by Sarah Sutton
Guess I’m desirable now, huh? I thought at him, pressing up closer to Walsh, holding my breath so his scent wouldn’t fill my nose. The way the couch sagged put us pretty close together anyway, unable to escape the sinking cushions.
Walsh used his free hand to reach over and trace designs on my knee. “What’s the point of buying jeans with holes in them?” His voice was soft underneath the conversations mingling around us.
“You sound like a grandma.”
His grin came easy at that. “I’d make a pretty grandma.”
I leaned into his side, appreciating how comfortable I felt. It was easy to touch someone when it meant nothing. Easier when there was no pressure. And I surprised myself for playing along so well. It was almost like I was a better fake girlfriend than a real one. Sitting here in front of all these people, most of whom I hardly knew, I didn’t feel awkward. There was no pressure to be someone I wasn’t. I could just be me.
A soft buzzing noise filled the air, and Walsh leaned away from me just enough to pull his cell from his pocket. He peered at the screen. “My dad’s calling me,” Walsh said, pulling his arm from me. I didn’t miss the tight expression on his face. “I’ll be right back.”
I wanted to reach out and snatch his wrist, forbid him from leaving me alone. Not with Scott and his pretty new girlfriend. But I didn’t. Instead, I smiled, but it was tight. “Okay.”
The space next to Walsh sunk in slightly in his absence, the warmth of his body disappearing as he left me on the couch alone. I pressed my hands into my lap, looking at my fingernails. The blue polish was chipped—always chipped.
“Yo, Taylor,” Ryan murmured, voice low in the mix of the music and talking. If I hadn’t been laser-focused on picking up any small details, I would’ve missed the interaction entirely. “We’re missing your cut for the payout. I need to give it to the guys at Hampton.”
The player from the couch—Taylor—shifted quickly, reaching a hand into his front pocket. “Sorry, sorry, I have it.”
Hampton. Hampton High? They were giving money to Hampton High? What did Ryan say? Payout…I need to give it to the guys at Hampton.
Wait. Wait, wait, wait. Why were they giving money to a rival school?
I tried to be discreet as I watched Taylor pass over a thick wad of cash to Ryan, who quickly stuffed it in his jacket pocket. I wasn’t discreet enough, apparently, because Ryan’s eyes locked onto mine. “Graduation money,” he told me after a beat. “We’re pitching in on a gift.”
It wasn’t hard to realize he was lying, but there was no way I’d point that out. I decided to play dumb. “Looked like a big chunk.”
“I’m just a giver,” Taylor said, nodding, totally confident. “We’re buying the guy a ball launcher.”
“So, Sophia,” Zach said from his chair, drawing my eyes over to him. There had been more to that money conversation, I was sure, but Zach effectively changed the subject with his friendly grin and easy voice. “You and Walsh Friday night—no offense, but I didn’t see that coming. I’m a little hurt that I wasn’t let in on your secret.”
I swallowed hard, glancing off in the direction Walsh disappeared. “He made it sound more dramatic than it really was. We were just…talking. Here and there. Him saying all those things definitely came out of left field.”
Zach laughed genuinely at that, causing Celia to shift against his frame. “Baseball pun, nice. He’s already converting you.”
Ew, I had done a baseball pun. Cringe.
“That’s the thing I don’t get,” Scott piped in. “I mean, Sophia, you were talking to him while we were together? And Zach, you’re his best friend. Did he tell you that?”
Before I could call out Scott for being a hypocrite, I felt the air whoosh from my lungs in one harsh exhale. Had Walsh talked to Zach about this just as I talked to Edith about it? Surely Walsh told Zach the truth so he could vouch for us. Right?
Wrong. Apparently Walsh had kept his mouth shut, because the amusement melted slowly from Zach’s face as he tried to think. “Ah, no. He never said anything to me.”
Crap.
Seriously, Walsh?
“Then again,” Zach went on, expression clearing as he settled back in his seat. “Walsh and I don’t spend too much time talking about our love lives.”
