All color drained from Brenden's face the millisecond he looked up from his phone and his eyes fell on Mateo and me. His green eyes lingered on me for a few minutes as he stood in the middle of the busy airport, people shouldering past to try and reach their destination. He was unaffected, hand scratching at his dark blonde beard. He eventually allowed his eyes to drift from me to his best friend on my left, then redirected his attention to the departure times overhead, as if he were ready to hop on the next flight out of here if it meant not having to hear Mateo and me arguing for the next three hours in his car.

"Surprise?" he tried at a lighthearted joke, but his smile faltered when I dropped my arms and made a gesture toward Mateo.

Mateo, having written out a blueprint for this entire suicide mission that was our fake relationship for the next week and a half the last couple hours of the flight, touched a hand to the small of my back, then nodded in greeting toward his best friend. "Hey, Bren."

My brother didn't miss the action. His eyebrows shot up. "Uh, Mateo, man, if you want to keep that hand, I recommend you remove it."

Mateo laughed. "I think I'll take my chances."

Uncertainty and confusion entered my brother's eyes as the three of us stood there, an awkward tension slowly thickening in the air between us.

"Unfortunately, I had to spent five hours on a plane next to him." At least the disgust wasn't faked.

"Don't listen to her." Mateo rolled his eyes and slowly retracted his arm so he could hug my brother. "We spend every night in bed together. She's just being dramatic."

He took the dumfounded expression on Brenden's face as his cue to hug him, leaving me in my brother' direct line of sight. He eyed me skeptically as Mateo pulled away, his olive complexion a huge contrast to my brother's white tank top, then finally cocked his head and blurted a very confused, "Huh?"

"You said you told him!" Mateo snapped with a glare.

I shrugged a shoulder, "Must have slipped my mind. Sorry, your highness."

"W. . . wait, hold on." Brenden, finally processing everything, said with a shake of his head, "You two are. . .ew."

He shuddered like a twelve-year-old bearing witness to their parents PDA.

"Look, bro, I know I should have told you myself, but Mads was scared of how you'd act."

My brother's head whipped in my direction for confirmation, I feigned disinterest and stared at my nails.

"I thought you'd freak and then somehow let it slip to Mom and she'd never stop talking about it."

The lie slipped so effortlessly it shocked me, but I didn't have enough time to remain so, as someone rammed into me so hard it knocked me onto my butt and I was forced to stare at the tile between my shoes. As I started to push myself up from the floor, Mateo shouted, "Hey, man, watch where you're going!"

I heard an apology being yelled from across the airport before my brother helped me to my feet fully and rubbed my shoulder, "You okay?"

"Fine." I grumbled, wiping my hands against my jean shorts. "Don't we have a long car ride back to the beach house? We should get going."

Truth be told, I had absolutely no interest in stepping foot in the place. Ashton had brought me to the house every summer, and I knew with every door I opened, memories would flood in and knock me back to square one in my healing process. But I also had no desire to eat the dirty, shoe scuffed floor, and with how quickly and aggressively people were moving through the place, it was only a matter of time before I tasted the tile.

*

As I listened to my brother grill Mateo for information pertaining to our relationship, I found myself admiring I'd so long considered a flaw. Mateo had a meticulously built fictional life and relationship for the two of us, and somehow managed to conjure up lie after lie in the matter of seconds without flinching. He even kept eye contact with Bren at red lights.

It was impressive, not that I'd ever admit that out loud and inflate Mateo's already monstrous ego.

"Sarah didn't think you were coming." Brenden managed to burn any hope I had to make it through the next two weeks to the ground with one sentence. "The beach house only has four rooms. Mom and Dad have one, Kate, Zoey, and I have one. Ash and Sarah have one. I thought I'd be having to put Mateo out on the couch, but this great. I'll text Sara now and have her set up the room for two."

I lifted my head just in time to see the warning look that lit Mateo's eyes as he threw a smile back at me. I returned it despite feeling nauseous at the very thought of sharing a bed with him. I suppose he could sleep on the floor if there was no other furniture in the room.

"Look, I'm not trying to be a dick, but what the hell? When did you two decide that the love-hate relationship was more love than hate?"

Though I knew the question was directed at me, Mateo, as usual, had a response. Only this one, I felt had some truth to it.

"After the dumpster fire that was the relationship with Diana, I ran into Madison at the grocery store and she invited me over for dinner. We talked for hours, and the rest is history, I guess."

Brenden was quiet for a while, so long I hoped he'd given up on the interrogation. It was as he parked the car outside the beach house that he twisted so he was looking at me as he asked, "You told me you'd rather die that ever have to breathe the same air as Mateo the last time I saw you after. . . after the wedding."

I flinched at the mention of the memory. Unlike Mateo, I couldn't lie with ease and no guilt on my conscious, so I whispered, "I was hysterical, Bren. You shouldn't have taken credence in anything I said then."

