I did not believe me either.
Because this was the problem with pretending.
Do something long enough and the body started to learn it.
My hand had learned his.
My mouth had learned his.
My day had learned the shape of him moving through it.
Class. Coffee. Lunch. Quad. Field-house. Stadium lights.
Drew kept showing up in all the places Tristan had left half-empty and acting like it was no effort at all.
Like wanting me was easy.
Like being mine, even fake, was not something he had to think twice about.
Down on the field, Drew jogged back to the sideline, helmet in hand, teammates slapping his shoulders. Another girl yelled his name. Someone else screamed that she loved him.
He did not look.
Not at them.
At me.
I pressed my fingers to the edge of the jersey where it rested against my thigh and tried to breathe.
Drew Travers was prime candy.
A campus-wide public health crisis.
A six-foot-four walking bad idea with dimples, hands, and a terrifying habit of making fake things feel safer than real ones.
And I was keeping him at arm’s length because I dated country club types, not creatine muscled lumberjack jocks. Right?
The game ended in deafening noise. The kind that poured out of the stadium in one hot, living wave—students screaming, band horns blaring, helmets cracking together near the sideline, boys in jerseys losing their minds like Drew Travers hadn’t just turned a football game into a personal highlight reel.
He’d had two touchdowns.
One impossible catch in the third quarter that made half the stadium grab the person beside them.
And me?
I had stood there in his jersey like a complete idiot, screaming until my throat hurt.
For strategy.
Obviously.
Everything was strategy now. Wearing his number. Letting Lana take a picture of me in the stands. Pretending I didn’t feel the camera catch me when Drew pointed straight at me after his second touchdown. Pretending my whole body didn’t go bright and warm when the student section started chanting his name.
Drew. Drew. Drew.
Like the whole campus belonged to him.
Like I was insane for thinking I could keep a man like that at arm’s length.
