“I am not?—”
“And you wanted one earlier anyway,” he added. It took me a second to realize he was talking about when I said it would be a faster way to get us to class. I opened my mouth to tell him that it was a joke but he cut me off. “Come on, Lilah. Don’t ruin my reputation for being the fun boyfriend.”
Our friends walked past as Tino waited for me to jump on, all of them whooping and hollering at us as if we were doing something totally scandalous. I sighed dramatically but stepped forward, climbing onto his back. His hands caught my legs automatically, warm and sure, and the laughter from our friends echoed ahead of us.
Someone—Mako, I think—started singing off-key, and the rest of us quickly joined in, me yelling in Tino’s ear because I didn’t have any sort of singing voice. To his credit, he grinned and bore it instead of dropping me on the frost-covered grass like I would have if he’d done the same to me.
And that was when I realized something very dangerous: I could see myself getting used to this.
CHAPTER 12
lilah
“This was supposed to be a girls’night,” I said as we crossed the theater parking lot, clutching the bag of candy like it was evidence. “Like, no boys, no testosterone, no one who lives in a different dorm hall than us.”
Normally, I wouldn’t have been angry about the boys tagging along. Ever since Poppy and Saylor had gotten into relationships, a lot of our outings had naturally started to include the boys. I even encouraged it, especially in the early days of Poppy and Bear hanging out when I was trying to get them to start dating. But now, with Tino being my fake boyfriend, having them along was starting to feel more like work than fun.
Tino fell into step beside me, the corners of his mouth twitching. “You’re just mad because you know we’re the better company.”
“Better company?” I gave him a look. “Bear and Poppy literally can’t go ten minutes without making heart eyes at each other. Crossy and Saylor are in their own little bubble of sarcastic romantic tension. And Mako?—”
“Mako’s Mako,” he said, as if that explained everything.
“Exactly.”
Tino held the door open for me, his breath visible in the cold. “So really it’s just me. You can’t admit that you’re thrilled to have me here.”
I scoffed. “Thrilled isn’t the word I’d use.”
“Honored, then?”
“Try ‘majorly inconvenienced.’”
I passed him to step inside the lobby of the movie, my boots hitting the carpeted floor softly. Since it was Friday night, it was unsurprisingly packed—couples on dates, families hanging around in the small arcade after the earlier shows, and far too many students from school for my taste. My stomach did an anxious little flip as I spotted a few familiar faces near the ticket line.
Poppy, who was walking ahead with Bear, spun around to look at us with wide eyes. For a moment, I was worried she was going to say something loudly about how we were dating in the hopes of helping the situation but instead make it ten times worse but she seemed to think the better of it.
“We’ll get the tickets,” she said instead. I just smiled gratefully back. Still, her comment made some girls by the ticket counter glance in our direction, probably recognizing her voice. They looked at her and Bear for a moment—even though they’d been dating for over a month and a half, people still weren’t used to seeing Bear out with a girl—but then their eyes drifted over to us. One nudged the other and whispered something in her ear, eyes trained on us the whole time.
A group of girls from school was by the ticket counter, already staring. One nudged the other and whispered something, eyes flicking between Tino and me.
Before I could react, Tino leaned down and murmured, “You might want to look like you actually enjoy my company.”
I turned to glare at him, but he just smiled innocently, then slid his hand into mine.
“Tino—”
“Relax,” he said. “You’re supposed to be my girlfriend, remember? You should at least act like you don’t hate me.”
“I don’t hate you,” I hissed. “You just have… a very punchable face sometimes.”
His grin widened. “And yet, here you are holding my hand.”
I would’ve dropped it immediately, but we were already walking toward the ticket counter, and the whispering girls were definitely watching. So I plastered on my best fake smile and squeezed his hand tighter out of sheer spite.
“See?” he said quietly. “You’re a natural.”
“I hope you trip on your shoelaces.”