“Good thing, because that’d be awkward,” Celia chuckled, reaching over and running her fingers through his short hair. He jumped a little at the touch. “What kinds of things would you say, anyway?”
Zach’s gaze immediately went to mine. Oh, he might have more to say than you think, I thought to her, fighting the urge to lift a challenging eyebrow at the boy Edith was crushing on.
Even though I didn’t give him a look, he seemed to have caught onto my thoughts, because his cheeks pinked.
“We’d talk about our feelings, of course.” Walsh’s voice was smooth as he walked back into the room, but I didn’t miss the edge to it. He stopped just in front of me, hand stretched out. “Come with me.”
I tentatively wrapped my fingers around his as I rose to my feet. “Where?”
“Outside. Let’s get some fresh air.”
Walsh lifted our hands up to his mouth, pressing a kiss against my knuckles. Too much, too much, I wanted to tell him, but the only way I could convey it was by squeezing his palm. The hand on mine was a big flag of look at our lie!
“Ugh, you two are gross,” Ryan said from where he sat, watching us, but I didn’t miss his teasing smirk.
“You’re just jealous,” Walsh replied, not missing a beat, leading me away.
The night air was clear as I stepped out into it, drawing in a deep breath. Crickets chirped somewhere in the night, and from here, I could see where Walsh’s car was parked at the curb. The way one of the street lamps hit the metal illuminated a dent on the hood, another sign of how old it was. For some reason now, knowing Walsh drove a normal car was almost endearing. He wasn’t stuck up enough to need a shiny convertible. He was just as fine driving a dented SUV.
I reached down and slipped my fingers into my purse. My writer’s notebook wasn’t there, long gone now, but I’d stashed a paperback in there before I left. Even though I couldn’t see it, I slid my fingers along the pages, wishing the rotten feeling in my chest would start to ebb away.
“You ready to head out?” Walsh asked from behind me, voice quiet.
“What?” I glanced over my shoulder, frowning a little. “Why? Are you?”
“It’s getting crowded.”
I crossed my arms over my chest and turned back around, looking down the empty street. “Scott’s so infuriating. Pointing fingers at me for talking to someone else before we even broke up. Um, hello, he was talking to that random girl in there before he dumped me! He’s such a hypocrite.”
Walsh wrapped his arms around my waist quickly and quietly, a light pressure, as if he were unsure whether or not I’d push him away. He still put on a show, nose brushing along the whispers of my hair. “Don’t let him get to you,” he murmured. “He’s just trying to rile you up.”
Yeah, I knew he was. He was trying to get me to expose our fake relationship because he knew. To him, it was obvious. He knew me, knew how completely opposite Walsh and I were from each other.
That thought, that Scott knew the truth, made me feel like I’d been coated in mud.
Walsh shifted behind me, his chin a soft nudge against my shoulder.
“You’re having fun, aren’t you?” I baited, staring at the dark road. “Being all lovey-dovey in front of everybody.”
“You’re not?”
“I’d rather pull the book out of my purse and read.” I turned in his embrace, looking up into his eyes. The blue was dark, subdued. “Better than lying.” Way better than lying.
“We’re being watched,” he whispered.
Something inside of me tightened, and I couldn’t interpret it as a good or bad emotion. I held my breath, afraid to breathe in or out. We’re being watched.
When I agreed to
this fake dating thing, I hadn’t expected to feel this bad about being dishonest. It wasn’t like I knew these people personally. What did it matter what they believed? And yet, here I was, guilty.
I hated that feeling. “Is your dad okay?”
“My dad?” He sounded confused.
“He called you.”
Walsh let out a soft sigh, shaking his head. “It was nothing.”
Before I had a chance to ask more, Walsh shut his eyes and leaned his forehead against mine, looking like he just wanted to bask in the silence of the moment. I found myself watching him, studying the way his golden lashes fluttered over his warm cheeks, the way his golden hair curled delicately over his ear. My own arms were still at my sides because I couldn’t will them to move, to lift, to return this fake embrace. I couldn’t deny the warmth that came from being in someone’s arms, and each second that ticked past my insides felt calmer and calmer.
