The Faking Game, page 1
THE FAKING GAME
PORTIA MACINTOSH
For my Joe
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
More from Portia MacIntosh
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Portia MacIntosh
About Boldwood Books
1
‘How lucky am I? Having all these grandkids when some poor people don’t have any.’
My eyes roll so far into the back of my head they actually end up back where they started, before anyone else has a chance to notice. My Auntie Mary says this all the time and, if you don’t overthink it, it sounds like a lovely remark on how she has two grandsons and another on the way. But this is my Auntie Mary, a relative so villainous there’s no money Disney wouldn’t pay for the rights to her, and when she says these words she fires them like bullets, her gun usually aimed squarely at my mum.
‘I know, aren’t you lucky,’ my mum replies genuinely.
My gaze darts around the village hall until I finally focus on my younger brother, Oliver, only to find him staring right back at me, his eyes wide with horror. We’ve always had that knack siblings often have for being able to have entire conversations, in split seconds, with nothing but a look.
Oliver is twenty-six and in the middle of a PhD, so I don’t think anyone expects him to be starting a family just yet. But then there’s me, a thirty-two-year-old – a whopping one year older than my cousin, Flora, who is expecting her third child – who is so very clearly the real target in Auntie Mary’s crosshair when she starts banging on like this, but if my mum isn’t going to rise to it then neither am I. I sip my drink and look around the room, admiring all the blue balloons, imagining tying a bunch of them to my body, like I’m the house from Up, so I can rise above all this shit. I hear South America is lovely this time of year.
‘Three boys,’ my mum says with a smile and a joyful sigh. ‘Flora is going to have her hands full.’
‘It’s doable, if you coordinate it right,’ I joke, mostly for my brother’s amusement.
My mum just about stifles a grin but Auntie Mary tuts. They’re so different, not like sisters at all, to the point where I wonder if they might not even be related. Mary is a year or so older than Annie, my mum. When I’m trying to work out why my mum turned out warm, friendly and loving like my grandparents, I mentally float the idea that perhaps Gran and Grandad – I don’t know – thought they couldn’t have kids, so they adopted my auntie, but then fell pregnant with my mum soon after. To be honest, I think I just like the idea that I’m not genetically tied to her in any way, and know that none of that is true.
Auntie Mary, with her knack for injecting unnecessary discomfort into conversations, is a real joy at parties.
‘Flora is a fantastic mum,’ Mary insists – not that anyone implied she wasn’t.
Right on cue, Flora hurries over with her youngest, baby Sal, held high above her enormous bump, and her other little boy, Vince, toddling along with her, holding her hand. Sal is about to turn one, Vince is two, and for some reason she’s going for some kind of New York Italian mafia boss theme when it comes to naming them. I wouldn’t be surprised if her newest recruit was a Carlo or a Fredo or a Don Vito Corleone himself.
I know, I know, it seems like I’m making fun of them, but trust me, it’s the only way to get through family events like this. Just smile, make your silly little jokes in your head, and remind yourself that if friends are the family you choose, then family are the friends you don’t choose, and there’s not much you can do about that.
‘Mum, can you take Sal, I need to take Vince to the toilet,’ Flora says.
‘Of course,’ Mary replies. ‘Come here, my little soldier. Where is Tommy?’
‘He’s playing pool, in the next room,’ Flora tells her.
Ahh, Tommy. Good old Tommy, Flora’s husband, a man who very much believes in gender norms where men are men and women are women. The men drink and play sports, the women look after the kids. He’s very much the same, whenever we go to their house, sitting in his chair, reminding himself that he’s the man of the house, while ‘her indoors’ cooks and cleans and raises his kids. Honestly, if I had to live with a man like that, I would be in prison by now.
‘Are you guys having a nice time?’ Flora pauses to ask us.
‘Yes, lovely,’ my mum replies. ‘You’ve done such a good job with the decorations.’
We’re in the village hall, which Flora and Tommy have hired out for the occasion. The hall has been transformed with decorations in celebration of Flora’s baby boy – who I think is due in a couple of months, so February or March. From the moment you step inside, a wave of blue hues washes over you. Cobalt streamers cascade down from the ceiling, crisscrossing the room, forming a captivating canopy that lowers the height of the room significantly. Balloons in various shades, from baby-blue to navy, occupy every other available space.
‘You’ve got the entertainment sorted, right, Cara?’ Flora checks – asking me in a way that suggests there is a strong chance I may have let her down.
‘Of course I have,’ I reply. ‘Oliver and I sorted it together. Millsy is picking it up on his way here.’
‘Joe isn’t here yet?’ she replies, her eyes widening. ‘I told you, no one was to be late today.’
‘Well, he is coming here from LA,’ Mum politely reminds her. ‘He’s coming back a day early, just for this.’
And don’t I know it, because we had to eat the cost of his non-refundable, non-amendable ticket, so that he could be here.
‘Joe won’t forget, will he?’ Mary chimes in, also sounding like she strongly suspects he will.
