The Big Fake Read online

  THE BIG FAKE

  PENELOPE BLOOM

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  2. Pearl

  3. Dean

  4. Pearl

  5. Pearl

  6. Pearl

  7. Dean

  8. Pearl

  9. Dean

  10. Pearl

  11. Dean

  12. Pearl

  13. Dean

  14. Pearl

  15. Dean

  16. Pearl

  17. Pearl

  18. Dean

  19. Pearl

  20. Dean

  21. Pearl

  22. Dean

  23. Pearl

  24. Dean

  25. Pearl

  26. Dean

  27. Pearl

  28. Dean

  29. Pearl

  30. Dean

  31. Pearl

  32. Pearl

  33. Dean

  34. Dean

  35. Pearl

  36. Pearl

  37. Dean

  38. Pearl

  39. Pearl

  40. Pearl

  41. Dean

  42. Pearl

  43. Pearl

  44. Epilogue - Dean

  45. Don’t Forget To Review!

  46. Greyson (Once Upon A Bet Sneak Peak)

  47. Harper (Once Upon A Bet Sneak Peak)

  48. Suggested Reading Order

  1

  2

  PEARL

  Some days, there was just a feeling in my chest that everything was about to go very, very wrong. You could call it a form of “ESPN,” as my cousin would say–like a telepathic connection to the future. Maybe it was just my supreme intellect collecting subtle clues and assembling them in my subconscious. Then again, it could’ve been the text from my friend at work begging me not to come in.

  Yeah, it was probably the text.

  I rode the elevator up to my floor, fingers twitching against the hem of my coat and feet tapping. My heart was hammering. Thump. Thump. Thump. Big, punching beats that practically rattled my bones.

  I slid my eyes up to the row of numbers at the top of the old-fashioned elevator. A red arrow slowly slid from left to right, working its way past four, then six, and inching ever closer to ten.

  I had no idea what was waiting for me on the tenth floor. Whatever it was, Marley was definitely trying to convince me not to come in today, so it had to be bad.

  Now, me freaking out wasn’t exactly national news worthy material. I had a little bit of a known habit when it came to being overly anxious. If I saw a friend walking the same direction toward me down a city street, I’d go into defcon four over the decision to wave, smile, or pretend I didn’t notice them. A confrontation at work? That was grounds for calling in sick. All week. Even rain freaked me out sometimes, because I imagined all the gunk floating in the air getting a public transit ride via a drop of water straight into my eyeball. I wasn’t sure if that’s how you got gonorrhea, but I didn’t see the reason to take chances.

  With a little professional help, I managed to transform myself from a constant mess to only a mess when I had an excuse. The problem? There was always an excuse to freak out if you looked for it. Once, I’d read about a little fish that swims up the tip of men’s penises. I think it was local to Africa, but if you really thought about it, what was to stop one of them from hitching a urethra-taxi over to the States? How did I know it wasn’t in there with a lover, ready to colonize our waters? And why would it only be the penis?

  But my therapist would tell me to control what I could control. Take deep breaths. Convince my body we were calm and it would take my lead. Except I was about to step into some real shit. I should be on high alert, shouldn’t I? I should be ready to use every ounce of martial arts skills I didn’t have to attack the problem.

  I put a hand over my chest just to make sure I wasn’t imagining the racing heart. Nope.

  One of my co-workers was at the front of the elevator. He must’ve heard my heavy breathing. He turned around, half-leaning and giving me that pursed lip, eyebrows raised look that said–Mondays, huh?

  I tried to smile back at him, but in my current state, I think I mostly just showed my teeth as if the dentist had asked me to open up for his tools.

  He gave me a confused double take, then rushed out as soon as the doors opened on the tenth floor.

  I felt clammy all over and I was definitely sweating. It wasn’t a polite, dignified level of sweat, either. I was pretty sure my white button down blouse with the puffy, super cute sleeves was now pit stained and my nose was definitely beading with perspiration.

  All of my nerves had been sparked roughly thirty minutes ago. I was minding my own business, as I tend to do. I had my morning coffee in hand–actually, I don’t drink coffee, but that’s between you and me. I get a coffee cup and fill it with soda. People judge when they see you sipping on a Diet Coke, so I found it easier to just sneak my sodas in coffee cups. Sue me. Actually, please don’t do that–I was never more than one thread away from broke at the best of times.

  Anyway, I’d bopped out on the streets of Manhattan–a city I still couldn’t quite believe I lived in. Like many people, I’d fantasized about living and working in New York for years. I’d imagined it would be romantic and exciting and life-changing. Honestly, it was all of those things. It also stressed me to high hell, but I was getting better about that. A text came through on my phone from Marley, a friend from Pollard who works in finance. I’m paraphrasing here, but the exchange went something like this:

  Marley: Are you coming in today?

  Pearl: Yep. Why? Are my clocks wrong? Am I late? Is Jonas looking for me?

  Marley: No, no, and no. I just thought you could use a day off. I can run it by Jonas for you, if you want.

