“I’m not with you, Xander. Remember?” I said slowly, finding he wasn’t the only one I was reminding.
He smiled and nudged my nose with his. “I remember. But, for all intents and purposes…”
He leant closer, but I pulled away as his lips headed for mine.
“What are you doing?” I chuckled, watching those cognac eyes carefully.
“Keeping up appearances, Doll.”
“Xander, there’s no one here to keep up appearances for…”
“Call it practise.”
I put my hand to his chest. “Call it a complication.”
“It’s not a complication. Practise makes perfect.”
I should not have found him adorable. I should not have liked the humour in his eyes or the way he looked at me. I should have found him annoying and pushy and stupid. So, I tried to hide my smile.
“Let’s not make things harder than they need to be, huh?”
He pulled me closer and ducked his nose to my ear. “I don’t think that’s possible.”
I laughed at the implication – shouldn’t have, did – and pushed him away. “Of course. And, it’s back to your cock again. Come on. We’re putting on an act for the people at school, let’s not confuse ourselves what’s going on.”
My hand caught his and I pulled him towards the opening to the building.
“Nothing wrong with having a bit of fun with it,” Xander said, persuasively.
I laughed, “I thought you were bored with girls?”
“You’re not just some girl, Holly.”
I was going to chastise him for his terrible flirting, but didn’t have the chance. He’d pulled me back to him and was kissing me.
I couldn’t decide what I wanted more; to keep kissing him or to never kiss him again.
He was nothing I wanted in a guy, but his touch made my heart sit up and pay attention and my skin tingle excitedly. It was crazy, but I couldn’t deny that; he had an effect on me that was at once undesirable and addictive.
So, I kissed him a little while longer before we followed the others into the Myer building and down to the food court where Greg and I had a fry fight and Miranda and I half-heartedly argued about the best Bubble Tea flavour at Teaz.
Chapter Twelve
Xander walked towards me purposefully, a heat in his eyes that had no trouble making me pay attention straight away this time. I flushed and I was frozen to the spot.
He kissed me hard, one hand on my cheek and the other on my hip pulling me towards him. My stomach sort of slithered to the floor in a mindlessly giggly puddle, my brain shorted out, and my heart happily flopped down and made little angels in the lava that was burning pleasantly through me.
I grabbed the front of his shirt and ripped it open, buttons flying everywhere, and ran my hands down his smooth torso. Every muscle felt like perfection under my hands and his skin was blazing hot.
He picked me up effortlessly and my legs went around his waist like I planned to climb that man-mountain to the pinnacle of pleasure. He slammed me against the wall, his hand running down my leg and bringing it closer around him. His fingers slid under my shirt, igniting every place he touched. He skimmed past the sensitive flesh of my breast as he slid his hand around to my back and drew me closer, like he couldn’t get enough.
I arched into him and–
And, real-world-Xander was totally talking to me.
I blinked, trying to pull myself out of the weird sudden daydream I’d found myself in. I wasn’t quite as enamoured with the ostentatiousness of his house as I was with his half-naked body, apparently. But, that didn’t mean that I didn’t finally hear him through the fog of lust my brain was quite happy rolling around in while I was desperately trying to drag it out. It was like trying to drag Doug away from Vern’s favourite poop spot.
“…led me to thinking we should go on a date,” Xander was saying as he pulled the water out of the fridge.
Okay, I was definitely paying attention now. “A date?”
He nodded. “Yeah. A date.”
“Xander, how many times do we have to go over this? Fake. Dating.” I spoke slowly, wondering if he’d hit his head at his game that morning. “Fake dating does not require real dates.”
He leant a hip against the bench and popped a grape into his mouth. “I didn’t know you were an authority on fake dating now.”
“Oh, I wrote the handbook. Didn’t you know?”
He snorted. “I’ll bet.”
“I thought we were studying? Won’t Greg be here soon?”
Xander shrugged. “For Greg, two o’clock means maybe three thirty.”
