Page 41 of A Real Good Lie

“And now you’re ready to graduate?”

“Less than a year left.” She stuck her hand across the table, displaying her ring. “I keep telling Rhys I’m ready to set a date, but he always says after, after, after.”

“That’s Rhys,” Callahan said blandly, not even looking at her proffered hand. “Quick off the block, but slow to finish.”

“I never have problems finishing,” Rhys snapped.

“Just seeing things through, I mean.”

“I believe we weren’t speaking about me.” Rhys glared at Callahan and tucked Ashley’s hand back behind the table. “We were talking about your little trophy boyfriend.”

“I am good looking, aren’t I?” Jace’s lip pulled into a smirk and he slowly turned to face Callahan. “Aren’t you lucky to have snagged me?”

Callahan’s stare fell to Jace’s mouth, and he licked his lips, nodding silently.

“Actually, I’m the lucky one,” Jace said softly. He raised his finger to Callahan’s chin and tipped it upward, forcing Callahan’s eyes to meet his. It was hard to pretend, hard to remember his lines, his role.

“I’m the lucky one,” Callahan mumbled, stars in his eyes like Jace had hung the moon.

“We’ll have to agree to disagree.”

“So, what was it like?” Rhys cleared his throat, pulling their attention back, which was a shame because even though their relationship was pretend, Jace for real liked to look at Callahan.

“What was what like?”

“Growing up in a city like Chicago.”

“I never said I grew up there.”

“Professor Anderson said you did.” Rhys’s eyes darted down the table to the man Jace and Callahan had spoken with earlier.

“Right. Well, it was Chicago, I guess.” He shrugged, trying to play off his discomfort. “I only lived there from the time I was a teenager until I moved to California.”

“Where are you from then?”

“Nowhere you’d know.”

“My family has lived here since America was a cluster of colonies,” Rhys said, confirming Jace’s suspicions of just how old all the money at the table actually was. “I’m fascinated with ancestry and genealogy.”

“No, you’re not.” Callahan sighed.

“I was born outside of the city,” Jace answered, unable to avoid the direct assault of Rhys’s questions any longer. Games he could manage, but he was done engaging any further in the back and forth battering of words about topics he had no interest in discussing. “I was in foster care until I was adopted by a family in Chicago.”

Rhys affected a sympathetic smile that conveyed his feelings of superiority and had Jace wanting to crawl out of his skin.“My family has donated to orphanages in California for years. Too bad you weren’t abandoned here.”

“Rhys!” Callahan shouted, but Jace barely heard it over the sound of his chair skittering back across the floor.

“Maybe so,” he said. “Can you excuse me?”

He was out of the restaurant before either man could acknowledge him, but he heard Ashley’s laugh ringing in his ears above the other conversations happening around the table. He didn’t know if he wanted air or wanted a drink, but his legs moved him toward the sliding front doors of the hotel and he was on the curb before he knew it.

Jace braced himself against the valet stand, angry at himself for the way his legs shook.

“Ticket, sir?” the attendant asked.

He shook his head and pushed away from the stand, walking down toward the entrance of the parking garage. There were less people around, and he was grateful for the reprieve.He’d been childish and ignorant to think he could come and hold his own here. It wasn’t like he’d been asked to play the pretend boyfriend to someone who made ten dollars an hour like he did. Callahan was so out of his league, Jace couldn’t even pretend to keep up, and he was so angry. Angry at Sebastian for suggesting the idea and putting him in the situation, and angry with Callahan for being…

For being Callahan.