Incriminating Dating

by Rebekah L. Purdy

  Brady scooted over when we came up. He glanced at me, his eyebrow raised. I shrugged at him. Because honestly, I had no damn clue what I was doing or what’d gotten into me. Jack moved closer to us and sat next to Brady. He wrinkled his nose at us, as if disgusted by Ayla’s appearance. But for once, I didn’t give a shit what he thought. Ayla was a far better person than him. And if he had any idea what she’d just gone through to give her speech, he might actually be impressed.

  Brady leaned over to Ayla. “Awesome speech. You did great.”

  “Thanks. Honestly, I couldn’t have done it without Chloe and Luke.”

  “Are you still coming to my party this weekend?”

  “Yeah.” Ayla turned to me. “Wait, are you sure you can get it off work?”

  With my mom now back to one job, I wasn’t sure if I should give up the hours. Brady caught my eye, and I glanced back to Ayla. “Of course. We’ll be there.”

  I clutched Ayla’s hand in mine, giving it a squeeze as Jenna finished her speech and disappeared into the locker room. When she came back out a minute later, she got into position with the rest of her squad. She raised her pom-poms and began the cheer. Tampons and toilet paper came flying off them, and she glowered, then tossed them aside and used her hands for the routine instead. When it came time for her to use the megaphone, Ayla peered at me.

  “Well, this ought to be good.”

  “Can’t wait,” I whispered.

  Jenna screamed into the megaphone, and when she pulled it back it’d left a black mustache-type ring around her mouth.

  Everyone started laughing. But Jenna wouldn’t figure out why until after the assembly. Chloe moved up with us, grinning and clapping.

  “Thanks for helping us, Luke. We never could’ve pulled it off without you,” she said.

  Brady stared at her for a moment then said, “Are you coming to my place for the party, too?”

  Chloe smiled. “Of course, unless I’ve been uninvited.”

  “Nope. You should come. We’ll be playing some basketball, and my grandpa’s going to hook up the tractor for a hayride, then we’ll do a bonfire afterward. There will be some guys from the team there with their girlfriends…and a few other people.”

  Jack glanced between us like we’d lost our minds. “So we’re just inviting anyone now? I thought our parties were private.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “We let you come, don’t we?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Jack’s jaw tightened.

  “It means it’s my house and I’ll invite whoever the hell I want.” Brady leaned forward, jabbing Jack in the chest with his elbow. “In other words, don’t be a douche bag.”

  He glowered but said nothing else. Instead he turned to talk to some girl next to him.

  Ayla’s grip on my hand tightened. “Ignore him,” I whispered against her hair. “You’re welcome at Brady’s party.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. You better not back out on me. Otherwise you’ll leave me alone with him.” I nodded at Jack. “Do you want my mind corrupted by that kind of influence?”

  “Good point. I’ll be there.”

  “That’s what I wanted to hear. Besides, you’re my girlfriend. We need to make appearances together, remember?” My stomach knotted. This would be our first official date in public. Or at least fake date. My friends would see us interact. They’d be watching us, testing us. We had to make it look good—believable. It was one thing to have lunch with Brady but quite another to be around our group. Especially with Jack.

  “I’ll pick you up tomorrow about four, if that’s okay,” I said to Ayla.

  She took her hand from mine and stood as the assembly wrapped up. “Sure. Oh, and my parents wondered if you wanted to come over on Sunday, after work. You can bring Landon with. Dad’s going to play at the pub around dinnertime.”

  “Let me check to make sure I’ll be off in time. If so, we’d love to.”

  “Hey, don’t forget, we have the photo booth tonight, too!” Chloe said. “I mean, if you guys are still in?”

  “Shit, yeah, I’m in,” Jack said, chiming back into the conversation.

  Brady smiled. “We said we’d help, and we will. Besides, you spent a lot of time decorating the booth.”

  “Wait, you worked on the booth without us?” Ayla said. “I thought we were going to put it together after school today.”

