Page 258 of Faking the Goal

"Yeah."

She stares at me. "Is it your ex again? I thought you had a restraining order against him."

I shake my head. "It's not Kirk. The police checked. He's still in Australia."

Her eyes widen. "So this is someone else?"

"Apparently."

"Jesus."

I take a breath before continuing, because unfortunately, that's only half the confession. "And that's actually how Kentaro and I ended up together. Or... not together, technically. We're fake dating."

Caroline stares at me, and I hurry on before she can recover enough to interrupt.

"Kentaro and I thought maybe if he believed I was with someone else, he'd finally back off and leave me alone. So we agreed to pretend we were dating until the police caught him or this whole nightmare was over."

I pull the blanket a little higher over my legs. "And at first, it was actually pretty easy. We were already getting along, so nothing really changed between us. We just had to play the part whenever other people were around because we had no idea who was watching. And honestly..." A reluctant smile tugs at my mouth. "We were probably having a little too much fun with it."

The smile doesn't last long.

"Then he broke into my apartment, and everything changed. Kentaro didn't want me staying there anymore, so I ended up moving into the hockey house with him." Heat starts creeping into my cheeks because, yeah, Caroline can probably guess where this is going. "And apparently living with the guy you're fake dating makes it a hell of a lot harder to remember which parts are supposed to be fake."

Caroline's mouth slowly curves. "Oh?"

"Don't look at me like that."

"I'm not doing anything."

"Your face is doing plenty." I groan and sink farther beneath the blanket. "We've gotten really close, okay? Like... really close. And somewhere along the way, the boundaries got blurry."

"How blurry?"

I can already feel myself turning red. "We've crossed a few."

Her eyebrows shoot up.

"Not sex," I blurt.

Her eyebrows somehow go higher.

I groan. "It started because of my insomnia. I kept waking up in the middle of the night and couldn't fall asleep again, and during what was easily one of the most embarrassing conversations of my entire life, I admitted to him that an orgasm is pretty much the only thing guaranteed to shut my brain up long enough for me to fall back asleep."

Caroline's eyes widen.

I can already feel my face getting hotter. "And, well... Kentaro offered to help."

Her mouth drops open. "He offered?"

"Very politely, actually."

"Taylor."

"What? He did."

She stares at me for another second. "So when you said you've crossed some boundaries..."

I pull the blanket higher, wishing it could swallow me whole. "He gives me orgasms."