“I am,” she said. “Go.”
We turned away, and I subtly guided Adam in the direction of the Ferris wheel. He didn’t seem to notice, glancing over his shoulder in worry. “You really think we should just leave her?”
“She’s fine, Adam. I think she was bored, to be honest.”
“Did you even try to flirt?” he demanded, sounding exasperated. “The whole point of this was to give you some dating practice.”
“I flirted,” I lied. “She was unmoved by my charms.”
Adam snorted. “Impossible.”
“I know, right?” I said as I guided him into the Ferris wheel line. “You’ll have to do your best to assure me I’m worth dating. Carmen has severely injured my ego.”
It was bullshit. Carmen hadn’t tried to flatter me, but I also hadn’t tried to make a move. She knew what was up. She’d seen through my lie within seconds. The fact that Adam hadn’t, even though I’d kissed him, said a lot. He wasn’t ready to believe in anything more than friendship between us. That’s why this fake dating thing was genius. It’d give us both a chance to adjust to new possibilities.
“The Ferris wheel?” Adam said, glancing up at it. It was late enough that the lights had begun snapping on all over the carnival, and everything was glowing in bright whites, greens, and pinks. “Really?”
“Yup,” I said with a grin, handing our tickets to the attendant. “Romantic, right?”
Adam muttered under his voice. I couldn’t catch his words, and then we were boarding and taking in the view. We didn’t speak for a few minutes as the Ferris wheel slowly made its way to the top, pausing to board passengers every few seconds. Finally, we were at the top, the entire carnival laid out in sparkling lights below us. My stomach swooped. I wasn’t the biggest fan of heights. Adam kept saying not to do things I didn’t want to do to impress someone, but I couldn’t help it. Making Adam happy made me happy. And this boy wanted a kiss on the Ferris wheel.
I aimed to please.
Adam
West was taking this too far. The Ferris wheel? Really?! He knew that was my ultimate dream date. Now it would feel lame and pale in comparison if a real date ever took me on the ride. I’d be thinking of fucking West and his fake date, and—
West turned to me. “It’s a beautiful view up here, huh?”
His eyes were fixed on me, not the view, so I doubted he knew one way or the other. I remembered suddenly that he wasn’t the biggest fan of heights. Once again he was pushing himself too hard.
I glanced out over the carnival, so I could share with him what he was too unnerved to take in for himself. “You can see everything from up here. The lights are glittering, and everything looks tiny and insignificant from here. It’s like being on top of the world.”
“Yeah.” He licked his lips. “Um, Adam. I think maybe I should say something.”
“Okay.”
“About the kiss.”
Oh, God. He was going to explain that it didn’t mean anything, and I was trapped here. I couldn’t even run away.
“It was no big deal,” I said quickly. “I know you were just going all in with the dating thing. It doesn’t have to happen again.”
“I meant the other kiss. The first one? At the party…”
My heart quickened. “You remember that?”
West nodded. “I’m sorry we haven’t talked about it. I wasn’t sure what to say, or how to— whoa!”
The car pitched downward as the Ferris wheel revolved. West gripped my shoulders in a vice. “Shit, I missed my chance.”
“What chance?”
He fell against me, kissing me. His lips trembled—in fright?—and his tongue, wet and warm and more erotic than it had any right to be, slipped along my bottom lip. I should have pulled away, but something inside me snapped, and I surged against him, meeting his tongue with mine.
Kissing him was everything. My heart leapt into my throat, a flock of butterflies were dancing in my stomach, and I wanted this moment to last forever. But reality battered its way in as the ride slowed, and I yanked back, horrified. What the hell were we doing? He was fake dating me, just for a chance to prepare for the real thing with my sister.
Wasn’t he?
The ride came to a stop, and I darted off the ride. West followed close on my heels. “Adam! Wait.”
He grabbed for my wrist, and I dodged him, spinning around, suddenly furious. “What was that?” I demanded.
