This is fine. Just a favor between friends. If we’re even friends. Are we friends?
I check my reflection in a car window and immediately hate myself for it.
“Get it together, Prescott,” I mutter. “It’s just shopping.”
14
ETHAN
The quad is at that perfect almost-spring temperature where everyone pretends they’re not cold. Piper’s already there when I arrive, standing near the fountain in black leggings and an oversized UMS hoodie. Her glasses catch the light as she scrolls through her phone, and there’s something about the furrow between her brows that makes me want to smooth it out.
Bad thought. Fake boyfriends don’t get forehead-smoothing privileges.
“Ready to make terrible fashion choices?” I call out.
She looks up, and that almost-smile flickers across her face. “I’ve been making terrible fashion choices since 2011. Try to keep up, Prescott.”
We head toward the thrift stores on Mass Street, walking just close enough that our shoulders occasionally bump. Each time it happens, she shifts slightly away.
“So,” I say as we pass a group of freshmen stress-eating pizza, “anything-but-clothes means what exactly? Because I’m not showing up in just strategically placed duct tape. I value my dignity.”
“You have dignity? Could’ve fooled me.” The grin punctuating her sentence increases my heartbeat suspiciously.
“Harsh, Renner. And here I thought we were friends.”
“We’re ninety percent compatible friends, remember?” She says it like a joke, but there’s something underneath. “Anyways, Alex says it’s basically wear anything that’s not technically clothing. Trash bags, cardboard, bubble wrap?—”
“Bubble wrap could be fun. Very poppable.”
She snorts. “You’d last five minutes before someone popped your entire outfit.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
The first thrift store smells like moth balls and broken dreams. We split up—Piper heading for the housewares section while I browse through a rack of curtains that might work as a toga.
“What about this?” She holds up a shower curtain with rubber duckies on it.
“Very sophisticated.”
“I’m going for ‘aggressively unsexy.’ Really lean into it.”
I grin. “Impossible. You could wear a garbage bag and still—” I catch myself. “Still be overdressed for my standards.”
“Ok,” she says, but she’s fighting a smile. “Maybe I should go for something a little sexier.”
I grin. “I’m into this, Pip, especially if you’re my date. My date would never wear ducks.”
“My pretend-date for one night only,” she corrects.
“Ah, so on that note, I’m going to need context if we’re doing this fake dating thing properly.”
Her face does something complicated—part grimace, part guilt. “About that...”
“Ah, exposition time. Let me guess—Miles is your ex and you need to make him jealous?”
“He’s not my ex.” She focuses very intently on a stack ofplacemats. “We were never even together. That’s the pathetic part.”
“But you wanted to be?”