I sighed. “And you couldn’t have told me? I could have stayed home and done my own stuff.”
“Exactly because you would have come later,” he said with a cheeky little smile.
I rolled my eyes. “I have the next vocab test next week too you know.”
“Which you could pass in your sleep. You’re amazing at French.”
“Because I study!”
“You study too hard. Haven’t you been spending every night for the last two weeks studying? Every time I’ve messaged you, you’ve been studying. It’s boring, doll.”
I crossed my arms over my chest protectively, feeling somewhat defensive and just a little awkward. “Well, it takes my mind off the fact that I lost my two best friends and I’m pretending to date the biggest arsehole at school.”
“Ha!” Xander cried and I looked up quickly, my eyebrow raised in question. “So, I beat the git at something at least.”
I tried valiantly to hold back the smile his triumphant look elicited. “That is not an achievement to be proud of.”
He shrugged. His whole demeanour was his usual level of nonchalance, except for his eyes…those were watching me carefully. “Beating him at anything is an achievement to be proud of. Although…” he walked over to me and put his hands on my hips, and I pretended that I couldn’t look straight ahead and just stare at all that beauty, “being the first to kiss you was probably the sweetest of them all.”
“First? Do you actually think you were unfortunate enough to be my first kiss, or that you anticipate Jason will want to kiss me one day?”
He smirked, but his eyes were hard. “Unfortunate’s not the word I’d use. And, I thought that was the whole point of this little exercise? Make the git jealous so he’ll realise he picked the wrong minion?”
I would have bristled at the moniker, but it had seemed to become more of an in-joke between me and…well not all the Bows – obviously – but more were less hostile to me by Friday than there’d been on Tuesday.
“Half the point,” I reminded him. “Well, one-third the point. I thought I was helping you avoid the flirts and helping you get one over Jason?”
He nodded and his hands slid around to my back. “This is true.”
“So really, you’re getting more out of this than me.”
“It could be seen that way I guess, yes,” he said hesitatingly, like he wasn’t sure if I was going somewhere he wanted with this.
“Why do you want to avoid the girls, Xander? Did they get boring?” I teased.
“Yes.”
I blinked in surprise. “What?”
He sighed and pulled away from me as he ran a hand through his hair in a gesture I was starting to recognise as him feeling slightly uncomfortable. “I… Wow. Thinking about explaining it to you now sounds kind of shallow.”
“That is nothing less than I’d expect from you, King Douche.”
He threw a quick grin at me. “Okay, yeah. I got bored. The girls at school aren’t challenging, there’s no thrill of the chase, they don’t make you work for it. It’s just all shallow and meaningless and monotonous. I mean sure, it’s satisfying. If you get my drift–”
I hadn’t, but I did now. “Drift got.” I grimaced.
“–but it’s not exciting. I decided I’d had enough. I figured that my ti
me was better spent on my soccer, maybe my grades so Coach doesn’t bench me. And, you were the perfect beard for that.”
“Not quite the slang you’re looking for… But, I’d say those are sort of admirable goals you’ve got there.”
“And, if I admit the goals came after the boredom?”
I snorted. “Then, I’d say that sounds like you.”
“You know, I like that you don’t tell me what you think I want to hear,” he sniggered.
“I’m here to keep up appearances, Xander. Not to be satisfying.”
“You’d certainly be a challenge…” he said slowly, with a hint of flirtation.
I laughed and took a step back. “Well, I’d certainly make you work for it. Only, there won’t be anything waiting for you at the end. So, don’t get your hopes up.”
“It’s not my hopes I need to keep down.” He winked and I cleared my throat like that was going to suddenly stop my cheeks flushing red.
“Just here to keep the wolves away, remember?”
He shrugged like it didn’t bother him why I was there. Or maybe like we both knew I was there for another reason, but he wasn’t going to correct me. Except I wasn’t there for any other reason and I thought we both needed a reminder.
“Which brings me back to the date thing. Why do you think we should go on a date?”
