"You're making a spreadsheet right now, aren't you?"
"It would be the responsible approach," he says defensively.
I laugh, finding his predictability pretty funny. "Of course it would. Computer room when we get back? We can draft our relationship while everyone else sleeps."
"Perfect."
The phrase "our relationship" hangs in the air between us, oddly significant despite its pretense. This is strategic, I remind myself. A mutual benefit arrangement. Nothing more.
So why is my heart beating faster at the thought of what we're about to start?
Back at the frat house,most of the brothers immediately head to their rooms, exhausted from skating. James and I exchange a look before heading to the computer room.
The space is different at night, somehow more intimate, with the glow of monitors illuminating our faces. James takes his usual seat at his computer while I pull up a chair beside him, close enough to see the screen but not quite touching.
"So," he says, opening a new document, "Operation Fake Relationship."
"Catchy title," I say, leaning in slightly. "Very covert."
"We need to establish parameters," he continues, ignoring my sarcasm. "What we're comfortable with, what's convincing, timelines."
"Birth of a relationship, as documented in Excel, how romantic." Watching this level of organization applied to something so ridiculous shouldn't be entertaining, but somehow it is.
"You want to wing it instead?" His fingers pause over the keyboard, and there's a hint of amusement in his voice that wasn't there before.
"No." My hands go up in surrender. "A plan makes sense. I just think it's funny how organized you're being about this."
He starts typing, creating categories and headings with the efficiency of someone who organizes his sock drawer by colour and fabric weight. "Physical boundaries first? What are you comfortable with for pda's?"
The question sobers me. This is no longer a crazy idea; we're discussing actual physical contact between us.What would look natural? What wouldn't make this weird?Hand-holdingis obvious; couples do that. Arms around each other in group settings, that's normal too. Nothing excessive. Keep it simple.
"Hand-holding seems basic. Arm around shoulders or waist in appropriate contexts."
He nods, adding these to the document. "Kissing?" The word seems to hang in the air between us.
A mental image arrives without permission: his lips against mine. I swallow hard. "Brief kisses would be convincing. Nothing... excessive."
"Defined as?"
"No tongue. Nothing that would give the brothers a free show." My face is heating up; I can feel it, but can't stop it.Bloody inconvenient.
He types this specification, his profile illuminated by the monitor's blue light. "Agreed."
"What about you?" Clearing my throat, I ask. "Any specific boundaries?"
His brow furrows slightly. "I'm not big on public displays in general, but I understand the necessity for convincing evidence. I think I'm comfortable with the parameters you outlined."
"Great,” I say way too fast.Fuck, if it’s embarrassing to talk about how am I going to pull it off? What if the guys don’t believe it? Oh crap, what if I start to believe it? Shit!
Deep breath. Moving on."What else?"
"Timeline," he suggests. "How do we transition from a budding friendship to a relationship?"
We spend the next hour planning how we'll slowly move from friends to something more. Study sessions that run late. Touching each other casually, but more often. Inside jokes that show we're getting closer. All building up to ‘officially’ becoming a couple right before the Winter festival.
"We'll need a backstory. How we went from antagonism to attraction." Strange how easily that word, attraction, rolls off my tongue now.
"Late-night work sessions where we saw different sides of each other?" That’s basically what’s actually happening between us.
