Page 33 of Love is Fake (Love is Everything #1)

Chapter

Seventeen

I close my laptop, feeling like my eyes are going square from staring at slide after slide about tendon repair. I’ve been sitting here for hours and my brain has decided it’s had enough, which is fine because I’m – finally – all caught up.

As Lennox’s knee is needing less and less rehab time, I’ve been able to spend more of my hours on my PhD work. Now, after what seems like an eternity, I feel like I’ve got things in hand.

Between, work and study and Lennox, it feels as if things have finally come together.

Like life is working out in a way it never has.

Before, there was always something missing.

If I was doing well at work then my love life was AWOL.

If my social life was busy then I felt bad for not spending enough time on my studies.

My existence up to this point has been a finely tuned balancing act where the set of scales I was given were all out of whack.

But since being with Lennox, it’s as if those scales have finally come good.

For the first time since I can remember I feel like I can step back and breathe.

Like I don’t have to hold onto everything so tightly to stop my world from falling apart.

Part of me – the cynical part – is waiting for the other shoe to drop, because things can’t really be this good, can they? People don’t get to be this happy without some kind of blow-back, right?

My cell buzzes, interrupting the bleak turn my thoughts have taken.

“Hey, Dad.” I smile into the phone at my father’s familiar voice.

“I was starting to wonder if you’ve forgotten my number,” my dad jokes.

“Sorry, things have been busy.” And I knew the next time we spoke, I’d have to deliver on the promise I made to Lennox. I’d be lying if I said my nervousness over that hasn’t stopped me from picking up the phone.

“You work too hard, Bizz,” my dad says reproachfully. As always, his protective instincts are on point when it comes to me even though I’m not 5 years old anymore.

“Says the man who doesn’t know the meaning of the word ‘vacation’.” I roll my eyes, glad he can’t see me as it’s one of his pet peeves. I smile a little to myself as I think about how it also drives Lennox mad – sometimes in the best possible way.

“You sound…happy, Bizzy.” And it’s not just my dad’s words that give me pause, it’s the incredulous tone in his voice, as if my happiness was something he couldn’t easily identify because it presented itself so rarely.

It hits me that I am. I’m happier than I’ve ever been, and I know how much of it has to do with Lennox.

“I – um, I’ve met someone,” I admit, taking the plunge. I’ve never told my father about anyone I’ve been dating, but Lennox is so much more than that, so much more than just another guy.

He blows out a deep breath. “About damn time!”

“What happened?” I hear Marianne’s voice in the background.

“Izzy’s in love!” My dad doesn’t move the phone away from his mouth as he hollers back to Marianne, making me wince as he nearly blows out my eardrum.

“I didn’t say that,” I clarify, blushing, once Marianne has stopped sending up her messages of thanks to the Great Almighty who she has apparently been praying to for exactly this reason.

You would think the big man upstairs would have more pressing matters to deal with than my love life, but there you have it.

“You didn’t need to,” Pops points out. “You haven’t told me about any men in your life since…well…ever. So, if you’re mentioning him, I’m guessing there’s a good reason.”

I don’t say anything, struck by how closely my dad has been paying attention without me having any idea.

“Have you told him?” he asks, once my silence has stretched out.

“Told him what, daddy?”

He grunts as if to say he knows I’m purposely being difficult. “Have you told him how you feel?”

“Not yet,” I mutter, questioning why I ever thought talking to my father about my love life was a good idea.

“Well, what are you waiting on?” he asks impatiently. He’s like a dog with a damn bone that it isn’t willing to let go. Not until he gets to the marrow of it.

“It…it just has to be the right time,” I answer, completely copping out.

My father sighs heavily in that way that tells me he’s about to lay down some solid truths.

I brace myself to hear them, already cringing just a tad.

“Bizzy, you’ll wait your whole damn life if you keep waiting for the right time, because it doesn’t exist. If I’d waited for the ‘right time’ to open my business, I’d still be working for someone else.

If I’d waited for the ‘right time’ to ask Marianne out to dinner, I’d still be spending all my evenings alone.

If I’d waited for the ‘right time’ to be a father, then I wouldn’t have you and that would have been a damn tragedy, Bizz. ”

The emotion in his voice makes my throat threaten to close – my dad doesn’t do mushy.

