Page 14 of Love is Fake (Love is Everything #1)

Chapter

Six

I count it as a victory that I haven’t been fired by the end of my first day. If anything, Lennox and I – gasp – actually seem to be getting along. He’s even graduated me to the use of his nickname.

“It feels weird calling you ‘Nox’,” I tell him. Nicknames are too intimate, too personal. Another barrier between us I’m not sure I can afford to have fall.

“The only people who call me Lennox are my mother, Miguel when he’s trying to rile me and…” He casts around, scratching the five o’clock shadow on his jaw, which makes him look even more like an off-duty model. “And actually, that’s pretty much it.”

I smile, taking in his relaxed lean against the state-of-the art cable machine in his gym.

“And you definitely don’t remind me of my mother,” he adds, making it sound like a compliment, although I’m not altogether sure why.

A part of me wants to dig down more into that, but I resist. I’m trying to avoid too many personal questions, because the more I find out about Lennox, the more I like, and the more I like, the more I want to know. It’s a sequence of events which won’t end well – not for me at least.

“Alright then, Nox it is, I guess,” I agree a little shyly, my breath catching as our eyes meet.

A small smile quirks up his lips as he continues to watch me with an unreadable expression. “Good.”

“So does that mean you’ll call me Izzy from now on like everyone else?”

Lennox shakes his head slowly, his eyes never leaving mine.

“I’m not ‘everyone else’.” It would sound arrogant coming from anyone else, but the reality is he sure as hell isn’t.

He’s Lennox Gray and the man I’ve had a crush on since I was fifteen, not that he’s aware of that particular dirty little secret of mine.

“Besides, Isabella is a beautiful name, it fits you.”

I don’t have time to reflect on Lennox’s comment before his phone buzzes with an incoming call.

I’m happy for the disruption until I check my own phone and realize just how late it’s gotten.

At this point, I’m into overtime territory.

Not that that’s a problem. The problems will come when I’m on the road, falling asleep in traffic as thick as a mudslide.

God knows what time I’ll get home. And then studying…

there’ll be no way to cram a single ounce of information into my brain at that point.

I’m in such a panic thinking about everything I still have to do before I can even think about sleep that I don’t register Lennox coming close enough to touch me on the wrist.

It’s a gentle, innocent touch on my arm for Christ’s sake, so why does it make my heart race as if it’s something more affectionate?

“You okay?” He looks down at me with genuine concern.

I’ve never been good at hiding my emotions and when I’m tired I’m even more of an open book.

I smile grimly. “Just thinking about my to-do list,” I admit. “It’s not a pretty picture.”

Lennox frowns, looking like he wants to ask what I mean, but then his phone buzzes insistently in his hand again.

“You should get that.” I nod towards the cell he isn’t even looking at because all his attention is on me.

“You’ll be back tomorrow.” It’s half statement and half question, an edge of unease in his tone, as if he thinks I might never come back.

“Of course, bright and early and pumped full of caffeine,” I joke. It has the desired effect, snapping him out of whatever thoughts he was having.

Nodding briskly, Lennox answers the call and turns away, breaking off our eye contact and, I suppose, effectively dismissing me. I wave to his back and turn on my heel, still halfway panicking about the traffic I’ll hit. Before I’m even able to make it to the door, however, Lennox’s voice stops me.

“Isabella. Good work today,” he says and there is no grudgingness in his approval.

He looks as if he’s about to say something else, but then his back is turned to me again as he throws a goodbye wave over his shoulder.

“You too,” I tell him quietly, smiling to myself as I walk to Lennox’s truck.

On my drive home, I bask in the high of his praise while at the same time telling myself it shouldn’t be all that important to me.

On the up-side beating myself up over my reaction to him is better than obsessing over all the work I have to do when I get back to my apartment or wondering how I’m going to survive on a few short hours of sleep night after night.

That’s if this long-ass commute doesn’t kill me first.