“It was a magical kiss on the Ferris wheel? Wasn’t that your dream date scenario? Granted, I didn’t time it right, and I was scared we were going to crash to our deaths, but still… pretty good kiss, right?”
“Oh my God, West, do you hear yourself?” I exclaimed. “I agreed to five fake dates. I didn’t agree to make-out sessions, or for you to fucking steal my dream kiss!”
He faltered, looking unsure for the first time tonight. “Steal it? You didn’t want—”
“We’re not boyfriends,” I ground out. “This isn’t some stupid video game, okay? This is my life, and I don’t want you making grand romantic gestures that you don’t really mean.”
“Adam…”
I turned, winding my way through the crowd toward the parking lot. I didn’t want West to see my face. He’d know, if he didn’t already, that I was totally gone for him. The fact I couldn’t handle a few playful kisses was sad. A kiss was just a kiss, right? It didn’t have to mean anything.
West caught up with me by my car. I couldn’t strand him there, even if I was mortified by my own reaction.
He looked fucking upset, too. Great.
“Adam, I’m so sorry,” he said as he reached me. “If you don’t want me to kiss you, I won’t. The last thing I’d ever do is hurt you. In fact, these dates—”
“It’s fine,” I said, cutting him short. The idea of baring how deep my feelings went for him was untenable. If he knew how I felt, our friendship might never recover. “It was just a kiss. I over-reacted.”
“You’re sure?” he asked.
“It’s just… that particular setting. The Ferris wheel—”
He moved in closer to me, his scent mixing with the cotton candy and cooking oil smells in the air. “I’m sorry about that. I didn’t consider that you might not want to share that moment with me.” He looked gutted. “I didn’t kiss you to play a game. I like kissing you.”
I shook my head. He couldn’t like kissing me. If he liked kissing me, then what did that mean when he started dating Hannah? This was too confusing.
Lowering his voice, he whispered, “I’d like to kiss you again. Right now.”
My eyes met his. “You’re serious?”
He nodded once.
I wavered. Hannah. He’s for Hannah, a voice said in the back of my mind. Then I told that voice to fuck off and grabbed a handful of West’s T-shirt.
Taking a breath, I took the plunge. I didn’t what know what he was thinking, what we were doing with these dates, but if he wanted to kiss me, I wasn’t going to stop him. It was a risk, but I was all in with West. If pretending to date him and kiss him made him see me as something other than a friend, then it was worth the gamble. And if it didn’t? Well, it’d fucking crush me. But I’d deal with that later.
I yanked him to me, and we kissed.
Both of us.
It felt right. It felt perfect.
Also: It felt like a disaster waiting to happen.
4
Date 3: Jail cell blues
Adam
I’d just made up my mind to cancel Fake Date #3 with West when my phone rang. After that amazing kiss at the carnival, West had talked me into enjoying the carnival, riding a few more rides and playing some games. Then he’d taken me home, where he’d kissed me again on my front porch—this time like a guy hoping for an invitation inside.
I hadn’t given him one. I was confused as fuck. While in the heat of the moment, it’d seemed smart to take advantage of West’s willingness to try out kissing me, the potential fallout had been w
eighing on me ever since. What if he was nothing but curious and looking to experiment? Or what if he just liked kissing, but he didn’t really want to explore anything more?
What if I am just a convenient consolation prize for what—or whom—he really wants?
We needed to have a serious talk about what exactly was going on, but I was a coward. He might tell me everything I wanted to hear—my gut said it was possible, no matter how improbable it seemed to me after years of platonic friendship—but he might also crush all my hopes. I didn’t know if I could handle that right now, with those kisses so fresh in my mind.
Better to skip the date, take some time to compartmentalize my feelings, and then face the truth. Or, you know, just stick my head in the sand until the fall semester started. We could go back to normal, best friends who shared a dorm room and got on each other’s nerves. Right now, that sounded attractively simple. I missed our uncomplicated friendship.
My phone rang again, and the screen revealed the call came from the county jail. WTF?
