Can You Keep A Secret

Chapter Five

Nathan's mom was very happy when he told her he had been accepted as a game developer at Dreamsoft. At the very least, she could finally stop nagging him to get a job, and turn it into nagging him to do his job well instead. Thankfully, the job was rather relaxed, allowing him to work remotely and at flexible hours. So she didn't need to nag him to wake up early every day.

Friday night, Sarah called with the cover story she made up for him and Daniel.

"You first met at university, were reacquainted seven months ago, and started dating six months ago. You get it? Don't get the timeline wrong, because Daniel was still in Canada earlier this year. He only got back to the US in late February."

"Yes, I remember. You have repeated this six times." Nathan tried very hard to remain polite. Sarah noisily continued to chatter.

"His mother's name is Marie, his father is Robert, and his sister is Diana. He has a dog named Marshmallow, and she's a white samoyed. He loves Marshall, you can't get her name wrong."

"His dog is named Marshall?"

"No, it's Marshmallow. Marshall is just how we call her."

"I'm so confused," Nathan admitted.

Nearly two hours later, Nathan had finished his crash course on Daniel's entire family tree and history. Out of curiosity, he decided to ask Sarah about Victoria, since Daniel seemed like he didn't really want to talk about her.

"Hey, do you know Victoria?"

Sarah paused. "How did you know Victoria?"

Nathan proceeded to tell her the story of how they met Mia and her boyfriend Richard at the bookstore. Sarah listened attentively and gave a long sigh when Nathan told her about how Daniel had spoken of Victoria.

"They were really good friends. Like, they had been friends practically since they were in freaking diapers. Then Daniel came out to her and she freaked out because she has been in love with him all along," Sarah explained. "When you meet her tomorrow, just leave her alone. Don't try to get along with her, but don't be mean to her either. Daniel still cares about her."

Nathan blinked at the warning. "Oh, that sucks."
It must have been hard on Daniel, coming out to someone he must have trusted so much, and having her freak out on him. Nathan wouldn't even hope to get along with the girl who had a crush on Daniel, so he just prayed that he would be able to avoid her tomorrow. From the way Mia and Richard had spoken about her, she seemed to be rather aggressive, for lack of better words.

"Daniel seems to like you," Sarah added out of nowhere.

Nathan blinked. "He does?"

"Yeah, he said you seem okay."

"Is that supposed to be a praise?"

"It's not about his words, it's the way he said it." By this time, Nathan had known Sarah enough to know she was rolling her eyes on the other side. "Anyway, I'm glad you guys get along swimmingly. It would be a disaster if you don't see eye to eye after I went through all the trouble of recruiting you for him."

"Why does he need me to be his fake boyfriend anyway?" Nathan asked, confused. He had a guess that it would have something to do with Victoria, but with Daniel's looks... he could have just easily gotten himself a real boyfriend instead.

"You just need to convince his family so they'd stop bothering him about finding a girlfriend. And, convince Victoria to leave him alone. But without talking to her."

Nathan shrugged, though Sarah wouldn't be able to see it. "Alright." He supposed Daniel just had way too much money laying around and decided to do some charity.