Faking Ms. Right (Dirty Martini Running Club #1)(76)

I couldn’t deny that. She had.

“And she went above and beyond with this whole fake girlfriend thing. I have a hard time believing it was all a maniacal plot to get you to jizz in a cup for her sister.”

“I trusted her,” I said. “I trusted her with a lot, and she kept this from me.”

Ethan opened his mouth to reply, but he was interrupted by a knock at the door.

Dad stood. “I’ll see who it is.”

I waited, straining to listen while Dad answered the door. A moment later, he led two men into the condo. They looked familiar, but I couldn’t place them.

Why were they glaring at me?

Dad cleared his throat. “Movers. Here for the rest of Everly’s belongings.”

That was why they looked familiar. They were the same guys Everly had hired when she moved in.

Groaning, I leaned my head back against the chair. “Fuck.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Dad said.

“Did I drink all the whiskey?” I asked.

“No, and I’m tempted to let you spike your coffee at this point,” Ethan said.

One of the movers came in and picked up the bean bag chair.

“Careful with that,” I barked at him. “It’s her favorite.”

He glared at me again.

“Are they friends of hers?” Ethan asked, lowering his voice.

I shook my head. “No, they’re just the guys she hired when she moved in here. But basically everyone Everly meets becomes her new best friend, so…”

“Of course they do,” Ethan said. “Everly’s delightful.”

I shot him a look.

“Sorry. Not helpful.”

I got up and shadowed the movers as they packed Everly’s things and took them out of my condo. Neither of them spoke a word to me. Dad kept Ethan company in the kitchen while he cooked breakfast, and I acted like a lunatic, barking at the guys moving my former fake-fiancée’s belongings.

This wasn’t me. I didn’t pace. I didn’t yell at people. I wasn’t intimidating because I was loud. It was my silence that made people jump to do what I wanted. I was precise, disciplined, and cold.

Or I had been before Everly turned me inside out.

After the movers left, Ethan wanted to talk more. But I was done talking. I thanked him for his concern, and his help, and went back to my office. Cleaned up the mess I’d made getting plastered in there the day before.

Then I got to work. It was what I did. What I’d always lived for.

It was all I had left.





32





Everly





“Everly?”

I heard Nora’s voice through the door, followed by three sharp knocks.

“Everly, are you in there?”

“Come in.”

The door opened, but I couldn’t see Nora. There were too many boxes in the way. The movers had dropped off my stuff yesterday and I still hadn’t lifted a finger to put anything away.

She peeked around a stack of brown boxes. “Ev—oh god. Hazel, it’s worse than we thought.”

Nora tiptoed into the room, like she was afraid to touch anything. Hazel was right behind. They both looked around my apartment, vague expressions of horror on their faces.

“Stop judging me,” I said.

It was a ridiculous thing for me to say. They should definitely be judging me. I was in an old pair of pajamas that I’d been wearing since I got home two nights ago. My hair was in a messy knot on top of my head—and not the cute kind of messy. I hadn’t put any makeup on in days, but somehow I still had mascara flecks on my cheeks.

I was surrounded by the shameful evidence of my post-breakup pity-fest. A box of chocolates, a bite taken out of each until I found the two that I liked. A half-empty ice cream container, the remnants a soupy mess. A litany of sad love songs played from my Bluetooth speaker—I’d found a breakup playlist on Spotify—and I’d started at least five poems in a spiral notebook I was now calling my poetry journal.

Nora pinched the top of a pizza box and looked inside, wincing. “Everly Dalton, what the hell?”

“How long have you been home?” Hazel asked, eying a stack of self-help books I’d dug out of the depths of my dusty bookshelf.

“I came back Tuesday night.”

“You did all this in less than seventy-two hours?” Nora asked. “Why didn’t you call us sooner?”

“I wasn’t ready to face you yet.”

“Oh honey.” Nora picked up a box of pink hair dye. “Really?”

“I didn’t use it.”

“Thank god.” She tossed it over her shoulder.

“Not yet. I’m waiting until after my hair appointment.”

Nora made a pained noise. “Hazel, do you mind taking notes? I don’t want to forget to cancel Everly’s hair appointment.”

She already had her phone out. “I’m on it. Which salon, Everly?”

“You’re not canceling my hair appointment.”

“Of course I am,” Nora said. “I don’t trust you to do it, and I would be a terrible friend if I let you go through with a breakup haircut. I fell down on the job when it was Hazel and we all know how that turned out.”