Uneasy, I picked it up and answered. “Hello?”
“Will you accept a collect call from inmate—” a recorded voice said, then after a pause I heard “West” in West’s voice “—hit 1 or say yes to accept—”
“Yes!” I shouted into the receiver, my mind whirling. West was in jail?! We liked to joke that he was the bad boy of the two of us, but come on. West was a good guy. Shoplifting a pack of gum in third grade was about the most heinous crime he’d ever committed.
“Adam?”
Just one word, and I knew he was close to his breaking point. All my frustration about the fake dates and the real kissing vanished in an instant. His voice was tight with strain, a little hoarse, which meant he was holding back tears. I knew my friend down to the break in his voice when he was fighting to rein in his emotions.
“What happened?”
“Can you come pick me up? I, uh, got arrested.”
West
I collected my cell phone and wallet from an attendant and joined Adam, who waited for me across the room.
“Creative choice for a date, huh?” I joked.
He grasped my shoulders, eyes locked on my shiner. “What happened?”
“You know me, I can’t keep my mouth shut. And apparently, I can’t keep my fist shut.” I held out my swollen hand. Adam cradled it as if I’d handed him a baby kitten.
“Jesus Christ, West! This was your mom’s boyfriend?”
I nodded once. “Just get me out of here. Please?”
My skin itched with the desire to be free of a place where they’d locked me inside a cell. It took all of five minutes to figure out I’m not cut out to be a prisoner. For one thing, I look awful in the color orange. For another, I am too fucking sarcastic. Turns out jail guards don’t appreciate my brand of humor.
I drank in deep gulps of fresh, free air when we stepped outside. Adam wanted answers, but I was in no shape to provide them yet. We got in the car, and I slumped back in the passenger seat, letting the familiar scent of Adam and the minty car freshener calm me.
When I heard his door shut, I scraped up a few words. “Can we just drive?”
“Sure.” He started the engine, and while he drove, I watched the scenery. Bell Harbor was a cute, touristy destination. Especially in warmer weather months. But Adam drove away from downtown with its colored awnings over boutique storefronts, away from the boardwalk with its food vendors and novelty shops. We went to the marina, where his parents kept a Bayliner cruiser.
Adam led me down to the slip where the cruiser was moored, and we boarded it. There was something about the salt on the breeze wafting over the ocean that set me at ease. Maybe because there’s no freer place to be than the sea, or some poetic nonsense like that. The sea probably didn’t feel so free to someone trapped on a ship with no land in sight, but after that claustrophobic jail cell, I was drinking it in.
Adam lifted one of the seats, revealing a storage space below. He pulled out a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels. “Pain reliever,” he said.
“Oh, so you want me to commit another crime,” I joked.
“Eh, we’re on the water. There’s got to be some sort of maritime loophole.”
Dropping onto a seat beside him, I took the proffered bottle and swallowed a gulp. The whiskey burned a track to my stomach. Sighing, I let my head fall back.
“Does it hurt?” Adam asked.
“On the outside or the inside?” I joked.
My face and hand still throbbed, but it was fainter than it had been. I took another drink of the whiskey for good measure.
“Both,” Adam said.
“Nah, I’m fine. He’s a bigot, and enough was enough for me,” I said, knowing Adam was curious about what happened. “I shouldn’t have run my mouth or taken that swing at him when he first pushed me, but he was going off about—”
“LGBT people?” Adam guessed.
I snorted. “That’s a far more polite term than he used.”
“I bet.”
“Anyway, I just couldn’t listen to it anymore. All that hate? It was like poison in my own house. Mom freaked out and called 911 when things got ugly, which is how we both ended up in jail, but it’s been tense ever sense we came home for the summer.”
“I didn’t know.”
I shrugged. The fake dating had been a nice diversion. And I was working at a downtown coffee shop. I tried to stay out of the house enough to tolerate my circumstances, and I sure as heck didn’t want to poison Adam with the dickhead’s hate.