For a moment, my thoughts shifted to the wad of cash Taylor passed to Ryan, and Ryan’s excuse. Were they paying off the other team? Was that what the money was about? That would explain Zach’s quick diversion, pulling my attention away. Was he in on it, too?
Was Walsh?
“Don’t listen to Scott,” he whispered. “He just thinks he’s cool because he knows how to be a jerk.”
Yeah, no kidding. But this side of Scott was new to me—or maybe it wasn’t. Maybe he was always like this and I just never thought about it. All the times he wanted me to wear my contacts, put on makeup, wear certain clothes—it all made sense now.
“I think I’ve made enough of an appearance,” Walsh said, unaware of my thoughts, pretending to push up the rim of my glasses even though I wasn’t wearing them. His fingertip brushed the curve of my cheek, as delicate as a sigh. I blinked quickly, torn between wanting to pull back and lean forward, closer to the soft caress.
“Yo!”
I jerked at the sudden shout, nearly knocking my head against Walsh’s. I looked over to find Ryan standing in the doorway, leaning against the jamb. “If you guys are going to make out on my lawn, you can leave. I don’t need the cops called for public indecency.”
“I’m sure it’s happened before,” Walsh called to him, but pulled back a bit, still watching me. “We’re going to head out.”
“What? You two haven’t even been here that long!”
“We’ve got things to do.”
Ryan put his hand on his hip and raised his eyebrows at Walsh, causing a laugh to escape my mouth. “I can read between the lines. Fine. Go kiss your girl in the back of your crappy car. Have a better night than me.” He paused, briefly, before he asked, “Did you invite her to the fourth of July party down at the bay?”
Right. Every year, the bay’s boardwalk did a huge fireworks display, inviting out street vendors and face painters and all sorts of fun things. It totally slipped my mind.
I hadn’t realized next week was already the start of July. Granted, less than a week had passed since we started this fake relationship, but time felt like it was moving way, way too fast. I had to get this article going.
The thought of the article resurrected the sharpness of dread in my stomach, especially since I was wrapped in Walsh’s arms. I couldn’t figure out why it came so powerfully, so potent, but there it was, rearing its ugly head.
“You should come,” Walsh said, voice loud enough to carry. “I’d love it if you came.”
Meaning: it would look really good if we went as a couple.
I wasn’t as good of a performer as he was, but I wasn’t terrible. My lips pulled at the corners, and I tried to slip on a happy persona. “Sounds like a lot of fun.”
Walsh lifted his hand to his friend before capturing my own, squeezing my fingers. “We can flip on the overhead light in the car and you can read to me on the drive home.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Are you making fun of me?”
“Of course not. I think that sounds fun.” Walsh’s nose grazed the crown of my head in a perfect end to our show, and I found myself basking in the heat his body provided, in the comfort his nearness gave me. “You can try to convince me to like reading.”
I couldn’t even explain why this moment made me feel so calm, so quiet on the inside, but I couldn’t shake it.
I just found myself nodding, hoping he was serious.
Chapter Nine
“‘Some schools prefer football, but at Bayview High, they like to play ball. And they’re good at it.’” I stilled, the pen cap caught between my teeth. “No, maybe not. Um, ‘Though football is the choice of many, baseball still remains America’s favorite pastime, as well as Bayview’s’—ugh!”
Nothing was coming out right. No combination of words had the right flow when I wrote them down. Not even in the slightest. Or maybe I was being too hypercritical of myself, judging every tiny thing. Maybe I just needed to write everything out and see where it led me.
If I’d had my writer’s notebook, I was sure things would’ve come out smoother. Those pages were magic. But, instead, I was writing in some crappy journal with no stickers and no clippings, and I didn’t have a single ounce of inspiration.
The sheet of bar graphs that I printed off sat off to my side, numbers highlighted and sticking out at me. One of the most important things about information articles was to have actual facts. I couldn’t get proof of bias in any other form than this, with the athletic funding bar shooting through the roof. I’d researched what Fund Modification meant, and all my searches gave me the answer of “a transference of funds between other non-specific funding accounts.”