“Seems like something a couple might do,” he said as he pulled himself up onto the bench and I told myself I didn’t avidly stare at the way his stomach muscles moved.
“Why don’t you have a shirt on?” I blurted out.
He chuckled. “Like what you see?”
Yes. “No.”
“There’s no shame in admitting it,” he said. Yes, much shame. Epic proportions of shame. “Here, I’ll go first. I think you’re hot.”
I was pretty sure I blushed. “We’ve had this conversation. I’m not hot.”
“Well, I don’t know what kind of friends you had before you were a Bow–”
“Not actually a Bow…”
“–and I hate to shatter that fragile sense of self you have there, but you are.” He slid off the bench, came over to me and tilted my chin up to look at him. “Your eyes are a crazy amazing colour green. They remind me of a pitch in the middle of winter–”
“Hardly sexy,” I muttered and he frowned like he wasn’t going to put up with that attitude.
“Says you. The pitch in winter is my favourite place in the whole world.” Well, we’ll just skip over the way my heart clasped its little hands and swung around like an idiot… “Secondly, you have a crazy intelligently insulting wit. Your smile is beautiful and annoyingly infectious. Your body is something the stuff of a teenage boy’s wet dream and it is seriously distracting. And, you’re far too smart for your own damned good.”
“I don’t really feel like any of those are actual compliments…” I was confused; I mean I think it was sort of complimentary…? Maybe it had just been the delivery?
“Holly, why do you think I’m constantly touching you? Wanting to kiss you?”
“Keeping up appearances?” I asked, completely uncertain now.
He scoffed. “I can play a good game, Doll. But, I’m not that good. You’re gorgeous, you’re sexy, you’re smart, you’re funny. I can’t keep my hands off you because I’m attracted to you. You’re hot, Holly. I’m kind of disgusted that the people you called friends let you think otherwise.”
“Well, I mean they didn’t tell me I wasn’t–”
“They should have been telling you that you were.”
So, no. None of my friends had ever said I was attractive. I was occasionally told I looked better in something than usual, or that a top or new haircut looked nice on me. But, I couldn’t remember a single time any of my friends had said I was pretty. I mean, it’s not like looks are everything, I know that. But, when your friends call you beautiful, they’re referring to more than just looks, aren’t they? I mean, it’s a package deal. Isn’t it?
I didn’t need to be held to society’s view of beauty; I didn’t need people to think I was supermodel sexy or anything. But now that Xander had mentioned it, I felt like it would be nice if someone thought I looked good just as me, that I was beautiful as much for my personality as for the shape of my body or my face, that I was pretty whether I was technically overweight or underweight or my acne was flaring up. Because weren’t we all beautiful in our own way? And, didn’t we have a right to be reminded when we forgot?
I realised, as we stood in his kitchen and I told my heart to stop staring at his naked abs, that not one of my friends – not even Nancy – had ever said anything of the sort. I think it had been something like two years since I stopped asking Nancy her opinion on my outfits because she always agreed when I asked if I looked…somehow not right.
I also realised that Xander seemed to be saying something similar to me right then. It occurred to me that the first person other than my blood relatives to ever assure me I wasn’t unattractive was King Douche himself. And, that made me feel a whole lot of conflicting feelings.
“Why do you suddenly care?” I asked, wanting to stop thinking there was maybe more to the King of the Bows than rumour had you believe.
“Because self-doubt isn’t sexy,” he replied without missing a beat as though he firmly believed that self-confidence alone would make even the elephant man sexy.
“Then cue me being not sexy,” I huffed.
He frowned. “Because I’m not likely to be dating a girl who doesn’t believe in herself.”
I frowned as well. “Arrogance does attract arrogance.”
“Exactly.” Gone was the sincere expression and back was that flippant tone and hardness in his eyes.
“Well, everyone can be surprised at how un-shallow you were in falling for me, then,” I answered sarcastically.
