The Charade: A Billionaire/Fake Relationship Romance (Eden Falls Academy)
The Charade: Chapter 36

I SUCCESSFULLY AVOIDED SEEING Ava for the rest of the school week, aside from the few classes we had together. I didn’t go to any of our after-school study sessions—chickening out on tutoring her and instead opting to study on my own or hang out with Mack instead. During lunch, instead of eating with the crew at our usual table, I went to a chess club meeting on Wednesday and a math club meeting on Thursday—even though I wasn’t actually planning to participate in either one of those clubs this year. On Friday, I offered to take Mack to lunch at Charlie’s Food Hut because their burgers were his favorite and he looked like he could use a break from everything after his mom had another bad seizure.

Then on Friday night, instead of going to the football game with everyone else, I opted to stay behind and hang out with Dawn. Talking to Mack about his mom made me feel sentimental about my own mothers. And even though my biological mom wasn’t here anymore and the thirteenth anniversary of the last day I’d seen her was coming up on Monday, Dawn had been an amazing mom to me for almost a decade now. So I wanted to show her how much I appreciated her treating me like her own flesh and blood and try to do something special just for her.

Since my dad was still out of town until the next day, I asked her to go on a mother/son date night. We had a good time eating dinner at her favorite restaurant in town and watched her favorite movie—The Proposal —in the comfy living room.

I was able to keep the conversation on her work, the books she’d been reading, and the podcasts she’d been listening to lately, since she was the one to get me into personal development in the first place. But when the movie ended and she was washing the big popcorn bowl we’d shared, before calling it a night, she looked at me with concern etched in her green eyes and asked, ‘Is everything okay, Carter? You’ve seemed a little off the past few days.’

‘I’m okay,’ I said, hoping I sounded convincing enough that she wouldn’t press me.

But since Dawn was never one to just let things go, she narrowed her eyes and said, ‘I’ve missed seeing Ava around this week.’ She rinsed the soapy bubbles off the stainless-steel bowl. ‘You two seemed to be getting along really well. Did something happen?’

I leaned against the counter beside her and shoved my hands into the pockets of my sweatpants as I tried to figure out how to answer her question. I didn’t want to say that Ava and I had broken up, since we hadn’t really done that. I also didn’t want to say anything about why things were so up in the air between us, since I had no idea if Mr. Aarden had gotten hold of my dad, or if my dad had said anything to Dawn yet. So I simply settled with, ‘We’re just taking a little break right now.’

‘Is there anything I can do to help?” Dawn asked, setting the bowl on a towel to dry. “Anything you’d like advice on?’

‘No.’ I shook my head and looked down at my bare feet for a moment before meeting her worried brown eyes again. ‘We just needed to cool things a little, that’s all.’

Dawn studied my face, looking like she wasn’t quite sure she believed me, but then she patted my arm and said, ‘Well, I hope we’ll be seeing more of her again soon. It was nice seeing you so happy again.’

I nodded, swallowing hard because Dawn was right. I’d been really happy with Ava—possibly the happiest I’d ever been in my life because she was the first person with whom I could truly be myself.

But instead of admitting any of that, I simply said, ‘I’m sure she’ll be back again soon.’

I just hoped it was as my girlfriend and not because she was my sister.

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