Satisfied with the response, he looked back and forth between the two of us for a moment, then stated, "Mom is going to be on both of you faster than bees to honey. You better prepare yourselves. Good luck. I'll see you in a few hours."

Mateo groaned at the thought and watched Brenden exit the car with a quick two finger salute. I followed, not wanting to be suffocated in the car for any longer than necessary. I didn't make it far. Mateo caught me as soon as I closed the door and spun me so there was hardly any space between the two of us.

"He doesn't believe us, not yet." he muttered. "Which means we need to prove it to him through our actions, alright? I don't have any desire to sit and talk about sappy relationship traumas with him."

"Got it."

He opened his mouth to speak again, but my name was shouted from the patio, within seconds of hearing the familiar voice, my mother leaned over the white railing encasing the patio and waved frantically, as if I wouldn't be able to spot her in her pastel yellow dress. I straightened and felt Mateo's fingers lace through mine as I started through the sand and toward my mother.

We hadn't even made it halfway up the walkway before she threw one hand over her chest and the other over her mouth dramatically at the sight of us together.

"Smile." Mateo said through a cough. I shot him a dirty look before following the order and lifting my other hand in a wave as we stepped onto the patio.

It'd only been a few months since I'd last seen my mother, but sometime during those six weeks, she had dyed her hair blonde again and evidently, added to her wardrobe. She'd been going through a midlife crisis since she and Dad divorced late last year. It'd started with trading in her old Suburu for a Charger, and the lengths she'd gone to "improve" her image had only escalated from there. She'd gotten lip filler, despite her lips being perfect and full before. Her eyes were fanned with long, dark lashes from the extensions she'd had put in a couple weeks ago.

Though she'd remained good friends with Dad, the thought of them sleeping in the same room with one another with the wound so fresh was both odd and a bit crazy.

"Oh, look at you!" Mom clapped her hands and yanked me into a bone crushing hug. "I missed you so much, Maddie!"

I squeezed her just as hard, not realizing how much I needed the hug from her until that moment. "I missed you too, Mom."

She then took a step back and repeated the process with Mateo as if he were another one of her children. Which, in a way, I suppose he was.

"And you, Mateo, honey, you're so handsome!" she grasped his shoulders once he'd pulled away. "I do miss the curls though."

"Diana didn't like them." he caught his mistake when my mother frowned and shook her head. "My ex. She hated them."

I blinked, "You cut your hair to please a woman? Mateo, your hair has always been gorgeous. Most women would have killed for hair like yours."

It was truthful, but he must have thought it was part of the ploy to convince my mom, because he moved closer and kissed my temple hearing the words. "See, that's why I love you, Mads. You accept me for me."

My mom gasped, hands over chest as she rocked side to side. "No way! Am I becoming senile or are those flirty little touches and words?"

"No, you're quite alright, Margaret." Dad's voice filled the patio as he stepped outside the join us. "They look very much in love."

I shook out of Mateo's grasp and hugged my dad, burying my face against his chest and just soaking in his presence. I saw Mom close to every six months, but I hadn't seen my father since I called off the wedding a year and a half ago. He still looked the same, with his dark hair and beard peppered with white and the wrinkles around his green eyes every time he smiled. Nothing about him had changed, and I found comfort in that simple fact.

"I need to know everything!" Mom said, wrapping one arm around Mateo's bicep and slapped the other against his shoulder. "When did you two reconnect? When did you know it was love? How long have you been together for? Why didn't you—"

"Margaret, let the kids get settled in." Dad pried Mom off Mateo with a look that I couldn't quite decipher. She fell back a few steps with her hands in up surrender. "I'm sure they'd be more than happy to talk about it once they're cleaned up and unpacked."

"Okay, okay, I get it." she met my eyes over her shoulder in the doorway, "You owe me a long, very detailed explanation, young lady, understand?"

I smiled weakly, "Yeah, Mom."

She nodded and walked back into the house. Dad squeezed Mateo's shoulder, then followed in Mom's footsteps.

My sister's laugh could be heard through the open door, and my body involuntarily moved in the opposite direction. I didn't want to see her, I didn't want to talk to her, and I surely didn't want to find out what the hell my ex fiance was saying to her that was so funny.

"Hey, are you good?" Mateo asked, and even with nobody out here to witness it, he touched a hand to my shoulder with a concerned look. "Are you sure you're ready to face them?"

"No." I retorted instantly. "But I don't think I ever will be. And the longer I wait, the longer it'll take to move on from what happened."

He dropped his hand to my waist and pulled me into his side, eyes on someone, or perhaps something, inside the house. After what seemed like an eternity of staring up at him, he looked down at me and said, "You've been through far worse than this. I put you through worse than this. Don't let them know that what happened is still tearing you up inside. You can cry to me all you want behind closed doors, but do not, even for a second, let him see how much he hurt you."