  “Well, you and Luke have been super busy, so I conned my art teacher into letting me come in a couple nights this week to get it taken care. Brady even helped me paint last night.”

  It was my turn to be surprised. “You helped her out?”

  “Yeah. No big deal. I wanted to make sure it was ready in time.” Brady shrugged.

  “You guys are seriously awesome,” Ayla said. “I don’t know what I would do without you.” She clutched tight to me, turning her big brown eyes until they met mine.

  She had no idea the kind of pull she had on me. This might be a fake relationship, but it was beginning to feel pretty real to me. The problem was, what would happen once the election was over? Would everything go back to the way it was prevideo? And if so, was I okay with that?

  Chapter Fifteen

  Ayla

  The scent of popcorn overwhelmed me as I stepped into the football stadium. Nervousness fluttered in my belly. This was the first football game I’d been to. Normally my Friday nights were spent watching movies with Chloe and Dre. Although I wasn’t here to watch the game.

  Luke clutched my hand in his, leading me through the crowd to where the photo booth sat nestled in a spot between the concession stand and the locker rooms.

  “Wow, the booth looks awesome.” I stared at the wooden structure that had a large black sign that read photo booth with yellow stars on it.

  “Yeah it does. So are you going to take a shift in it?” Luke asked.

  “Um, no. People aren’t going to want to take a picture with me…they’ll be here for the basketball and volleyball teams.”

  “Are you sure? I might know a few guys who’d line up for you.” He winked.

  I turned my face so he couldn’t see the blush creeping up. What did he mean by that? Did he want to take a photo with me?

  Without thinking about it, I wet my lips with my tongue, then felt my pocket with my free hand to make sure I had my strawberry Chapstick. How did he always manage to make me all tingly and nervous and stuff?

  As I glanced back at him, I stared at his mouth, wondering for a brief second what it would feel like to be kissed by Luke Pressler. Would it be soft and slow? Or was he more of an open-mouth, passionate kisser? To be honest, I wouldn’t mind finding out. Okay, why the hell was I even thinking about this? I needed to focus on something else. Like popcorn or how chilly it was outside.

  Luckily, Chloe rushed forward and chased those thoughts away. “So, what do you think? Did I get the booth right?”

  “It’s perfect,” I said, relieved that she couldn’t read minds.

  Brady joined us, holding two large coffee cans, which had also been decorated in black and yellow. “I figured these should work to put money in. What do you think we should charge per strip of photos?”

  “A dollar,” Luke said.

  “Hey, I’m worth more than that.” Jack grinned, coming up beside us.

  “Sure you are,” a dark-haired girl beside him giggled.

  “You know it.” Jack nodded. “Or maybe we could charge by the type they wanted. Casual picture, a dollar, a picture where they get kissed—that’s gotta be worth like five or ten. And maybe we can even charge more if they want a real kiss.” He waggled his tongue at us.

  “Yeah, let’s not go there,” Luke said. “I’m not sure I want to watch you shove your tongue down girls’ throats.”

  “I have to agree with Luke, because there are some tongues I don’t want in my mouth. So let’s not get carried away with the photos. A dollar should be fine,” Brady agreed. “If we get too ridiculous, people won’t come over
.”

  A few other basketball players showed up, along with some of the girls from the volleyball team. The girls wore dark shades of lipstick, pink shirts, and my campaign pins that read “Vote for Ayla.”

  “We’ll have to take a short break for halftime,” Trina Weller said. “They’re supposed to be introducing the volleyball team tonight to show off the trophy we got from our tournament this past weekend.”

  “Then who’ll sit here during that time?” I asked.

  “You could always take a turn,” Chloe told me.

  Luke nodded. “Yeah, you should take a turn.”

  Oh, crap. They couldn’t be serious. I hated my picture being taken—they never turned out. And the last thing I wanted was for someone to get some horrible photo of me and share it with everyone else.

  Panic settled in, and my hands grew sweaty. Why in the heck had I decided a photo booth would be the way to go? Why couldn’t I have suggested a bake sale or a car wash?