“Did you ever regret it, Dad?” I ask, the question spilling out of me as if it couldn’t be held back any longer.

“You? Never! Not even for one damn second!” He sounds so horrified I might ever have doubted his love for me. It has been the one constant my entire life. He deserves more than that from me and I feel a little ashamed of myself for ever questioning how much he wanted me.

But I wasn’t the ‘it’ I was referring to in my question, so I rush to set him straight.

“I meant falling in love with my mother, Dad,” I tell him. “Do you ever regret it? Because she left…”

It’s something I’ve never asked him, partly because I was afraid of what he’d say, but also because I couldn’t imagine that he didn’t regret it. Her leaving brought him to his knees, he told me that more than once.

“If you could go back in time, would you have avoided that diner where you met? Would you have done it differently?”

I chew my nail nervously, his silence heavy at the other end of the line. I wonder if he’s going to answer or if he’s just going to say it’s none of my business and move on.

“No, baby girl,” he whispers eventually, his voice a little hoarse. “I wouldn’t have changed a damn thing. I had two wonderful years with your mama and I wouldn’t trade one moment of them for any of the pain I felt in the twenty-five years since she left, because loving her was worth it.”

“Thanks daddy,” I whisper. “I guess I better go. Thanks to you, I’ve got something to do.” My resolve has strengthened after my father’s emotional assertion. I want to believe he’s right; loving someone is worth the pain of losing them.

“That’s my girl,” he chuckles. “And next time we talk I want to hear more about your young man.”

I hang up the phone after promising to answer all his questions during our next call.

I sit there for a moment, letting the butterflies in my stomach circulate at the thought of what I’m about to do. I know if I mull over it for any longer, I’ll lose my nerve, which means it’s now or never and never is a long time to wait.

I race to Lennox’s study, knowing that’s where he’ll be.

The simplicity of that intimacy makes me smile again as I think about how I’m going to say what I need to.

I go back and forth before deciding it’s best not to plan it, to just wing it and speak from the heart, as that’s what I’m talking about after all.

The study door is open so I slip in, ready to blurt out what I’ve come here to say, before I notice Lennox is on the phone.

He stands, staring out of the floor to ceiling window, his back facing me, cell to his ear.

I take a moment to admire how damn good he looks.

He must have had meetings today because he’s changed out of his gym wear and is in what I like to call his ‘off duty top-model’ outfit of jeans and a Henley shirt he fills out as if it were made for him.

After a few seconds of me ogling him, I take in the fact he’s having an argument with the person at the other end of the line, which is totally out of character.

Sure, he was an asshole to me when we first met but there were extenuating circumstances and all is now forgiven.

As a rule, Lennox is polite to a fault; a total Southern gentleman.

So why does he sound like he wants to murder the unfortunate person he’s talking to?

“What do you mean it’s coming out now?” Lennox snarls down the phone and I’m grateful as hell not to be on the receiving end of it. “I told you to stop it!”

I stand uncertainly in the doorway, watching Lennox pace up and down. He’s so wired he hasn’t even noticed me.

“For fuck’s sake, Declan. This is the shit I pay you for!”

I frown, wondering what’s got Lennox so strung-out. Did something happen with his return to the Pelicans? That wouldn’t make sense, he’s their best player and they’ve been falling over themselves trying to get him back on the ice this whole time.

So, what is going on?

“No, I haven’t told her yet.” Lennox rubs the bridge of his nose like he does when he’s getting a headache.

Normally, I’d walk over and try to soothe the pain away, but something in his tone makes me hang back.

“I fucking know, Dec! I don’t need you to tell me how pissed off Isabella’s gonna be when she finds out. ”

At the sound of my name, my stomach bottoms out, reminding me of being at the top of a rollercoaster, peering down at the drop that’s about to come. My planned declaration is suddenly forgotten in the face of the shit-show I feel heading straight for me.

“Shit, Dec. What do you mean she’s coming here? We agreed that wasn’t fucking happening!”

My eyes track the tension growing in his body and the rising panic in his voice. Lennox doesn’t do panic. Something is very wrong.

“Fuck!” He slams his phone down onto the table, angrier than I’ve ever seen him.

“When I find out what?” I ask, softly, watching him as his head snaps up to realize I’ve overheard everything.