Joe Mills, my boyfriend, has always gone by the name Millsy. You know what lads are like, they get a nickname when they’re younger – either a twist on their surname or something completely random – and it stays with them forever. Of course, in his professional life, he’s Joe, but to me, to his family, to his friends, he is Millsy. Not to Mary and Flora, though, who insist on calling him by his ‘Christian name’. Mary even trialled calling him Joseph, to make things extra formal, until I repeatedly pointed out that the name on his birth certificate is in fact ‘Joe’ and not ‘Joseph’.
‘He won’t forget,’ I say simply.
Flora practically drags Vince to the loos while Mary makes her excuses and wanders off with baby Sal. Now it’s just me, Mum and Oliver.
‘Where is Dad hiding?’ Oliver asks.
‘If it weren’t December, I would say outside,’ Mum replies. ‘He’ll be hiding in a corner or watching the boys play pool. Go see if he needs rescuing.’
Oliver nods and heads off to find him.
Mum wraps an arm around me and gives me a squeeze.
‘I’m proud of you,’ she tells me. ‘You’re getting very good at ignoring all the silly remarks.’
‘Ahh, well, I learned from the best,’ I reply. ‘I don’t know how you put up with them. I can’t imagine Oliver being like this, but I’m not sure I would put up with him if he were.’
Mum just shrugs.
‘I’ll always keep the peace, for your gran’s sake, and I know you would do the same with Oliver – not that I can imagine it either. You’re both so mature.’
‘Ah, mature, but not popping out babies on the regular,’ I joke.
‘Well, I can’t imagine it’s easy, when your boyfriend has been in LA for six weeks,’ she replies. ‘Is he on his way?’
‘Yeah, I had a message from him, he said he needed a shower before he came, but he’s bringing the game with him.’
‘That’s good,’ she replies.
I don’t know how I wound up being responsible for the entertainment today. I suppose it’s because, in spite of everything, I do still try with them, even if they don’t make it easy. Look at when Flora got married back in 2020, and she wound up with no one to put her party favours together the day before the big day, it was me who stepped forward to do them, even though Flora had invited my ex-boyfriend to her wedding and sat him at my table.
Flora asked if we would take care of the entertainment for today, so I came up with an idea, Oliver found a place that could make it, and Millsy is going to be bringing it. I glance at my watch. I thought he would’ve been here by now.
‘I suppose we should mingle,’ Mum says. ‘Come on, let’s grab a blue cupcake.’
‘Or a blue egg mayo sandwich,’ I say with a laugh.
Yes, even a large chunk of the buffet is blue. I imagine if anyone arrived in so much as a pink outfit they would be told to leave, or asked to change. I’m lucky I’m allowed in, given that my long blonde locks have a very subtle rose gold toner through them, but I would never be let off the hook for attending so easily, otherwise I would’ve come dressed as Barbie, if it saw me turned away at the door.
Over at the buffet table we happen upon Uncle Paddy – Mary’s husband – and Emma, one of Flora’s friends.
Uncle Paddy is a small, round man with a commanding physical presence that matches his in-your-face personality. His bald head gleams under the hall lights, giving him a polished, almost comical appearance, and he wears the kind of glasses that make him look like he needs his hard drive checked – not that he could begin to know how to work anything with a hard drive in it.
‘…and back then I was a young lad with a brilliant mind, hidden away in the corners of a rough neighbourhood. I was a mathematical prodigy, solving complex equations left and right, but keeping it all a secret,’ he explains.
‘Wow, really?’ Emma replies, her eyes wide. ‘I had no idea you were so smart.’
‘One day, fate brought me face to face with a renowned professor,’ Paddy continues. ‘He discovered my exceptional talent and wanted to help me unlock my full potential. We embarked on a journey of intellectual exploration and self-discovery and…’
Paddy’s voice trails off as he notices us watching.
‘Oh, Annie, Cara, hello,’ he says.
‘Hi,’ I reply.
The thing you need to know about Paddy is that he has never had an original idea or experience in his entire life – unless you count the idea he has where he tells people entirely fabricated anecdotes about himself that he has lifted entirely from movies and books. Honestly, he isn’t even subtle with it. Take today’s tall tale, which is so blatantly the plot of Good Will Hunting. Although I suppose it’s more subtle than the time he tried to tell Millsy he was once part of a team trying to catch a great white shark off the coast of New England.
‘Is it time for the entertainment?’ Paddy asks.
It looks to me like the entertainment is already well underway.
‘Millsy is on his way with it,’ I reply.
‘I don’t know, that no-good boyfriend of yours,’ Paddy jokes.
‘Millsy is great, isn’t he?’ Emma chimes in.
I don’t know Emma all that well, only through Flora, but I do know that Millsy is never short of female attention, which is just great for me.
‘He is,’ I reply with a smile.
‘Honestly, you two are just, like, the perfect couple,’ Emma says with a sigh. ‘Everyone thinks so. You’re so lucky.’
