Page 23 of Faking the Heat

“Guess what, they fixed the elevator!” Sterling comes through the door in his station t-shirt with a six-pack of La Croix in one hand and a grocery bag in the other. His hair is windswept and there’s a smudge of something, soot probably, on his cheek. He clocks my parents instantly and does the thing with his face where he smiles, but only with half his mouth.

“Oh,” he says. “We have company.”

My heart does something truly impressive. It leaps, stutters, then lands somewhere near my pancreas.

My mother beams. “You must be Sterling. We’ve heard so much about you.”

I nearly black-out. I have told them exactly nothing.

Sterling, to his credit, does not even blink. He sets the groceries on the counter and shakes my father’s hand, then my mother’s, and then looks at me with a question in his eyes so subtle it could be a trick of the light. He’s waiting for a cue.

I step into the breach. “Sterling’s my… he’s my boyfriend.”

Silence.

My mother’s eyes go wide, and then she claps her hands together. “Oh! Oh, that’s wonderful! See, Robert? I told you.”

Sterling doesn’t miss a beat. It’s the training, I realize. The ability to assess a disaster zone and find the safest path through the rubble.

“Robert. Carol. It’s an honor. Mandy’s told me so much about you both. I’m sorry I wasn’t here to greet you, we had a three-alarm warehouse fire on the south side that turned into a bit of a marathon. I probably smell like a campfire.” And then he does something that turns the air in my lungs to lead.

He walks over to me, slides a heavy, warm arm around my waist, and pulls me flush against his side. He’s solid and hot, a living anchor in the middle of the storm of my own creation. He doesn’t just touch me; he claims the space around me. “Mandy takes great care of me. Honestly, I don’t know what I’d do without her around here. She’s the only reason there’s anything in the fridge besides protein shakes and prepped meals.”

My heart isn’t hammering now; it’s attempting a jailbreak. I can feel the heat of his palm through my shirt, his fingers splayed across my hip in a way that feels possessive, certain, and entirely too real. This is the moment of no return. I could correct him. I could say, actually, Mom, he’s just my landlord and I’m a stray he picked up because he loves saving hoes. I could shatter the whole thing and deal with the drive back to Michigan City that I would, no doubt, be forced to make that same night.

But then I look at my mother’s face. For the first time since the fire, since the apartment went up, since the wedding with Derek that didn’t happen, she’s looking at me with something that isn’t pity or concern. She’s looking at me with pride. She sees a woman who is loved by a man who saves buildings, people.

It’s a drug.

It’s a trap.

No, It’s survival.

The next half hour is a blur of polite interrogation. Mom asks about Sterling’s background, his family, his work schedule, whether he carried me out of a burning building or not, what his intentions are vis-à-vis her only daughter. He answers every question perfectly, never oversharing, always turning praise into a self-deprecating joke or a story about the guys at the station.

I stand there, smiling, nodding, and pretending I’m not two seconds from an aneurysm.

When it’s finally clear the ruse is going to hold, at least for the next ten minutes, I exhale and get a glass of water, hiding the tremor in my hands by pretending to fumble with the faucet. He plants both hands on the island and watches me with a kind of fond amusement I have only ever seen on TV, in families that don’t exist.

Bowie jumps up onto the counter and knocks a loaf of bread onto the floor. My father laughs, an actual laugh, the kind I haven’t heard since before college.

Mom sidles up to me. Her voice drops to a whisper. “He’s wonderful,” she says. “Don’t let him get away.”

I almost choke on the water. I have no idea how to respond, so I just nod and hope it’s enough.

Eventually she announces that they shouldn’t impose any longer, with the satisfied air of someone who got exactly what she came for. I hug her, and for a second she holds on a beat too long, and I feel it, the specific warmth of her approval, which I have wanted my whole life and which I have just obtained by lying directly to her face.

There are more hugs, handshakes, and promises to do brunch next time.

Next time.

Oh God, what have I done.

Chapter ten

Co-conspirator

Sterling