“Good optics,” I repeated.
His mouth hardened. “Freshman soccer star. Texas debutante. Smart. Pretty. Checks all the boxes. Unlike the girl I brought home last year.”
There it was again.
The fake dating contract shifting under my feet; parents who looked at their children and saw strategies.
I should have said no immediately.
Instead, I looked at Drew across the table, at the football-star swagger and the guarded eyes beneath it, and realized he had not asked because he wanted to show me off.
He had asked because some part of him needed backup.
And maybe that was the most dangerous rule of all.
Because pretending to be wanted was one thing.
Being needed was another.
I set my fry down slowly. “So what, Travers? You need me to play quality girlfriend for your father?”
His smile came back, but it was rougher now.
“Yeah, Calloway,” he said. “Think you can handle that?”
I should have remembered my own rule.
No falling in love.
Instead, I lifted my chin, gave him my prettiest smile, and lied like a girl who had been trained for crowns, cameras, and family warfare since birth.
“Baby,” I said, “I was born for that.”
Chapter Fourteen
ISA
By the next morning,I had learned three things.
One—Drew Travers took fake dating more seriously than most people took midterms.
Two—the internet was a parasite.
And three—I was apparently the parasite’s favorite host.
I woke up to eighty-seven notifications, four missed calls from my mother, three texts from girls I barely liked, and one Instagram tag from Drew that made me sit straight up in bed like somebody had fired a starter pistol beside my head.
It was a picture from dinner.
Not of my face. Thank goodness.
Just our hands across the table. His big, taped fingers wrapped around mine, my gold bracelet caught in the greasy diner light, two baskets of fries in the background, and the corner of his chocolate malted shake at the edge of the frame.
The caption read:
Rule one: feed her before she bites.
Under it, campus had lost its collective mind.
