Fake Boyfriend Wanted: High School Christmas Romance (YA Fake Boyfriends for all Occasions Book 1)

by Sarah Pointe

  We were at the door to English class and I knew my moments with her were about to end. “Hey. Let’s go shopping later.”

  “Can’t today. Tomorrow?”

  “Sure. After practice.”

  “Got it.” She wasn’t even looking at me anymore. Just trying to mouth something to Nick across the room. She giggled. “Come on.” Then she hurried in, took the seat next to Nick and didn’t really look in my direction again until after class.

  Which was fine. I loved English class. Not because I was particularly good at English, even though I was. It was because Nick wasn’t the only hot guy in that room. My secret crush of all crushes, Cal, was there too, and in this class, he actually talked to me.

  We sat in the back corner together, and even though a lot of his questions were about how to do the assignment and asking me to help explain something that the teacher said, he asked the questions with this fun flirty expression, and his eyes held interest and once or twice he asked me something personal. Like the other day, he wanted to know where I got my shoes.

  He tapped my shoulder. “Hey.”

  I turned to him. His eyes were the brightest blue. It’s like he had added some turquoise to the shade or something, but I’d checked. No contacts. And right now, those blue eyes were focused only on me. His gaze took in everything. Was he checking me out? This was new. I grinned at him. “How’s it going? I saw your game this weekend.” Cal was on the soccer team. And here at Brighton High, those were the popular guys. Them and the girls cross country team. Which I was on, but somehow missed the popularity vote.

  “You guys going to state again?” He scooted his desk closer.

  “I think so. Coach is planning on it.” I had certainly felt this particular pressure. Not everyone got sent to run in state, but coach was talking about sending me. And she always made sure to get my times before the end of every run. Talk about stress. “What about soccer?”

  “Coach thinks we have a chance. Unlike you guys who always win. This would be our first time.” He winked. “And I’m really hoping it’s like every first time.”

  I laughed, ‘cause I could tell he was trying to be witty, but then stopped. “Right, like the first time you try gelato. That stuff is just so good…” I really had no idea what he was talking about. “Oh wait…”

  He looked like he might laugh.

  And then I thought he was probably talking about something vaguely to do with sex. Or a kiss. Maybe he was talking about a first kiss. I hoped so cause that meant he was flirting with me, right? I was so out of my league here. “Right. That.”

  “You’re fun.”

  “What?”

  “You are. I mean, I really appreciate your help in here with English and everything, but also, I think you’re fun. I never see you at the parties. You should come.”

  My heart just ratcheted up into my throat with happiness. “Hey, thanks. I don’t always hear about them.” Ever, I never heard about them, because no one invited me.

  “Can I get your number? I’ll let you know.”

  “Awesome!” Cal letting me know about the most popular parties? Yes please. I handed him my phone.

  He snapped a picture of himself and then typed in his number. “There you go.”

  ”Hey, thanks.” Could I think of anything else to say? No. No I couldn’t.

  “You’re welcome. I’m ready for something different.” Did he mean something by that comment? Something different, meaning me?

  “Of course.” I swallowed. I could be different. Different was good, right? If that’s what Cal was looking for, that’s what I could be. I stopped myself from saying the next two words that begged to come out. I’m different. I’m different! I’m so different.

  Thankfully Mrs. Holling started class, and I had to stop talking.

  Chapter 3

  Cal walked me to my next class. My tongue was literally frozen in my mouth the whole time, but he didn’t seem to notice. He talked about something that happened in soccer practice. “Hey, I see you running.”

  “At practice?” I knew that if he wanted to, he could see me every day. We ran by the soccer fields on our runs. But I never thought he was looking. I nodded. “I saw your goal yesterday.”

  “What goal? Oh! The trick shot?” He grinned.

  “Yeah, the team was all gathered around you. Looked pretty epic.”