  Pearl: Why would I take today off? I’m already dressed. I’ve got my coffee. I’m wearing one of my favorite outfits.

  Marley: So take your coffee, cute outfit, and go chill in the park. It’s beautiful and warm out there today.

  Pearl: Why does it feel like you’re trying to get me to stay away from work?

  Pearl: Is there something I shouldn’t see at work?

  Pearl: I’M FREAKING OUT! WHAT IS GOING ON AT WORK?!

  Marley: Just skip today, Pearl. Please. Trust me.

  And that was where the conversation ended. I was no detective, but all of my investigative senses were tingling. Hard. The ESPN was blaring at full volume, and something was absolutely amiss.

  Pollard Marketing composed the 8th floor through the 12th floor of the Metford building in the Upper East End. Everybody on my floor worked in design.

  Every single person on the floor was gathered around the cork board right outside the elevator. I had to nudge and push my way through the crowd. First thing in the morning, I was five foot six in the morning–you lose a little height throughout the day as you squish down and compress, and you can trust me on that because I’ve measured it. I could barely see anything except the suit-clad backs of my co-workers from my low vantage point.

  “Excuse me,” I said, heart still banging away like it was auditioning for The Blue Man Group.

  Everybody was murmuring and whispering. There was excited chatter like they were gathered around a dead body. Was somebody dead?

  Was I dead? Was this how it happened when you died? You go back in time and show up to work to watch everybody gossiping over your corpse? No, Pearl. That was the anxiety talking, and my anxiety had no business talking. My anxiety was like the constantly high friend whose paranoia made them wonder if the house plants were bugged with listening devices and thought the mailman was their stalker because he drove by the house every day, rain, snow, or shine. It was a nearly constant voice of irrational fears I had to work to keep at bay. If that didn’t work. I needed to simply ignore it.

  The last two men finally parted enough for me to see what the fuss was about. The entire corkboard was plastered with the same black and white image. Little cheerily colored thumb tacks were stuck at the top of each page. Only one paper was different–slathered with thick red text almost like it was written in lipstick.

  I squinted, moving even closer until I was in front of the crowd. It took my brain a second to piece together what I was seeing. It looked like a woman was sitting on the copy machine bare ass naked. But that wasn’t the worst of it. There were two large, masculine hands planted on either side of her ass and… Yes. That was a pair of balls between her legs. It wasn’t completely clear from the image, but I would’ve bet my grandma’s knitting collection I knew what I was looking at.

  That was P in the V right there. Sure as day. I could see the squished, sad little sack. There was a hint of shaft. There was some more smooshed up stuff right there in the valley. Yep. I didn’t even need ESPN for this one.

  For a split second, I felt relief. This was what Marley was worried about me seeing. She probably thought with my tendency to overreact and freak out, I’d lose my mind when I saw this. But sex? Come on, Marley. I was a big girl–not literally, because I was more like a below average height girl, but emotionally? Big. Very big.

  So what was…

  And then I saw it. The tattoos on the fingers. The splayed hands of the man next to the naked ass. There were letters inked into the pad of each finger. “S.U.C.K.I.T.D.U.D.ES.” And yes, the last finger had two letters on it, because the owner of the tattoo had been drunk and thought it was worth breaking the pattern of one letter per finger to make sure all the dudes were told to suck it, not just the one.

&nb
sp; Why do I know this, you ask? That’s easy. Because those stupid hands belonged to my stupid boyfriend. My former boyfriend, Eric.

  My heart had been pounding a steady, anxious rhythm, but now it shifted from hard to fast. I could feel it in my ears and my eyes. I looked at those big, angry red letters at the bottom of the pages.

  “Fuck you, Eric. You said you loved me. I hope you love losing your job, asshole. -Em.”

  I wasn’t sure if Em was the woman whose ass was on display, but I had a sinking feeling it wasn’t. Em was probably the other woman Eric was cheating on me with. The other woman he was saying “I love you” to.

  It felt like I was floating a few inches above my body, almost like watching myself from the outside. I drifted back through the crowd, eyes glazed over. I kept going until I reached an empty area with two long, padded benches arranged in an “L” shape. I plopped down and stared forward.

  The word “asshole” kept repeating in my mind, and not just because Eric was an asshole. It wasn’t because that was the word his other, other woman had used, either. It was because that image had so perfectly captured that woman’s asshole. It was right there in black and white, plain for everybody to see. And somehow, that felt appropriate. That was life, wasn’t it? We dressed things up and made them out to be romantic. We looked over flaws and faults. But when we really zoomed in and paid attention, everything had its own puckered, dirty little secret. The boss who isn’t as well-off as he pretends. The lifestyle social influencer family that fights every time the cameras were off.

  I guess my dirty little secret was that my boyfriend was going balls deep behind my back at work.

  Welcome to the asshole club, Pearl.

