fake it til you make it | greta van fleet

a family affair | two

The month leading up to your sister's wedding went by in the blink of an eye. Jake, of course, had waited until the absolute last minute possible to get a suit, and he'd had a bit too much fun pulling your leg and telling you he wasn't going to cover for you. He'd made it up to you with ice cream after you'd cried, and you were never going to tell him the tears were fake.

It was the best trick you had left, a skill you'd mastered over the years of trying to figure out ways to get him off your back. All it took was some strategic squinting, a boatload of sad thoughts, and sheer willpower. Worked like a charm, too.

But, now the weekend was upon the two of you, and you were a bundle of nerves. You'd gotten absolutely no sleep the night prior, courtesy of the bachelorette party you'd thrown for your sister, and now you were heading into the lion's den. Over forty-eight hours of pretending that you were pretending to be in love with your best friend laid ahead of you, and you weren't sure if it was the hangover or the fear of exposing yourself that was making you so nauseous.

You also weren't sure who you were more fearful of exposing yourself to. Was it Jake? Or, was it your sister? With the crazed bridezilla she'd become, you weren't so sure you'd escape her wrath with your life (or at the very least, all of your limbs).

Jake wasn't helping much, either.

As the hour of reckoning drew nearer, his teasing had increased ten-fold. It'd started mostly innocent, just simple quips about your inability to find a boyfriend or exposing your plunder to his brothers. Sam had gotten a real kick out of your dilemma, but Josh had looked at you so speculatively you'd grown weary that maybe he knew the truth.

But, over time he'd become nearly unbearable. At every possible turn, you were fielding remarks about your undying love for him or struggling to keep your composure as he so dramatically regarded you as his soulmate, and at one point you'd actually had to leave the room when he'd thrown himself at you playfully. Now you were trapped in a car with him for the next three hours, and you were just waiting for him to start in on you.

To your surprise, though, Jake just dragged a pillow out of his backseat and dropped it into your lap. "What's that for?" you asked, speaking through your thousandth yawn of the morning, and he shot you a pointed look.

"So you can sleep, obviously." he deadpanned, and you stuck your tongue out at him. "I knew you'd forget to bring one, so I grabbed mine before I left."

Sometimes he could be sweet. Despite your ever-present desire to lean across the center console and kiss the life out of him, you settled for pinching his cheek with a dramatic coo, "Aw, Jakey, if I didn't know any better I'd say it was you who was in love with me!"

You barely caught the slight reddening of his cheeks before he was shoving your head roughly with a palm to your face, your entire body jolting into the door beside you as he swerved the car a little too hard for comfort. "Eyes on the road, Jake, holy shit!" you screeched, and he laughed like it was the funniest thing in the world.

The two of you bickered for a few minutes over music, before Jake ultimately won the battle by insisting that you were going to sleep anyways and wouldn't be listening. With a final huff, glaring at the haughty smirk on his lips, you propped his pillow between your head and shoulder and leaned against the car door to go to sleep.

Usually, sleeping in cars was next to impossible for you. The sound of the wind was always too loud when you rested your head against the door, and the motion made you woozy when you closed your eyes. But as you were engulfed in the familiar and comforting scent of Jake, your eyes instantly grew heavy. Before the chorus of the first song even started, you were asleep.