  “Say cheese,” Stacy from the school paper called out. She pointed the camera at me. “I’m all ready to take the pics. I’m going to set up right here.” She pointed to the spot in front of the photo booth, where there was a small square left open for the photographer’s equipment. Two more people from the newspaper were behind her, carrying boxes filled with things people could use in their photos. There were different types of sunglasses, hats, masks, boas, jewelry, and wooden signs with sayings on them. “Mr. Leaver asked me to also do a small write-up about the photo booth for charity. He thought maybe it’d soften Mr. Fairchild up to let you do an article of your choice in a couple of weeks.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “Like that’ll happen. But sure, if you want to snap some photos before we get started, kind of show us setting up, that’d be fine, too.” And it meant more publicity for both my campaign and the paper. If people thought their pictures might be in it, they’d likely read it.

  “All right, everyone, let’s get set up. We can have two lines. One for the people paying to go in, and the other when they come out to wait for their pictures to print,” Luke said, getting the volunteers into place. “Remember to hand out ‘Vote for Ayla’ pins. We need my girl to win.”

  His girl?

  Suddenly my legs got all rubbery beneath me. Why did the sound of that make me so happy? Maybe he was just pouring it on thick because a lot of people we knew were out here. I mean, we had to put on a good show, right?

  Before the football game got started, the announcer came over the loudspeakers to tell the fans about the booth. Hoots and hollers went up through the crowd, and soon we had a long line of students waiting for their turns.

  I stood near the booth, making sure to thank everyone for coming out and to actually talk to them. Surprisingly, they seemed receptive to me and my ideas.

  “I’m so glad you’re running,” a girl named Brooklyn said. “It’d be nice to have someone normal as president, you know. Someone who cares about the art programs.”

  I smiled. “Thanks. I promise, I’ll be fighting hard for those things.”

  When halftime rolled around, we still had students lined up. Partially because Stacy promised to post pics on our school newspaper’s social media pages, and partially because I think people liked the idea of taking crazy photos with the popular kids.

  The volleyball team left to take their places on the field, and I trudged to one of the chairs behind the booth. I so wasn’t ready for this. Chloe sat next to me. Thank God I didn’t have to do this alone.

  “Here, put on some red lipstick. You want to stand out, you know.” She laughed, dabbing my lips. “Now smack them together.”

  Trying to ignore the small group standing around us, I did as she said. A few guys hopped into Chloe’s line for a pic, but mine didn’t have anyone yet. And of course the girls were lined for Brady and Jack. I glanced around nervously. This was kind of embarrassing—no one wanted to be seen with me. Did I have something stuck on my face? Maybe I wasn’t pretty enough. Then someone came to stand in front of me. My gaze slid up to find Luke.

  He held up a twenty-dollar bill, then put it into the can.

  What was he doing? I knew he didn’t have that kind of money. But my thoughts quickly turned from his money to the fact he was paying to take a picture with me.

  “So, what do we want to wear in our photo?” Luke said, reaching for a pair of dark shades and a ridiculously large cowboy hat.

  “Um, I’ll take this…” I grabbed a large purple boa and wrapped it around my neck, pulling on a pair of long, lacy white gloves.

  We stepped inside the booth…and lined up in front of a computer screen that Chloe’s dad let us borrow, which showed both our faces on it.

  “I think we ought to make this a really memorable picture, don’t you?” Luke’s voice sounded deeper. He moved toward me, his breath warm against my cheek. He wasn’t even looking at the camera.

  Then it dawned on me what was about to happen. Holy shit. My first kiss. And it’d be with Luke. Freaking. Pressler.

  He leaned down, his fingers swiping curls from my face. “You probably shouldn’t look so surprised about this. We are dating, you know,” he whispered for only me to hear.

  I laughed. “Right. I—uh, are you sure about this?”

  He quirked an eyebrow at me but didn’t answer. Instead he bent down, cupping my face. Then I felt his warm lips touch mine. They moved slowly, softly, as if enticing me to step into a dream, the kind where you don’t want to wake up. My skin tingled like I’d been zapped by lightning. He tugged me closer.

