ZenithRising Read Free

parted in time to see the jocks
walking away, howling at their stupid joke.
    What the heck had just happened?
    She had gotten carried away, was what happened. For the
first time ever. With a pretend boyfriend. Who probably preferred making
out with his own gender. What the hell was wrong with her?
    “Well,” she said as cheerily as possible, “that should take
care of letting the entire school know I have a boyfriend by tomorrow.”
    He picked up the book he had dropped at some point and held
it on his lap. It made her wonder if he had something to hide or was just concerned
about the book.
    He cleared his throat. “Uh, yeah. I think you’re right. But,
I, uh, I’m not sure we should do a lot of that sort of, I mean, if it’s just
pretend…”
    “Right,” she agreed too quickly. “No kissing.” It was pretend. He was just doing what she’d told him to do. Even though, for a
moment, it sure had felt like the real thing.
    “But now I know what I’m going to call you.” He ran his
index finger across her lower lip then licked the tip of his finger.
“Sugarlips. Pretend or not, it sure was sweet.”
    Her breath caught in her chest. How could something so corny
make her want to throw her arms around him and start kissing again? Instead,
she gave his arm another playful punch. “Just remember I hold the fate of your
biology grade in my head.” She hopped off the wall and gathered her books.
“Gotta go. I’m already late.”
    That five-minute interlude set the stage for the next nine
months. As far as anyone knew, Maggie had a boyfriend and was off the market.
Noah had to be straight because he was with Maggie. And he got all Bs in
biology.
    They held hands in public, slow danced as though they were
the only two people on the dance floor and exchanged hushed secrets over the
biology microscope. But they never kissed again.
    Despite the pretense or because of it, they became best buds
that year.
    When the year ended Noah announced his family had to move
again. Maggie cried and Noah consoled her without saying how he felt. In an
instant he had hidden himself behind a wall she couldn’t penetrate. She
promised to write once a week and call every day but Noah had been on this road
before and warned her things change when two people live in different places.
    The last thing he said to her was, “If we’re meant to get
together sometime in the future, it will happen. If not…” He shrugged, smiled
and gave her a kiss on the top of her head—something he could now do after
growing five inches in one year. “If not, I hope you have a great life and find
someone you don’t have to pretend with.”
    She leaned into him for a long hug.
    “But you’ll always be my little Sugarlips.”
    ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜
    Maggie blinked her eyes at the mirror several times before
she was certain the only image being reflected was her own. Still, she had the
eeriest feeling something extraordinary had just occurred. It felt as if she
had drifted off into a deep dream, but that wasn’t possible. She was wide
awake, still standing upright in the bathroom and—she glanced at the digital
clock embedded in the corner of the mirror—it was exactly the same minute it
had been when she last checked the time.
    If this were one of the paranormal romances she enjoyed
reading, the mirror could be a portal to another time or place but she hadn’t
actually gone anywhere and, besides, she knew better than to believe anything
she read in a romance novel could ever really happen. Her history of
unsatisfactory to disastrous relationships was clear evidence of that.
    Her self-analysis came to an abrupt halt as she heard the
door to the suite open and a man’s voice said, “Welcome to the Diamond Suite,
Mr. Nash.” It wasn’t Reynard but it was the same speech she’d already heard.
Rather than being caught in the bathroom, she hurried out into the living room
to greet her new boss and find out immediately if he remembered her or if she
had