That sounded shady, right? Wasn’t that what certain accounts were for? And again, Ryan taking that money from Taylor was super sketchy. For a graduation gift? Yeah, I really didn’t think so.
I had my outline nailed down, and it looked good from the bullet points. Since the whole goal of the article was to prove how toxic the baseball team really was, I had to focus on its most atrocious parts. But translating my bullet points into concise, catchy paragraphs felt harder than usual. Usually this stuff came easily to me.
I blamed it on baseball. It was near impossible writing about something I hated.
“‘Though the choice is inconsequential, Bayview High students’—nope, that sounds a little offensive, doesn’t it?”
For my mental roadblock, however, I blamed Walsh. After we left the party the other night, he let me pull my book from my purse and read it to him in the car, parked in front of my house. The conditioned air filtered from the vents as he tipped his head back, listening to my words.
And he was listening. He’d interject almost every time the main boy spoke—“Oh, come on, she falls for that line about how her eyes shine brighter than the sun? Ridiculous”—but judging by the way his shoulders slumped when I told him I had to go inside, I had a feeling he enjoyed our little book club.
Or maybe I was just projecting onto him because it was the best fake-date I’d had.
But a night like that made writing this article hard.
I shouldn’t feel guilty. The school board was changing around the funding. Seeing that the article written might spur them to give me back my class, rather than face backlash.
Okay…so that sort of sounded like blackmail, but it wasn’t. Not really. It was the key I needed. The blockade keeping me from my future would be removed, and I could go back to happily knowing at least one thing in my life was set. My relationship with my parents was still crazy, but I had my writing class and the opportunity to build my résumé. Article, internship, career in journalism.
A good reporter is unbiased, I told myself, steeling against the icky sensation. Just keep going.
“So if everything’s organized from least scandalous to most,” I said aloud, tracing my pen along my bullet points, trying to reorganize my thoughts, “I need to figure out a way to smoothly connect them all. Teacher bias leads into school board bias, then money wiring—”
Again, I cut myself off, dropping my pen o
nto the piece of paper. Why was this so hard? Why was nothing feeling right?
I slouched in my chair, expelling a harsh breath. All my ducks were in a row, but nothing was coming out right. Garbage word after garbage freaking word. What was that about? Me, Sophia Wallace, having trouble articulating my thoughts?
Ridiculous.
My cell phone started to ring, effectively cutting off my thought process. I almost ignored it, knowing that I needed to force my mind to focus, but found myself grabbing it up. “Hello?”
“What’s the score? Are we close?” Edith greeted from the other line, words coming quick, barely giving me any time to catch them. “Gosh, we’d better be kicking their butts or else I owe Zach five bucks.”
I massaged the spot between my eyebrows as if that would help me process her words better. “The score? What are you talking about?”
“It’s Friday. Hello. Baseball-game-Friday?”
‘Cause that’s a popular term, I thought to myself. Besides, don’t they have games other than on Fridays? “I wasn’t invited.”
“Sophia, you’re dating the team captain. If you don’t want people to suspect anything, you should probably go to his games, personal invite or not.” She let out a harsh breath that morphed into a groan. “I can’t be there because I’m stuck babysitting my dweeb of a brother—who, by the way, has done nothing but play his stupid video games for the last two hours. Why he needs a babysitter is beyond me.”
“Uh, because he’s nine?”
“He’s boring. And zombie-killing obsessed. Anyway—baseball. Whatever you’re doing, it can wait until you get back from the game.”
Combing my fingers through my ponytail, I really, really tried to take her words seriously. I even tried to envision myself getting up from my chair, pushing away my papers, and going out to watch a baseball game. Sitting amongst other people, cheering on the players as they swung their bats and ran around. It was a horrible image. “Edith, you know this is fake. Whatever Walsh and I have, I mean. I’m not obligated to go to his games.”
She adopted a sing-song-like voice. “Zach said you were cuddled up real close at Ryan’s party the other night. And don’t worry, I didn’t blab. He just said you two were super adorable.”