Read Things Liars Fake (#ThreeLittleLies #3) for Free Online

breathe when they’re overcome with joy. I roll my eyes and watch as the landscapers outside walk back-and-forth across the parking lot with leaf blowers. Another drives a riding lawn mower so fast through the grass it’s like he’s vying to race Danica Patrick’s NASCAR.
    Grass flies everywhere.
    “Come a little early, please, so she can meet us before we head into the party. I won’t get the chance to talk to her when we’re there. Gracie’s invited over a hundred people. Tory told me it’s turned into quite the circus.”
    My cousin Grace has always been high-maintenance, so this news doesn’t surprise me in the least. Her brother, Elliot, is the dickhead who stood me up at the Wine Bar last weekend.
    “Come early? Uh… that might be hard to swing. I’m pulling extra hours next Saturday.”
    Mom sighs loudly, long-suffering.
    “Just make sure you tell her it’s formal. I assume you’re wearing a suit?”
    Silence.
    “Dexter, are you listening?”
    I glance down at the Blue Chip stock portfolios stacked on my desk. The three million plus dollar contract, open to its annual shareholder’s report, sits atop another one point five-million-dollar portfolio I manage.
    Millions of dollars, dividends, and reserves; all whose investment future earnings rest in my capable hands while my mother lectures me on the phone about a girlfriend I don’t even have.
    This irony is not lost on me.
    “Yes, I’m listening.”
    “Formal attire.” Pause. “And Dexter?”
    “Yeah?” The pen in my hand stops drawing circles, and I flick it across the desk. It hits the hard surface of the wall, ricochets then falls off the far edge with a satisfying clatter.
    “We’re happy for you honey.”
    I can only grunt out a reply.
     

     
    T his is ridiculous.
    I’ve been staring at my phone for the better half of an hour, debating my options about whether or not to call Daphne.
    I mean, other than the fact that this is a horrible fucking idea, why not pick up the phone and call?
    So:
    I hunt her number down online and call her at work to propose this ridiculous scheme.
    Or.
    I can not call Daphne, inventing an elaborate explanation for her absence to appease my meddlesome family.
    Or.
    I can do the honorable thing and show up to the engagement party alone; tell everyone the truth. There would be no shame in that, simple misunderstanding that it was.
    But if I’m being honest…
    I want to see her again.
    Not gonna lie.
    Fucked up as it sounds, I’m willing to concoct an elaborate charade and look like an ass just to see her again.
    I think about my mom and my sisters, then my dickhead cousin Elliot, whose guaran-goddamn-tee’d to have his ex-girlfriend Kara at the party hanging all over him, even though he’s broken up with her a few times.
    See, Elliot subscribes to the motto man-kind isn’t meant for monogamy . His past girlfriends, historically, eventually find issue with this motto, and once they do—they typically begin the process of trying to change him (ie. get him to be faithful). Immediately getting themselves dumped.
    Elliot has dumped Kara twice, once at a family function, and once before Valentine’s Day just so he wouldn’t have to pay for a fancy dinner on the 14th.
    They got back together on the 15th.
    Kara, who has huge surgically enhanced tits, bleach blonde hair, and applies her make up with a painter’s palette knife. Kara, who has the IQ of a plastic Barbie doll—maybe even lower. Kara, who giggles like an eight-year-old. My point is: Elliot thinks he’s hot shit because he’s dating a woman that looks like a Playboy centerfold.
    Kara’s elevator might not go all the way to the top floor, but Elliot thinks she’s smoking hot and his opinion is the only one that counts.
    I guess I’d feel like hot shit too if I liked parading around cheap looking woman.
    Which I do not.
    My last girlfriend, Charlotte, was a paralegal at a law firm whose offices occupy the top floor in our building. Classy and