  3

  DEAN

  I was a man who paid attention to detail. Rigorous attention. And when it came to the bodies of women I enjoyed, I was on another level of focus. I knew every curve, freckle, and mole. I knew that weird little spot where their skin didn’t wrinkle because of a birth mark. I knew if they didn’t moisturize their feet before bed they’d wake up with crocodile fins. I liked the details, and I learned them like it was my job.

  So when I saw the pictures hanging up on the tenth floor, I knew. I knew it deep, deep down.

  I wandered a little closer, ignoring the crowd of people gathered and whispering about the pictures. I raised a hand, tracing the pattern of dots on the underside of the woman’s ass, which was flattened and plastered to the glass top of a copy machine. I’d called that constellation of freckles on her left asscheek “the horny runner.” If you tilted your head a little, it kind of looked like a man running toward her ass crack, which had been greatly amusing at the time.

  Right now? Not so much. Because in all my attention to detail, I’d never noticed a pair of balls between her legs.

  Conclusion? Those balls belonged to another. Another man’s balls between the legs of my girlfriend. I wasn’t great with math, but if my numbers checked out, that meant I was officially single.

  A few emotions considered taking hold in my brain. Jealousy. Anger. Despair. But they all flitted right on through, not doing much more than glancing through the windows and passing by. Instead, the emotion that finally sank in was just disappointment, and not even in Annabelle and her freckles or the balls between her legs–and for the record, a smaller pair than mine. Yes, that matters.

  I was mostly just disappointed that it had happened again. Sure, it wasn’t always cheating, but it was always something. Something always came along and led to the untimely detonation of my romantic relationships. More and more, I was starting to wonder if that something was me. After all, I was the only common variable, wasn’t I?

  I sighed, looked at the flowers in my hand, and chucked them in the trash. Too little, too late.

  I made my way through the crowd, vaguely wondering if Annabelle was even at the office today. Chances were, she’d booked it for home when she saw the pictures on the corkboard. I supposed that meant she was canceling our breakfast in her office plans.

  I found a pair of benches in the corner and saw a woman sitting on them, staring ahead with a blank, haunted look in her eyes.

  A little voice in the corner of my mind advised me to leave it alone. I was like a dog who just had his bone taken away, but there was another interesting, shapely bone sitting right there. Except my bones were always being taken away. What was the point in even trying to replace them? Maybe I’d be a happier dog if I just stopped eating bones all together.

  But I told that little voice I wasn’t a dog, and I could talk to a bone without wanting to put my mouth on it. Probably, at least. Besides, this bone looked like it needed some comforting, and what better way was there to comfort myself than comforting someone else?

  I plopped down on the bench beside her, tilting my head her way and drawing my brows together. “Let me guess. You tried the food in the cafeteria? Don’t tell me it was the sushi.”

  She kept staring.

  I scooted a little closer. “Hey,” I said, dropping the charming act. “You okay?”

  She stirred, almost surprised by my voice. She looked over at me and barely seemed to see me. Oddly enough, that was kind of nice. Somebody who wasn’t eager to please me, for a change.

  “Sorry,” she said. “Weird morning.”

  She was blonde with long-ass hair that was in an Amazon-like braided ponytail thrown over her shoulder. She had tan skin with a speckling of freckles across the bridge of her nose and big, blue eyes. Her nips were a natural, deep shade of reddish pink and she had the perfect posture of a woman who danced or did yoga religiously.

  Yeah, I noticed. I already mentioned I paid attention to detail, like the way her right index finger was idly scratching a nervous little white patch in her dark blue jeans. It was a well-worn spot, and I had a feeling most of her clothes would have a similar worn spot in the same area. I also noticed how she wore little snowman earrings in red and green even though we were still four months out from the holidays. One of those people, I thought.

  I felt my own stupid brain working in its old, disappointing ways. That was the word of the day for me. Disappointment. Because it was starting to feel more and more like a stupid little circle I was running in. Meet a girl, find a new and exciting way for things to end, repeat. And where was I now? I’d wandered right over to the first beautiful woman I saw and started trying to talk instead of even processing what I’d seen on that fucking cork board.

  Maybe I should’ve listened to that little voice in my head. Then again, what did a little voice know?

  “Weird is the right word,” I said, ignoring my own internal warning bells. They were telling me to walk right the fuck out of Pollard Marketing, forget about Annabelle, and swear off women for a couple years. Things would be simpler. Wasn’t simple boring, though? “What’s with the tattoo on that guy’s fingers? I mean, put aside how dumb it is to get ‘Suck it Dudes’ on your fingers, but why go plural? He could’ve had a neat one letter per finger situation.” I was hoping to get at least a smile out of her. For some reason, the look on this girl’s face was tugging at something deep inside me. For once, it wasn’t the string that led to my cock, either. Maybe that string was connected somewhere in the vicinity of my heart? Probably not, but maybe.

  The corner of her lip twitched, but it was more of a bitter smile than amused. “He was drunk. And yeah, I always thought it was a really stupid tattoo. Not as stupid as the girl who believed that guy actually cared about her though, I guess.”