He ghosted her?! Damn, that’s harsh.
Gerard
To be fair, she was kinda clingy.
Oliver
She wanted to hold hands in public, Gerard.
Gerard
…okay, fair point.
Gerard Gunnarson has added Elliot Montgomery to Barracudas Group Chat.
15
JACKSON
Ever since the Ice Queen’s newest blog post, Drew and I have made it our mission to be Academy Award-winning performers. His fingers slide between mine as we walk across campus. The calluses on his palm scrape lightly against the smooth skin of my hand. When he shifts his grip, his thumb finds that hollow between my thumb and forefinger, and my pulse stutters beneath the point of contact, leaving me momentarily breathless.
“Incoming at three o’clock,” Drew murmurs, squeezing my hand.
I glance over to see a group of sorority girls, phones out, whispering and giggling. Drew responds by pulling me closer, his arm sliding around my waist. The casual intimacy of it makes my butt clench.
“You good?” he asks quietly, his lips close to my ear. To anyone watching, it probably looks like he’s whispering sweet nothings. In reality, he’s checking in because I’ve gone rigid.
“Yeah,” I manage, forcing myself to relax into his hold. “Just…getting used to this.”
What I don’t say is that some cruel part of me had assumed this would feel like wearing a costume, stiff and awkward, the tinsel of fake love itchy and obvious. But instead, the opposite is happening: I’m getting used to it too fast. I didn’t account for how much I want the show to keep going, even when the audience is nowhere to be seen.
Every time he touches me, he burns his initials deeper into whatever part of me I still pretend is off-limits, and my brain does this insane loop ofthis is real, it could be real, why isn’t this real?I can tell I’m in trouble because my body’s already started to crave it.
“Let’s really sell it,” Drew says, stopping suddenly. Before I can ask what he means, he spins me around and presses me against the brick wall of the English building. His hands frame my face, and then his lips are on mine.
It’s not our first fake kiss. We’ve been doing this dance all week—quick pecks in the dining hall, lingering lip-locks when we know people are watching. But this one is different. His tongue brushes against my bottom lip, and my mouth parts without my permission. My throat vibrates with something between a sigh and a whimper that disappears into the space between us as my fingers curl involuntarily against his chest.
When he pulls back, his eyes are dark, pupils blown wide. We stare at each other, both breathing hard. Then someone wolf-whistles from across the quad, breaking the spell.
“That should give the Ice Queen something to write about,” Drew says with his trademark grin, but his voice is rougher than usual.
I nod, not trusting myself to speak. My lips are tingling, and I can still taste him—mint gum and the coffee he had this morning. I want to pull him back in, kiss him again, for real this time. But I can’t overdo it. New couples don’t jump right into aggressive French-kissing. People in new relationships don’timmediately bend over and let their boyfriend pummel their ass into next weekend. Hookups do. People who never see each other again do.
If we come off as trying too hard, the Ice Queen will see right through our charade. And we can’t have that, can we?
We continue heading to class, still holding hands, and I struggle to ignore the voice in my head pointing out how different I am from Drew’s usual type. I’ve seen them—the guys he hooks up with. Rugby players with thighs that could crush watermelons. Swimmers with broad shoulders and narrow waists. Even Trevor, the guy from academic advising, could be a model in aMen’s Healthmagazine.
And then there’s me. Sure, I’m athletic, but football-athletic is different from hockey-athletic or rugby-athletic. I’m built for throwing, not for the kind of rough, physical play that Drew gravitates toward. My hands are made for gripping footballs, not for whatever those other guys do to keep Drew coming back.
“Earth to Jackson,” Drew says, bumping his shoulder against mine. “You’re thinking too loudly.”
“Sorry, just…class stuff,” I lie.
He holds my gaze a beat too long, his eyes narrowing slightly, as if trying to read the fine print of my thoughts. But then he squeezes my hand again and launches into a story about Gerard’s latest shenanigans. I let his voice wash over me, pretending for a few more minutes that this is real.
By Friday,we’ve fallen into a routine. Drew picks me up from my dorm every morning, calling me some ridiculous pet name that makes me blush, and everyone around us coos. “Morning,sunshine,” or “Hey there, handsome,” or my personal favorite/torture, “There’s my guy.”
Today, he shows up with a large coffee from The Brew. “Thought you might need the caffeine,” he says, pressing a kiss to my temple as I take the offerings. “Big test in Macroeconomics today, right?”
