I swallowed hard. “Yeah.”
“We should post it.”
“Now?”
“Why not? Let them think we’re disgustingly happy.”
I tried to roll my eyes, but the motion came out weak. “You are too good at this.”
“Years of practice,” he said lightly, scrolling through the photos.
I pretended to gasp and put a hand to my heart. “You mean I’m not your first fake girlfriend?”
He laughed. “I meant needing to keep up appearances about being a celebrity’s brother, but now that you mention it…”
I shoved him. “Shut up. I know you haven’t dated anyone before me.”
He stared at me for a beat too long before dropping his eyes. “You’re right. I haven’t.”
I suddenly felt like a total jerk for my words. I hadn’t thought about what that might sound like to him—as if I was rubbing it in his face that he’d never had a relationship before. It wasn’t like I thought there was any problem with that, but tell that to his heartbroken face.
“I’m sorry,” I blurted. “I didn’t mean that you…” I trailed off as my phone buzzed in my pocket. I didn’t mean to totally stop speaking but I got distracted as I saw the notification.
Michael Valentine has tagged you in a photo.
My gaze flitted back up to him. “You already posted it?”
He finally looked at me again, his smile already back again. “Of course I did.”
I held my breath as I clicked on the notification, worried that I already knew what photo he’d posted. He could put up a photo of just me, of course, but it was about ten times more likely that he posted the almost kiss shot. And my worries were proven true immediately. Even worse with the caption: she told me to stop smiling like an idiot. Oops.
I groaned. “You didn’t.”
“Oh, I did.”
Within seconds, my notifications were blowing up. Comments, likes, reposts.
I shoved the phone into my pocket. “This was a terrible idea.”
“Worse than having photos taken of us when we’re not looking?” Tino asked cheerfully. I didn’t respond and he laughed, throwing an arm around my shoulders. “Come on, let’s go meet Poppy and Bear.”
CHAPTER 15
lilah
“This was a horrible idea,”Tino said for the twentieth time. Given that we’d only been in the dorm kitchen for fifteen minutes, it was getting a little irritating.
“Will you quit saying that?” I asked. I scooped up some batter, using a coffee mug as the ladle because I had no idea where the actual ladles were, and dumped it unceremoniously onto the pan. It sizzled loudly and Tino’s mouth twisted. I glared at him. “I don’t need your judgement.”
Really, if there was anyone who should be judged in this situation, it was him—half his face was covered in flour, both his apron and shirt underneath had batter smeared all over, and his hair was sticking up in every direction and looking remarkably burnt. It should have been the worst look I’d ever seen on him but every time I glanced in his direction, it almost hurt to look away. He only looked that ridiculous because he wanted us to make crepes. I pointed out that we’d had waffles for breakfast yesterday and again today and crepes were too similar, to which he rolled his eyes, insisted they weren’t that similar, and even if they were he couldn’t control his cravings. It was all said in a huff that made him sound about five years old and I’d given in immediately.
Then, of course, as soon as the batter was finished, he had second thoughts.
“We’re going to burn this place down,” he said, staring at the pan. I didn’t have a good grasp on the difference between pancakes and crepes other than that the latter was bigger so I picked up the pan and tilted it every which way to get the batter to spread and take up all the available space.
“You have no faith in me at all.” I eyed the crepe, not sure when I was supposed to flip it over. Come to think of it, were you supposed to flip crepes with a spatula like you did with pancakes or were you supposed to just use the pan like those fancy chefs did? I wasn’t sure I was able to do either.
“How much do you know about making crepes?” I asked Tino, having a feeling I already knew the answer. He thought about it for much longer than I thought was necessary.