I smile again, softer this time.
‘Oh, it makes us all sick,’ Paddy continues – still hopefully joking. ‘I bet you’ve been going mad, with him being in LA so much, when you’re usually joined at the hip.’
‘Well, we’re adults, we’re dealing with it,’ I point out.
I’m relieved when I notice my phone making noises. I take it from my bag to see what it is.
‘Oh, that’s him now,’ I say. ‘Right, I’d better go set the entertainment up.’
‘Don’t keep us waiting,’ Paddy sings. ‘We’re all excited to see what you’ve come up with.’
And don’t I know it! Although it doesn’t feel like people are excited to see what I’ve come up with, it seems like they’re excited to see if I fail. Well, I’m not going to give them the opportunity. I’ve gone all out for this one. I looked into games for baby showers and it seemed like one thing a lot of people played was a take on ‘pin the tail on the donkey’ but with a baby, and baby-type items like dummies and rattles and stuff. Oliver agreed to help too, so he found us a company that made custom games, and I found someone who made high-quality AI images, who used photos of both Sal and Vince as babies, and made us a sort of projection of what the new baby could look like, which we then sent to the custom game people. Honestly, it’s going to be amazing, so unique, so special – I don’t know how anyone is going to find fault with this, although lord knows they’ll try.
I make my way towards the door, to see if I can catch Millsy before he joins the party – well, I haven’t seen him for six weeks – but then I spot him.
The doors swing open and he strolls through in what seems like movie-style slow motion. Time seems to slow down, and if this were a movie, a collective sigh would escape the lips of anyone lucky enough to witness his grand entrance.
Tall, dark, and devastatingly handsome, Millsy has always commanded attention, and in a seemingly effortless manner, which just makes it all the more attractive. His well-groomed, tousled brown hair falls perfectly into place, and blows lightly in the wind, which is probably something to do with the breeze coming in from the chilly December weather outside, but from here it looks like there’s a Hollywood-grade wind machine pointing at him.
When I first met him, I always thought he reminded me of Jason Momoa but, these days, over three years later, he’s maturing into a cross between Jason and a sort of Matthew McConaughey type, but peak Matthew McConaughey, from his dreamy romcom era, before the infamous ‘McConaissance’ of the 2010s. With his impossibly dark brown eyes and his deliciously deep dimples, Millsy is somehow only getting more attractive as the days go by. Seeing him, in the flesh, after six weeks apart feels like someone simultaneously slapping me across the face, punching me in the chest, and kicking me between the legs.
He spots me and waves with his free hand. His other, thankfully, is holding a large cardboard envelope. Oh, thank goodness, he’s brought the game.
As he walks over to me, I feel my tongue swelling in my mouth. I don’t know what to say, I feel like an awkward teenager again. But then Oliver spots him too and hurries over.
‘Millsy, you got the game,’ Oliver says, as the two of them arrive in front of me at the same time. ‘Phew. I think Auntie Mary and Flora were gunning for Cara over it.’
‘It’s right here, mate,’ Millsy reassures him. ‘Although I haven’t checked it, if you want to do the honours.’
Millsy hands the envelope to Oliver and then turns to me.
‘Hi,’ he says simply, flashing me that trademark grin of his.
‘Hi,’ I reply, smiling back, my cheeks warming for the occasion.
‘I—’
‘Have you—’
‘Erm, guys,’ Oliver interrupts us talking over one another. ‘Is this what you were after?’
Oliver is holding the large board to his chest. As we both go to look at it, he holds it away from his body just enough for us to see it.
‘Fuck!’ I blurt. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck.’
‘Wow,’ Millsy adds. ‘That’s… yeah, wow. That’s not what you asked for?’
‘No, unbelievably, that’s not what I asked for,’ I reply. ‘Oh my God, Mary is going to kill me. She’s going to actually murder me, right here, in front of everyone, just weeks before Christmas.’
‘I thought it sounded odd,’ Oliver says cautiously.
‘What do you mean?’ I reply. ‘What did you ask for?’
‘Exactly what you told me,’ he insists. ‘You said you were sending a photo and you wanted a pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey type thing.’
‘Yes, type thing,’ I reply. ‘Is that all you said? You didn’t say you wanted a baby version.’
‘Of course I said I wanted a baby version,’ Oliver replies. ‘And… I guess that’s what you’ve got?’
It never ceases to amaze me that, for someone doing a PhD, and being the smartest man I know, Oliver can be quite stupid sometimes. Although I suppose it’s not all on him, perhaps the person who made this… this monstrosity took the request a little too literally.
As requested, there is a large board with the AI baby on there, and it really does look like a cross between baby Sal and Vince when he was that age. But this adorable, crawling baby has had some adjustments. It has large donkey ears, big goofy donkey teeth, and a removable donkey tail for partygoers to take turns at trying to pin in the right place – as though there’s a right place for a tail on a baby.
