“Rules?”
“Yes, rules. I’m not letting this turn into whatever chaotic plan you have in your head.”
His grin told me all I needed to know about his plans.
“Okay,” he said amenably. He sat down on a crate as well, instead of going back to crouching. “Rule one?”
“No actual feelings.”
He grinned. “Obviously.”
“Rule two: no ridiculous romantic gestures.” I could only imagine what he would do if I let him have free rein. I had visions in my head of him standing on cafeteria tables and declaring his undying love for me.
“Define ridiculous.”
“Anything involving singing, public declarations, holding hands unnecessarily, or kissing for more than three seconds.”
He smirked. “So… kissing for two seconds is okay?”
I sighed. “As much as I hate it?—”
“Gee, help a guy’s ego, won’t you?”
“—people will expect a real couple to kiss,” I said, ignoring him. “And if I really want everyone to quit harassing us and get over this, then we can’t give them any reason to doubt our relationship. The last thing I want is conspiracy videos about why we never touch.”
The whole social media side of this was the part that was giving me the most pause. Giving in and acting like a couplewasn’t going to stop people from posting edits of us—if anything, it might make it even worse. But I guess I would take that over the speculation of whether we were dating in secret, which only invited people spying on us.
“Rule three,” I continued, “no flirting when people aren’t around.”
“That one might be difficult.”
I just stared at him until he held his hands up in a surrender. “Fine, fine. No flirting in private.” He looked weirdly pleased. “Admit it. It’s a good plan.”
“It’s a plan,” I corrected. “The ‘good’ part is yet to be determined.”
He shrugged. “I’ll take that.”
I stood up, brushing dust off my uniform. “If we do this—again, hypothetically—it’s only until the rumours die down. After that, we end it.”
He grinned. “Got it. I’ll practice looking heartbroken.”
“I’m sure it’ll be very convincing,” I said dryly.
He pushed open the door, and light spilled in. “So… we have a deal?”
I hesitated for a moment. Every rational part of my brain screamed no. But another part—the one that was already exhausted by the questions after only a few days—whispered that maybe, just maybe, this could work.
“We have a deal,” I agreed. Then, despite feeling like I was walking into a trap, I slipped my hand into his and walked outside with him.
CHAPTER 8
lilah
The school tuckshop was one of my favourite places on campus. It was in the same building as the only coffee shop, Heart’s Coffee, but was only open for an hour at lunch and after classes ended for the day. I was thoroughly convinced the place existed outside of the limits of time, because every time I went in, I felt like I was there for hours but only ten or fifteen minutes had passed by the time I came out. Mix that with the constant fluorescent lighting, smell of cheap coffee mixed with floor cleaner, and shelves filled with crap that nobody needed, it felt like the most magical place in the world.
With a couple of hours to curfew, Saylor, Poppy and I wandered inside the store. We’d been having a girls’ night in—the perfect time for me to tell them about Tino’s ridiculous plan that I was somehow going along with—when we realized we had no snacks, so now we were wandering the aisles dressed in pajama pants and tank tops because none of us were willing to get dressed again just for this.
“Okay,” Poppy said as we wandered down the candy aisle, probably looking like we’d all just woken from a dead sleep. She was wearing her grey fuzzy blanket around her shoulders like a shawl so she could hold a purple shopping basket in her hands.“We need something sweet, something salty, and something blue for Saylor to eat at the hockey game on the weekend.”