  “Oh it was. They still talk about it.” He ran a hand through his hair, making me want to do the same. We arrived in front of my next class, math, and he turned to face me. He was a lot closer than I thought he would be. “So, text me.”

  “Oh. Okay.” I grinned, hoping my face wasn’t as bright red as it felt.

  “You know, so I have your number.”

  “Right. Great. Hey, thanks.”

  He stepped away. “For what? Telling you about the parties? You got it.” The wink he sent me kind of shivered through me a little bit and then he turned to walk away.

  My math class looked at me funny as they walked in. But I couldn’t do anything except smile.

  I didn’t see Sasha for the rest of the day. And I hadn’t texted Cal yet either. Had he meant right away? Was I too late? What if he thought I was weird? And what did I say in a first text? This was killing me. I needed Sasha. I started and then deleted about ten different options of hey, hi-ya, hi.

  After practice, and way too many hours of trying to figure out what to say, I sat on my bed, staring at my phone.

  My little brother, aka, used to be the cutest little guy in the world now turned most annoying, stood in my doorway.

  “Can I enter your sanctum?”

  “What?”

  “Your sanctum. Can I come in?”

  “Sure, whatever. As long as you don’t have any shaving cream.”

  He smirked. “That was epic.”

  “Not to me.”

  But he seemed harmless this time. “What’s up?” I patted the bed so he could come sit by me like he used to.

  “What, gross. I’m not sitting on your bed.”

  Well then. “What do you want, Trey?”

  “Nothing. I’m just wondering if you’ve had any offers yet.”

  “What are you talking about?” I dug in my backpack, pulling out all my homework. Might as well get started on this stuff, since being clever on my phone was beyond my abilities. Then I could have my night free. For what, I didn’t know. Since Sasha was with Nick. I really needed to get a life. She was right.

  Troy held up his phone. It was opened to Instagram and some girl in a bikini.

  “Dude, you shouldn’t be looking at that stuff.”

  He looked again and then died laughing. Like he literally fell on the floor. “I knew it!”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You don’t even know.”

  “Know what?”

  “You have like five hundred likes already.” He looked at his phone. “Make that five hundred and ten.”

  Something heavy grew in my gut. I reached for the phone. “What is that?”

  He hugged it to his chest. “You have your own.”

  “I don’t even know what you’re looking at.”

  He came to stand right next to me, holding his phone. “Take a real close look.”

  The image was clear. The account mine. But nothing was making sense. He let me take his phone and I held it closer to my face. “This is my account?”

  “Yep.”

  My latest post kept getting more likes. The caption at the top read, “Seeking holiday boyfriend.” One of my better bikini shots filled the square. And below, the words, “Now accepting applications for a fake boyfriend who will go on cute holiday dates with me. Please DM me your answers to the following questions. More than one application may be considered. One. What’s your idea of the perfect holiday date? Two. Are you comfortable just trying things out? Three. Favorite foods. Four. Kiss on first date? Yes. Or No.” Sasha! This had Sasha written all over it. She’d even added some popular hashtags. This was
going nowhere good.

  “Check your DMs.” Troy snatched his phone back and I scrambled for mine.

  “How did this happen?”

  “If you didn’t do it, you’ve been hacked.”

  “But no one has this picture.” Except Sasha. I knew it was her. I already knew.

  When I opened up Instagram, I almost dropped my phone.

  Troy’s eyes opened wide, looking over my arm. “You already have thirty DMs on there? That’s incredible. You’re like going viral.”

  “I’m not going viral.” But I looked again. And I had thirty-two.

  Back on the post, I scrolled down. “I’m getting comments.” I winced and then looked at the first one.

  Hot stuff. Give me some of that. Check your DMs for the date of your dreams. Gross. I held the phone close to my chest. “You should not be looking at any of this.”

  “What are you talking about? I can see it from my phone just as easily.” He pulled it up and started laughing. “Do you know any of these people?”

  “I don’t even know.” My hands started shaking. I took a screen shot and sent it to Sasha with a row of question marks.

