Page 3 of Pretend

She couldn’t do this anymore.

He didn’t love her and as much as it hurt to finally accept it, Morgan knew that he would never see her as anything more than a little sister. For years, she’d told herself that was enough, but she couldn’t lie to herself anymore. She needed more, but as long as Eric was in her life that would never happen.

She’d tried moving on, tried dating, tried pretending that she could actually fall in love with someone else, but it only made everything worse, so she’d stopped trying. She’d focused on Bradford Remodeling, the company they’d started when they were in college, and told herself that it was enough, but it wasn’t.

She wanted more.

She wanted-

“We should do it,” Eric said, making her frown only to make her groan when the water was suddenly turned off.

“Do what?” Morgan asked, opening her eyes only to sigh when he tossed a towel at her head.

“We should go,” Eric said, nodding in agreement to whatever he’d been rambling on about as she carefully sat up only to decide that was enough for right now and sat back against the wall as she wrapped the towel around herself.

“Where should we go?” Morgan mumbled, already closing her eyes as she settled in for a lovely nap.

“Fuck it. We’re going,” Eric said as she felt herself drift off, only to make her open her eyes in terror when he asked, “Where’s your passport?”

“Wait! What do you need my passport for?” Morgan asked, struggling not to panic, but it was kind of difficult at the moment.

Instead of answering her, Eric headed towards his room, leaving a trail of water in his wake and she…and she…

She couldn’t move fast enough.

Oh, God, no, Morgan thought as she managed to get to her feet, slipped, cursed, and struggled to figure out how she was going to explain why everything she owned was packed in boxes. She should have left when she had the chance, Morgan berated herself as she stumbled out of his bathroom, cursed when she saw that his bedroom was empty and moved her drunk ass towards the hallway, praying that she got there before she was forced to do something that she’d kind of been hoping that a politely worded email sent from the safety of a hotel room located in another state would take care of.

She should have left last night like she’d planned, but she hadn’t been able to resist the urge to see him one last time. It had been a mistake, and now, she was going to have to tell Eric Bradford, her best friend, business partner, and neighbor that she was leaving. She was going to have to-

Make it back to the bathroom before it was too late, Morgan realized with something close to panic as she was forced to turn around and stumble her way back to the bathroom so that she could become better acquainted with his toilet. Once that was done, and god, how much did she drink last night? Morgan forced herself to get back up, grabbed Eric’s toothbrush and covered it with an unholy amount of toothpaste, shoved it in her mouth, and went after him.

Once she made it to the hallway, Morgan continued brushing her teeth somewhat frantically as her gaze shot towards the door that Eric installed when they’d moved in so that their townhouses were connected and-

“Why aren’t you packing?” Eric asked, drawing her attention to find him searching through his desk drawers.

“Why would I be packing?” Morgan asked as her gaze flickered back to the door connecting their townhouses and nearly sighed with relief when she saw that it was still closed.

“Because our plane leaves in four hours,” Eric said, making her frown.

“What are you talking about?” she asked, forcing her attention away from the door to find Eric sitting at his desk, typing something into his computer as he glanced down at the passport that she’d thought she’d lost on the desk next to him.

“I changed the tickets to today,” he said as though that would explain everything.

“What tickets?” Morgan asked around his toothbrush.

“The ones that I paid a fortune for,” Eric said, frowning down at something while Morgan stood there, the toothbrush in her hand slowly coming to a stop as she tried to make sense out of what he was saying.

“What are you talking about?”

“We’re going on that honeymoon,” Eric bit out as he continued doing whatever he was doing as Morgan stood there, unable to help but blink at him while she waited for him to say something that made sense.

“There’s no way in hell that I’m about to let this trip go to waste and I’m sure as hell not about to let Amber take it, which means that we’re going,” Eric explained as though it had already been decided.

“I can’t go,” Morgan said, hoping that he left it at that since she really wasn’t sure that she would be able to talk her way out of this while she was hungover.

“You really can, though,” Eric murmured with one last click and a satisfied sigh.

“I have too much to do, but you should definitely go,” Morgan said with a hopeful smile and a nod because this could still work.