“You can talk to me about anything,” Adam said, his eyes intent on me. “I hope you know that.”
“Adam, you’re the only one I want to talk to most of the time,” I said. “But… not about this. I’m not about to fill your head with things that would only hurt you.”
Adam scoffed. “One asshole’s hate speech isn’t going to break me.”
I leaned closer, pressing our shoulders together. I could smell his aftershave, with its hints of ginger and spice, and the sweetness of his hair products. “Hurting you would break me,” I admitted.
I couldn’t put my feelings into words. All I knew was that Adam was my whole world, and this fake dating thing of mine? It’d only given me permission to have what I’d wanted longer than I’d even known myself. Adam had always been the center of my universe.
He looked at me with large eyes, dark and seemingly bottomless as he drank me in. Gently, he brushed his thumb under my black eye. “Seeing you hurt breaks me,” he murmured.
Then we were kissing.
Again.
Soft, gentle explorations. Not like that drunken party where we went straight to hot and messy. Not like that first date, when I’d barely skimmed his lips, or even at the carnival, when Adam had kissed me like he was trying to stake a claim. This kiss was all about feeling. My heart swelled, my throat tightened, and I swear to fuck I could feel my eyes burning with all the pent-up emotions of the night.
When we parted, Adam said the words that sent my heart plummeting.
“I was planning to cancel our date tonight.”
I flinched back as if I’d been slapped. Adam grasped my shirt, keeping me from retreating any farther. “I’m confused, West.”
“So am I,” I admitted.
“Is any of this about Hannah?” he asked point-blank.
I shook my head, suddenly mute.
“Is it…” He looked terrified, or maybe nauseated. I should help the poor guy out.
“I am practicing dating,” I said. “It’s just that… the practice was for you. For us. Or, um, the possibility of us? I’m not making any sense, am I?”
“You don’t want Hannah,” he said slowly.
“No.”
“You’re going on fake dates with me to see if… I’m good enough to date?”
“No!” I exclaimed, scooting closer. “No, of course you’re good enough to date. We’ve been friends a long time, Adam, and it’s not like we can just flip a switch and
become boyfriends. You know? I felt things after our first kiss, and I was confused for a while, and … shit. I’m messing this up, but please know, my doubts were all about me, not you. Never you. I didn’t even know if you’d want something like that with me—”
Adam laughed in my face, and mortification swept through me. This was it. The moment he told me that my childish fake-dating game had been a waste of time.
I scrambled to my feet. “It’s late, huh? I should let you get home.”
Climbing down the ladder, I hit the dock and was making tracks, still flaming with embarrassment, with Adam caught up with me.
“You idiot!” he said in exasperation before yanking my head down and kissing me fiercely. “How could you think for one second I wouldn’t want you?”
Stunned, I could only kiss him again.
We stared into one another’s eyes, speechless, when we parted. After a few minutes, he cleared his throat. “Want to come home with me?”
I lifted an eyebrow, and he blushed and shook his head. “Just to sleep,” he said. “You can’t go back to your house tonight. Maybe you should stay with me a while, until we figure out what’s happening with that asshole. You can pack a bag tomorrow.”
The reality of my shitty home life swept in. I was really fucking worried Mom was gonna stay with this guy, even after the fight. For some crazy reason, she loved him. Hell, I’d thrown the first punch. For all I knew, she’d be waiting to lecture me about violence or some shit.
“Yeah, thanks. I’m not looking forward to facing all that.”
Adam took hold of my uninjured hand, squeezing my fingers gently. “Come on, I’m wiped out, so you’ve got to be exhausted. We can deal with everything else tomorrow.”
That sounded good to me. As much as I needed to resolve my problems at home and looked forward to clarifying my relationship with Adam, I’d been through the wringer. “Sounds good,” I said with relief.
“Then let’s go home,” he said, tugging me toward the car.
Home. It was the wrong word for me, and yet right too. My home was wherever Adam was.
Five Fake Dates Page 3