“No, Nick. It’s not fun. It’s actually kind of messed up.”
She tugs at the end of her ponytail and sinks her teeth into her plump bottom lip. I try not to stare. She’s really damn cute when she’s all flustered like this.
“I told Brody a lie about you and me.” She pauses. “I told him you and I were dating to make him jealous.”
I grin. “Did it work?”
Her perfectly shaped eyebrows furrow in confusion. “What?”
“Was he jealous?”
“Yeah. Very.”
I nod. “Nice.”
Her perfectly shaped eyebrows furrow together like she’s confused. “Wait, you’re not mad?”
“Why would I be mad?”
“I used you to lie to my ex.”
I shrug and chuckle. “That’s okay. From the way you talked about him earlier, it sounds like he was a jerk to you.”
Her shoulders fall, and she glances down at her shoes. “He was a jerk. He, um, cheated on me when we were together. That’s why we broke up.”
Anger spikes through me, along with a protective feeling. What kind of a dipshit would cheat on a sweet, beautiful girl like Poppy?
“What an asshole,” I mutter.
“We both interviewed for this really competitive internship at this law firm this summer. I just found out he got it over me,” she says, her voice soft like she’s embarrassed.
“Fucking prick,” I say without missing a beat. “He probably cheated somehow to get it. You’re way smarter than he is.”
Her mouth curves up in a shy smile. “You don’t even know him.”
“I don’t need to. You’re the smartest person I know.”
Her smile turns warm. A second later, it fades, and she goes back to looking concerned again.
“That’s why I lied to him and told him that you and I were together. He doesn’t like you. He thinks you’re a cocky athlete.”
“He’s not wrong.”
A chuckle slips from her lush mouth. She bites her bottom lip, and her expression turns serious. “I wanted to get back at him by telling him that I was hooking up with the hottest athlete on campus. And it worked. He was pissed.”
That smug feeling amplifies. I don’t give a fuck what her ex thinks about me. But the fact that Poppy wanted to use me to make him jealous is pretty hot.
She gnaws at her bottom lip. “I want my ex to keep thinking that we’re together.” She hesitates for a moment. “I think we should pretend to date.”
I blink at her, shocked at what she just suggested.
“Wait, seriously?”
She nods. “I have a class with him this semester. I’ll have to keep seeing him. And I just…”
She huffs out a breath, closes her eyes, and leans her head back for a second.
“Look, I know it’s petty. And childish too. But I don’t want to have to tell him the truth about us. I don’t want to feel humiliated in front of him again.”
