her. Not Kat. Not Beau. Me.

That's the dreaded thing weighing on my mind as she rants on and on about the dinner on Friday night and how utterly boring it was. "I literally wanted to cut my ears off with the damn butter knife. They had a whole ass conversation about curtains, Jo, curtains!"

She paces back and forth from one side of the room to the next and she's talking more with her hands than her actual mouth. "I would have rather watched fucking paint dry than spend another minute at that fucking table. And then when I tried to leave to go to my room, my mom stops me and goes, 'Sophie, honey, there's someone I'd like you to meet,' and it's a fucking business exec who has connections to the board of admissions at FIT. Here I was thinking, oh maybe this guy can give me some pointers for the interview. Oh no, he spends the next hour trying to convince me that I should pursue a more practical line of work rather than fashion."

I nod along and occasionally agree and prompt her to keep going, but I hang onto her every word as if she was speaking some great prophecy.

"So I politely tell him over and over again that I want to pursue fashion and I'm determined and he has the nerve, the goddamn audacity, to say, 'I hope you know, men are more successful in that industry,' Jo, when I tell you I have never wanted to kick someone in the balls more. God so help me I will find where that prick lives and give him the kicking of a fucking lifetime."

I sat there, shocked that the guy had the sheer audacity. Now that's got me more than a little upset. Misogynistic assholes like him deserve the kicking of a lifetime as she's promised, hell, I'll help her. "I'm with you every step of the way, Soph. I think only kicking his ass is too merciful. I say we take a bat to his cars, his windows, and everything else he holds dear."

"Aw, I'm so proud of you. I taught you well my child." She pretends to cry tears of joy, selling the show even more by wiping away fake tears under her eyes and fanning her face.

Sophie plants herself down next to me on the edge of her bed. A moment of silence passes and I can't help that urge inside me to confess what I've been keeping from her. "Soph," I say out loud. Fuck I hate to think that this could make or break us.

She wears a quizzical look on her face and nods, letting me proceed. "So remember last Thursday when I told you I couldn't get around to asking Jake about...that?

"Yeah, what ever happened with that? Are you still going to ask him another time?"

I sigh, "Not exactly."

Her head moves back in confusion and then worry. "Oh no, you're wearing that look. Whatever you're going to say, just say it."

"Um well, I almost asked him, but Beau came up to us and basically shot down my chance for me."

"Beau?" she gasps, "Oh hell no, let me go find him, I'll beat his ass." She gets up and starts heading to her bedroom door like a madwoman on a mission. I scramble to my feet hastily and grab her before she can get any further.

"I didn't ask Jake because I made a deal with Beau." My hands are on her shoulders, making her look at me. For someone shorter than me, she's a hell of a lot stronger than I expected her to be.