“Your turn!”
I debated arguing further but decided against it. I handed him the phone. “Let’s get this over with.”
Tino grinned like a wolf who’d just spotted prey. “All right, Miss Model. Why don’t you sit right there,” he indicated toward some Adirondack chairs around a rarely used fire pit, “and lean back, look all effortlessly cool?—”
“Tino.”
“Fine, fine. Just act natural.”
I perched on the chair, tugging my sweater sleeves down over my hands. “Natural,” I muttered. “Totally natural to be doing a fake photoshoot with my fake boyfriend in the middle of campus.”
He crouched slightly, adjusting the angle. “Okay, look at me.”
I did—and immediately wished I hadn’t. His expression was focused, but there was this spark in his eyes, playful and a little dangerous, like he knew exactly how flustered I was getting and found it hilarious.
“Stop looking at me like that,” I said when I saw him practically choke trying to hold back a laugh.
“Like what?”
“Like you’re about to laugh.”
He looked away for a second like he was trying to fix his face without me seeing, but when he turned back, his face was almost red from the effort.
“I’m not laughing,” he said, but his voice was forced from the effort.
I glared at him. “You’re definitely laughing.”
He took another photo. “That was the perfect face! Keep it.”
I groaned. “You’re impossible.”
I sat still and entertained his ridiculous ideas for a couple more minutes before jumping up and announcing I was done with this.
“Hold on,” he said, moving closer. “We need one where it looks like I’m kissing you.”
My heart stopped. “Excuse me?”
“Come on, couples loving PDA like this.”
He came up beside me and without thinking, I stepped back. He just raised his eyebrows and I could practically feel his thoughts in my head—we can’t be in a fake relationship if you don’t let me touch you. This is how to make everyone get over this quicker.And I knew he was right, but letting him near me went against two years worth of me turning him down. It was hard to give in, even if I knew it was all fake and would be over in a couple of weeks.
Tino stepped up to me again and this time, I didn’t move away, even though my heart decided this was the exact moment to go from being frozen to sprinting. He stood behind me, one hand braced on the tree beside me, his breath warm against my cheek. “Just tilt your head a little... There. Perfect.”
I stood practically frozen in place as he snapped a couple of photos. I could feel the ghost of his touch across my whole back, even though I knew he was barely touching me, and it sent shivers up and down my spine.
“Tino,” I whispered.
“Hmm?”
“This is insane.”
“Yeah,” he said softly. “Kind of the point. Now lean in.”
Is this really worth it? I asked myself as Tino practically pressed his face to mine. We were millimetres apart, close enough for our noses to bump, for us to accidentally kiss if we moved wrong. It immediately transported me back to the day in the store, when he’d been so close to me that I wondered if he might just try to kiss me. To that moment that started all of this—when somebody got the wrong idea from looking through the window.
He snapped the photo, then stepped back as if nothing had happened. When I dared glance at the screen, the picture looked so natural it was almost unfair. My eyes were half closed, a smileghosting my lips, and his face was angled toward mine, close enough to look real. Too real.
He looked over my shoulder. “That one’s good.”