He smiled at me, some sincerity through whatever was annoying him. “I think they already are.”
I shifted awkwardly. “Should we get started, then?”
“On what, Doll? Me showing you just how hot I think you are by sliding you up onto this bench and worshipping you? Or on planning what will probably be the most epic first date in history?” He suddenly looked so genuinely excited that I almost agreed.
I opened and closed my mouth a few times as I tried to make the connection between my brain and my mouth work. My heart was tapping my brain incessantly, telling it to listen to Xander because either of those things sounded far better than what I’d had in mind.
“Uh…English study…” finally slipped out of my mouth about a hundred notches south of the witty, confident comeback my brain had planned.
He shrugged as though he didn’t care, but his eyes held a flame my stupid little heart was quite happy to let set it on fire, and the smirk on his face was smouldering. How the hell did he just change between moods like that?
“If we start before Greg gets here, then we’ll just have to do that study twice…” he said as though mulling it over.
Was it getting difficult to breathe in there? I think it was getting difficult to breathe in there. But, I had to admit, it wasn’t uncomfortable in the slightest. “Okay, well, I… I don’t need…worshipping…” Want, though…? “And, I am not going on a date with you. So…”
“So, that only leaves talking,” he sighed dramatically.
He took my hand and I was still reeling from the dip my mind was taking in the gutter at his words. As he pulled me along, I didn’t much care if he was taking me up to his room to do whatever Xander Bowen, King Douche did when he worshipped you. It was only until I felt myself not moving anymore that I realised I actually was in his room.
“Kitchen bench not good enough for you?” I heard myself quip rather intelligibly and wittily, taking an absent-minded look around his room.
Honestly, his room was a little bit of a letdown. I’d expected grandeur and…well, I don’t know. Something that didn’t look like Mark’s room, only
about two or three times the size – spatial awareness had never been my forte. There were less trophies than I expected Mister I-Win-Everything to have. His bed was bigger than mine, so maybe a king? Fitting. He had a normal student desk, a large TV facing the end of his bed, there were a couple of pieces of clothes dropped around the place, stacks of magazines, some books that I was fairly sure were only textbooks, and…actually a large bookcase on the same wall as the door behind me covered in books.
He laughed. “You watch your mouth, Doll. Or I might forget my gentlemanly side and throw you on that bed.”
My heart skittered and would probably have beaten him to his bed had I not kept a decent grip on it. “I wasn’t aware you had a gentlemanly side. If this is you being a gentleman, I’d love to see you not being a gentleman.”
I’d still been looking around his room so I hadn’t seen him coming. I only realised when he’d pushed me against the wall behind me, his hand beside my head. “I’d love it if that was serious.” He looked me over, his eyes full of heat.
I felt myself smirk despite everything in me telling me to diffuse the situation. “Oh, I was serious. I would love to see that, Xander. I can only imagine what you’re like with all those other girls.”
He looked conflicted and I was well aware that I shouldn’t be trying to provoke him. I just wasn’t sure yet if I wanted him to throw me on the bed or argue with me. Because let’s face it, a nicely timed argument might remind me why I didn’t like this guy. I’d forget all about wanting to kiss him and touch him and throw away all my morals.
“You’re not those other girls, Holly,” he said quietly and with a sincere tremor to his voice that I didn’t want to understand. He pushed himself away as he cleared his throat. “How are you with games? Nothing like a bit of killing to soothe the sexual tension.” His tone was aiming for flippant, but I could tell he was feeling that sexual tension just as keenly as I was.
“I wouldn’t know. I haven’t played–”
“Well, my first job as boyfriend–”
“Fake boyfriend.”
“–is to teach you how to kill things.” He picked up some controllers and dropped to the bottom of his bed, patting the spot next to him. “I solemnly swear to keep my hands to myself unless told otherwise.” He spared me a wink and I conceded with a smile as I walked over to him. “Don’t worry if you’re not very good to start with, there’s a learning curve.”
Keeping Up Appearances Page 13