  She responded immediately. “What! It’s working! Yes!!”

  I called her.

  When she answered, she was screaming with excitement. “Oh my gosh. You have to share your DMs with me. This is the most epic thing ever.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I put our plan into place and it’s working.” Her sing songy voice was more than a little annoying at the moment. “Look, Sasha. I’m deleting this.”

  “No!” She shouted. “No. Don’t do that. Look it’s already there. Everyone has seen it. Let’s let this play out and see where things go.”

  “I’m getting creepers on here.”

  “Well, we’ll have to delete those of course, but I bet there will be a winner, too. There has to be.”

  I was not so sure as I watched my numbers rise. And then I thought of Cal. My heart kind of constricted and pounded at the same time. It hurt. “Hey, I gotta go.”

  “Sure. Call me tonight.”

  “Right.”

  I pulled up Cal’s number. Hey, it’s Ava.

  Immediately three dots appeared. He sent a running emoji. Hey. Finally. Did you forget me?

  Never. It’s been a weird day.

  Sorry. Better now?

  Much. I grinned. Was I flirting with Cal by text?

  Troy leaned closer. “Did you already get a boyfriend out of this?” His mouth dipped and his eyes widened.

  “Do I see respect on your face all of a sudden?”

  “Totally. My sister is a hottie.”

  “Dude. Stop. That’s just so inappropriate.”

  “Hey, there’s proof.” He pointed to my likes.

  I was up to six hundred.

  I didn’t want to talk about it. Maybe the whole thing would just go away.

  I smiled into my camera and sent it to Cal. Maybe he wouldn’t notice my Instagram? Or think I was like uber weird, or desperate. Because I was probably both, but the whole world didn’t need to know. And now that Cal was finally talking to me, he really didn’t need to know.

  “I should delete the post.” I opened up my account again. The next comment popped up. “Read my DM.” I looked closer at the account. Was that? I clicked on it. “No way!”

  “What! Did someone famous DM you? Who is it?”

  I turned the phone away from Troy again. “And now, it’s time to do my homework.” I shooed him out.

  “You know I’m gonna keep watching this.”

  “Fine. Watch it out there.” I pointed to the door.

  Once the room was quiet, the door shut, I pulled up the account of an old friend. Pete. He used to go to my school, but then he moved across town and to a new school district and then to private school. We had promised to stay in touch. We’d promised to see each other or call every night or whatever. But It had now been like four years since I’d seen him. What had he been up to? I delayed looking at his DM in sort of a delicious anticipation. Partly because I didn’t want to see all the others in my messages. And partly because I wanted to know what Pete had been up to. No girls on his account. Not a single picture with a girl, except in large groups. I nodded. That was promising.

  He’d gotten tall. And broad. And super cute. I held the phone closer so I could get a good look at him. Wow. He kept his dark hair longer, curly on top. His brown eyes were deep and there was something capturing about them. I almost couldn’t look away.

  Cal texted again.

  Almost guiltily I tapped on the notification. And then I laughed. He’d sent a picture too, but he was standing on his head. Whatever. I sent a laughing emoji and then tried to focus on my homework. I had Cal. Sort of. I didn’t need to be exploring all these other guys right now.

  Chapter 4

  Sasha came into my room plopping on my bed right when I finished all my math, the stuff I was most worried about anyway. She squealed. “Show me!”

  I picked up the phone. “I’ve been saving this moment for you.”

  “You haven’t read them yet?”

  I shook my head. “Honestly? I’m kind of afraid.”

  “Oh no you don’t. We’re gonna get you out there. Come on. This is every girl’s dream.”

  But when I clicked on messages, they seemed to scroll forever. “How many are there?”

  “Over one hundred.”

  We scrolled through and most of them were just fire emojis or hearts. And most from people we would never consider in a million years no matter what, the kind of fake account garbage you had to be careful of. I deleted and blocked all but twenty.

