Technically Faking by Robin Hale

Author:Robin Hale
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-10-02T13:03:54.049465+00:00

* * *

‘KARAOKE? IS THAT THE NEXT PHASE?’

The message was the only one on my lock screen when I woke, and I smiled down at the phone helplessly.

‘All part of my evil plan. And it’s Dave’s birthday. I’ll post things from it, so maybe you should be there?’

My heartbeat sped up. Why did it feel so different, inviting Iris to something like that? Why wasn’t it the same as every other event we’d pulled off?

Because it hadn’t been in the plan. Everything else had been…isolated. Just us. Or rather, just us and the entirety of my social media following. We went to dinner and I posted a photo of Iris eating dumplings and glaring at me for taking a shot with her mouth full. They didn’t see how she’d taken my hand to walk me home. We watched a movie and no one saw the way she laughed, they only read the things she’d said.

But inviting her to Dave’s birthday? Inviting her to a small gathering of my closest friends, to do something fun and ridiculous? To introduce her to my roommates and tell them she was my girlfriend, the woman I’d been spending all my time thinking of?

That was different.

‘What does he like?’

I blinked at the message. ‘Who, Dave?’

‘Yes. So I can bring a gift.’

‘You don’t need to do that’

‘It’s been a while since third grade, but I understand that is still the protocol.’

I tried to picture Iris as a nine-year-old, prowling up to some unsuspecting child and thrusting a gift into their hands. Growling a greeting then retreating somewhere that had fewer children. Protocol completed, handoff successful. Birthday party achieved.

It was the single most terrifying and adorable thing I’d ever imagined.

After a few minutes trying to predict all the different ways any recommendation I made could go wrong, I settled on something simple. Consumable.

‘He likes chocolate’

That shouldn’t go too badly, right?

‘Noted.’

I shook my head, unable to lose the dopey grin. She was something else.

“Ooh, that’s girlfriend face. I recognize that face,” Dave grinned at me from the doorway to my room. “Not on me, obviously, but on you it looks great.” He hefted a wide, flat box and raised an eyebrow. “Pizza?”

“You’re some kind of angel,” I said by way of confirmation. Grabby hands in his direction completed the picture, and he joined me on my wrecked sheets.

“So what’s she doing that’s got you grinning?” Dave asked, pulling a slice from the box.

“Iris is going to come to your birthday karaoke,” I said around a mouthful of pizza. I groaned. He’d gotten the kind with pesto under the tomato sauce. Otherwise known in our apartment as ‘the best kind’.

Dave’s eyes went wide and he coughed. “I’m sorry — we’re doing karaoke with Iris Spark?” He swallowed hard, eyes glittering. “This is the weirdest place.” His laughter was delighted, the glint in his eyes just this side of wicked, but the dissonance between his joy and my anxiety was a brick in my stomach.

“It really is,” I said, staring down at my slice of pizza morosely.

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