  Even with my eyes closed, I saw the bursts of light from the camera flash going off. But I didn’t care. At least this moment would be documented.

  I couldn’t get enough. It was like the sensation I imagined you’d get when you’re free-falling out of a plane. Exciting. Rushing blood. Thundering pulse. The sounds of the football stadium drifted away, and it was just me and Luke, spiraling through this moment at full speed.

  And that scared me.

  When he pulled back, he looked as dazed as I felt. One thing was for sure—Luke Pressler was a damn good kisser.

  And apparently a damn good actor, too.

  “Okay, you guys are done now,” Stacy hollered. As we stepped out of the booth, she grinned, pointing at her camera. “I caught that one for the paper.”

  We waited for our photos to print, then split the strip in half, giving us both two pictures. I slipped mine into my pocket, reminding myself to take them out before I had to drive home.

  Luckily the other girls came back and I was able to leave the table before anyone else got to line up, which I was totally okay with. Because I doubted anyone I took a photo with would compare to Luke. And I had no plans on recreating something like that with another guy.

  “So, how was that?” Luke said, wrapping an arm around my shoulders.

  “Hmm…it was okay.” Warmth spread through me as I caught his eye. Jeez, why couldn’t I be a better liar?

  “Just okay?”

  “Maybe more than okay. I-I’m sure everyone believed it.” I know I did. Not to mention, that kiss did something to me—made me realize there might be a thing between Luke and me. Or at least it felt like a thing to me. But what if he didn’t feel anything? Maybe it was just a kiss to him. If that was so, it’d totally suck. How stupid had I been to think I could handle being a fake girlfriend? God, I needed help.

  …

  Luke

  I hadn’t meant to kiss Ayla. Although I guess it was about time I did—especially if we wanted our relationship to be believable. But the truth was, I didn’t want to watch someone else kiss her. Nor did I want her to know that I sent Scott Treveer to Chloe’s line so I wouldn’t have to. I’d heard him talking to his buddies about trying to lay one on Ayla in the photo booth, and I didn’t want to see that.

  I still tasted her strawberry Chapstick on my lips. Damn. What was I doing? In the distance, I watched her smile as she talked to Chloe. The way her whole face lit up, how she t
wisted her hair around her finger when she got nervous…

  My gaze met hers, and my chest tightened. Ayla was beautiful. How had I never noticed her before she showed me the video? The way her dark hair curled around her face like a halo—how she wasn’t afraid to be herself.

  She waved, and I took that as a cue to go to her.

  “So, I think it’s time to start closing down. The game’s about done,” I said.

  “Sounds good. We did better than I thought we would. Chloe counted the money and said there’s over five hundred dollars. So the pantry will be able to get a lot of food.”

  “See, you’re already making changes, and you’re not even president yet,” I said.

  She clasped my hand. “Thank you for helping with all this and getting people to volunteer. Honestly, this was huge.”

  “You’re welcome. So, I might have to head out now. I told my boss I’d come in and cover the last four hours and help with closing.” It sucked. The last place I wanted to go was to work, but at least I’d been given a couple of hours off—not to mention I’d been able to shift my schedule around tomorrow, too. But I would’ve rather spent more time with Ayla.

  “Okay, be careful driving.” She wrapped her arms around me and gave me a hug.

  It felt so good being this close to her. I pressed a kiss to her brow. “I will. See you tomorrow.”

  Before I left I caught Jenna watching us with a scowl. “So, you guys think your little booth is going to win you the presidency? Think again.”

  Ayla’s face burned bright crimson. She fisted her hands at her side. “You’re just jealous that you didn’t think of it.”

  “Please, you can keep kidding yourself about beating me, but I’ll find a way to take you down.” Jenna spun on her heel and stalked off.

  “She’s always so pleasant, I can’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t like her,” Ayla said.

  “Ignore her. She’s not even worth it. Besides, you should end your night on a happy thought, not with her.”