  “Now these. We have to stalk them.” Sasha pulled up the first account. As we tried to look at the too small pictures, I shook my head. “No.”

  “What?”

  “Here, let’s make those a little larger.”

  She laughed. “And get some popcorn.”

  I grinned. “Absolutely.”

  We moved into the upstairs game room and did an airplay from my phone. As soon as I’d popped a huge bowl of popcorn, we pulled a blanket around us and got to work.

  “See, this guy is okay.” Sasha zoomed in on the picture of him juggling a soccer ball. That’s cool right there, and check out his thighs.” She fanned her face.

  “Stop. But you’re right.” I giggled.

  She scrolled. “Are there any pictures from last Christmas? Does he even like the holiday?”

  Totally. Apparently; he loved decorating his tree—Instagram had been gifted a play-by-play of the process. And every other thing he’d done, mostly with his family.

  “This guy really loves Christmas.”

  “He’s perfect!”

  “I don’t know.” I didn’t really want to rush into this. “What did he say? In his DM?”

  “Oh right. He said, ‘I’m interested. The holidays are my jam and it sounds so much better with someone beautiful to share it with.’”

  “Aw.” Our unified sigh made me laugh again.

  “Definitely going on the keeper list.”

  The next account, the guy was way cuter; not as good looking as Cal or Pete, but he could hold his own, especially against the first guy, but this wasn’t all about looks, was it?

  “What! He’s amazing.” Sasha had already scrolled to a video of him wake boarding over the summer. I had to admit, shots without his shirt did the guy some major favors. “Just think, he is offering to be your boyfriend for holiday dates. That hottie right there.” She pointed to the screen.

  “Correction. He’s asking to be my fake date for holiday dates. There’s a difference.”

  She waved away my comment. “Whatever. Same difference. It’s all fake anyway, right?” Her comment was meant to be funny and I laughed a little. “Right.” But inside it stung. It was easy to get caught up in all these guys wanting to hang out with me, but none of it was real.

  Every one of these offers was just another lonely
person looking for something during Christmastime. “What’s surprising is how many of these guys could easily get a date on their own.”

  “A date, maybe. But a date without commitment?” She shook her head. “Not likely. And that’s partly why this is appealing to some of them, I bet.”

  And that was my first warning bell and reminder not to fall for any of these guys. They were here for fun, temporary stand-ins for dates, and that’s all.

  Sasha pulled up the next one. “Oh. My. Gosh. Is he for real?”

  He literally looked like Troy Bolton. I looked closer. “That’s totally Troy Bolton. I mean Zack Efron. It’s a fake account. Delete.”

  We went through about fifteen accounts and we still hadn’t gotten to Pete’s yet. What had he said in his DM? Then her phone dinged. “Oh! It’s Nick.” She answered, and her voice went all dewy and I knew I had lost her. I scrolled through the next five without reading them and stopped on Pete.

  “Hey, neighbor. Remember me? It’s been a long time. I think about you sometimes. I should have reached out before now, but, this is a great idea. Even if you don’t choose me as your holiday stand-in, let’s get together again.”

  I hugged the phone to me before answering. “Hi! OMGosh such a long time. Yes! Let’s get together. Text me.” I left my phone number and hit send.

  And then I had send remorse. “Uh, Sasha.”

  She was whispering things into the phone. It was gonna be awhile before she was of any use. I was left with nothing to do except try not to stare into my phone.

  It dinged.

  It was Cal.

  Well, that was not too shabby, all things considering. I grinned. I send you the hottest picture I have of myself and all I get is a laughing emoji. Come on. This guy has some pride.

  Oh sorry! What I meant was… several fire emojis followed.

  That’s better. And a picture! What do you got?

  Nervous, I just sent me smiling again. I thought about the bikini shot, but I was too scared.

  But he sent a row of winky faces and one kissy face. Did he mean that one? Like as a real kiss or just as a way to be friendly?