“You so are,” she said, grinning into her cup.
Saylor didn’t even lift her head. “You totally are.”
“Traitors,” I muttered. I finally found the cream and poured a ridiculous amount in, before grabbing two pieces of toast I had no intention of eating and following them back to their table. Maybe if I was lucky, Tino wouldn’t notice us and I would have a moment of peace before having to deal with this ridiculous plan of his—because yeah, in the light of day, I was questioning exactly how this was going to work.
I wasn’t lucky.
“Morning,” Tino said, casually sliding into the seat next to mine. A moment ago, the seat had been filled by Saylor and I hadn’t even noticed her get up, but when I looked now, I saw her and Crossy heading out the main entrance, probably going to Heart’s Coffee. Bear and Mako were nowhere to be seen, so I figured they were either taking the chance to sleep in like I was wishing I had or had already gone to the coffee shop.
Tino grabbed a piece of toast off my plate as if it was his and I glared at him even though I wasn’t planning on eating it. None of this was particularly unusual, since the boys tended to join us for meals now that Saylor and Poppy were both in relationships, but something about this morning felt charged. I guess it was just the knowledge of our agreement in the back of my mind that was making everything feel like it was a bigger deal than it should be and twisting my stomach into knots.
Maybe I just needed to look at this as a game. A fun experiment to see just how gullible the rest of the Hartwell student population was. An experiment that unfortunately involved having to kiss Tino, but I could look past that.
“Everyone’s staring at you,” Poppy said, a grin tugging at her face. “Maybe it’s time for you to do something couple-y.”
I glared at her, even though I knew she was right. The whole point of this was to convince everyone we were together—if I avoided touching him at any cost, we would just be in the same position we had been all week: everyone obsessing over the hidden clues of our supposed romance.
I was debating what I should do when Tino leaned back in his chair, draping one arm casually along the back of my chair, his fingers brushing the ends of my hair and sending tingles down my spine.
A purely physical reaction that would have happened no matter who was sitting with me, of course.
Tino, meanwhile, had moved on to stealing my coffee. I didn’t even notice until he was already taking a sip.
“Hey!” I reached for it, but he just held it out of reach with that infuriating grin.
“You already look wired,” he said. “I’m saving you from a caffeine overdose. Though I do have to say you take this with a disgusting amount of sugar in it. I would have expected that from Poppy but you—hey!”
I stole the mug back, making the liquid slosh around in the mug, but none of it spilled over the side. I stared him down as I took a long sip, daring him to make another comment. He just stared right back, his eyes darkening for reasons I couldn’t make sense of.
The tension was only broken when a sophomore girl passed by and said, “You two are so cute!” I almost choked on my coffee and Tino smiled like he’d been handed an award.
As soon as she was gone, I turned to him. “You’re enjoying this way too much.”
“I told you,” he said, leaning back again. “We have to sell it.”
“You don’t have to enjoy selling it.”
He grinned goofily. “But I do.”
Right. Of course he did. This ploy was everything Tino had ever wanted—a chance to finally go out with me.
“You know,” Tino said, leaning and dropping his voice so nobody could overhear. From a distance, it probably looked like he was whispering something sweet and romantic to me. “You could at least pretend to be happy about dating me.”
I gave him a sweet, fake smile. “Oh, I’m thrilled. This is everything I’ve ever dreamed of.”
“Better,” he said approvingly. “You almost sound convincing.”
I rolled my eyes. “Remind me again why we’re doing this?”
“Because,” he said, “it’s easier than fighting it. And because you said it yourself—you’ll get to prove how incompatible we are.”
Right. That had been the deal.
In the next twenty minutes that we sat there, three different girls came up to tell us we were adorable, Tino kissed my cheek once, and there wasn’t a single moment that I didn’t feel eyes on me.
When the warning bell went off signalling a few minutes until first period, I shot to my feet. “We should go.”
Poppy raised her brows. “Someone’s eager for math.”
