by Chris Cannon
It was going to be a strange three weeks. There was no way I was going to agree to a longer pretend relationship if this was how Matt was going to act. It’s not like I believed in happily ever after, but knowing that he thought a breakup was unavoidable made him a lot less appealing. Maybe that was a good thing. This experience would definitely end my crush. Still…finding out he wasn’t boyfriend material was kind of like finding out the Easter Bunny wasn’t real.
That was okay. I’d focus on Trey. He was the whole reason I’d agreed to this fake dating debacle in the first place.
…
For the next few days Matt and I were civil to each other at school. It felt weird, fake, and wrong.
“What’s going on between you and Matt?” Clarissa asked in gym class as she, Nina, and I walked around the track.
I inhaled a lungful of cool air and blew it out, stalling for time. “Why do you ask?”
“Since you two started dating you seem less happy. That’s not how it’s supposed to work,” she said.
Whatever I told her might get back to Trey so I needed to stick to something close to the truth. “I don’t know. Dating is harder than being friends. Sometimes I think we never should have left the friend zone.”
“I’m sorry,” Clarissa said. “Do you want me to ask Charlie to talk to him?”
God, no. I shook my head. “That would make it more awkward. Maybe we’re going through some sort of adjustment period.”
“Again,” she said, “that’s not how it’s supposed to work.”
“Topic change,” I declared. “What’s up with your cousin Trey?”
“His parents moved from Chicago because his dad lost his job.”
“That kind of sucks.”
“They only moved there because of his job,” Clarissa said. “I think they’re happy to be back. Trey wasn’t thrilled to switch schools, but he’s pretty cool. He paints and draws. He already has groupies in art class.”
I laughed, even though the idea of him having groupies gave me a small moment of panic. “It’s his hair,” I joked. “Isn’t it?”
“Probably,” she agreed. “He may not hate the move as much as he claims, because his girlfriend dumped him for a college guy.”
That bit of information gave me hope. Not that I was happy he’d been dumped, but if he’d had a girlfriend, then he might be boyfriend material, and it also proved he wasn’t afraid of relationships. Good to know. Especially since Matt didn’t seem too hip on the idea.
My fake boyfriend stood near my locker after school, looking at his cell. I took a moment to appreciate the way he filled out his blue flannel shirt and his jeans. Some guys might look like hicks. He just looked…huggable. When he glanced up and smiled at me my heart did a little tap dance…and that was wrong. It’s fake. Fake. Fake. Fake.
“Hey.” He lowered his phone. “West asked if we wanted to go to the movies with him and Nina tomorrow.”
That could be a low pressure situation because we wouldn’t have to deal with the awkward conversations we seemed to be having lately. “What movie?”
He laughed. “Shouldn’t you say yes to the date first and then ask about the movie?”
“I must have missed that lesson in how-to-date-like-a-normal-girl class.”
“Not sure you fall under the category of normal,” he shot back. “There’re a couple of action movies.”
He passed me his phone with the theater information pulled up. I scanned past a violent horror flick that no mentally healthy person should want to see, and skipped over one of those movies where they try to make everyone cry by killing off the main character’s love interest. I never understood the point of those movies. That whole cathartic crying thing was crap. There was a movie about computers taking over the planet. Those were usually entertaining, as long as the people weren’t too stupid. There was a bank robbery movie and something about vampires and humans teaming up against zombies.
“I’m in for the evil computers or the vampire movie.” I preferred things that couldn’t possibly happen in real life.
“Either one works for me,” he said.
“Good.” Now what?
He shoved his phone in his pocket and glanced around like someone might be watching us. “Want to walk out to the parking lot together?”
“Sure. That seems like a couple-y thing to do.”
“Couple-y?”
“Something couples do.”
“Yeah.” He scratched his head. “I’m pretty sure that’s not a word.”
“It is now.”
“You should create your own online dictionary.”
“Not a bad idea. I can call it Lisa’s Lexicon.”
“Lexi what?”
“Lexicon. I didn’t make that one up. It means vocabulary.”
“And you couldn’t just say that?”
“Nope.” I grinned. “The double L sounds better.”
“Sure it does.” He gestured down the hall. “Let’s get out of here.”
We joined the crowd of students shuffling past each other, eager to get out of the building. Most of the couples were holding hands. Wondering how Matt would react, I reached for his hand. He missed a step and looked down at our joined hands.
“Now who’s confused about the rules of dating?” I pointed at the couple in front of us.
“A little warning would be nice.”
He sounded annoyed and that kind of ticked me off. “So sorry I got girl germs on you.” I pulled my hand from his like I was joking, even though I wasn’t.
He laughed. “I stopped being afraid of girl germs a long time ago.” He grabbed my hand and laced his fingers through mine. “I don’t like surprises.”
We exited the building and headed for the parking lot. “You must be really fun at surprise birthday parties.”
“The good thing about being a twin is you’re not the only person standing there feeling stupid while people sing to you.”
“Why would having someone sing happy birthday make you feel stupid?”
“I don’t like being the center of attention.”
Something clicked into place. “Charlie talks more than you.”
Matt nodded.
“You’re the quieter twin.” I’d never thought of it that way. It explained a few things, like maybe why he’d never asked Jane on a date.
The gravel of the parking lot crunched under our feet as we angled left toward my car. Once we came to a stop, I noticed that the other real couples were kissing each other goodbye. I felt like giving Matt a little crap. “Fair warning since you are surprise-phobic. At some point you might have to kiss me, just to convince people this is real.”
He dropped my hand and backed away from me like I hadn’t bathed in a week. “Not going to happen.”
“Wow.” That kind of stung. “You really know how to make a girl feel special.” I climbed into my car, slammed the door, and locked it. What was his problem? I’d been joking. Still, I hadn’t expected him to recoil in disgust.
Matt knocked on the window. “Lisa?”
Nope. I flipped him off, put the car in reverse, and backed out of my parking spot. Dating Matt was supposed to make Trey see me as datable. Having Matt act all awkward around me was not upping my cool points. It made me seem less datable. And I wasn’t okay with that. So far Operation Fake Boyfriend was a complete waste of time.
As soon as I entered my house, I called Nina and unloaded on her.
“That’s so weird,” Nina said. “I mean, maybe he doesn’t want to be your real boyfriend, but why would he freak out about the idea of kissing you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he thinks I’ll fall madly in love with him.” The odds of that happening weren’t good, especially since he was being such a jerk.
“It’s weird that he could be a good friend and make such a terrible fake boyfriend,” Nina said. “Unless maybe he’s afraid he’ll fall for you.”
“Right.” I laughed. “He wants a quirky blonde, not a boringly normal b
runette.”
“You’re not boring.”
“You have to say that because you’re my friend.” I lay back on my bed and closed my eyes. “Is it wrong that I want to find some way to torment him?”
“No. I’d say that’s healthy. And I think the movie date will be the perfect way to do that.”
“Game on.”
Chapter Ten
Matt
Okay. I’d messed up. Now Lisa was mad. I didn’t mean to make it sound like kissing her would be terrible. She was cute in her own nerdy bookworm kind of way. I never thought of her like that. And kissing her could be awkward. What if it was terrible? It would be embarrassing for both of us. As far as I was concerned, it wasn’t worth the risk.
When I’d come up with this brilliant fake dating plan I hadn’t thought things through. I never imagined acting out the part of her boyfriend…never planned on kissing her. That was a bad idea. I wanted her as a friend. If I kissed her then it would be hard to go back to being friends. Especially if it wasn’t terrible.
At this point she probably didn’t want anything to do with me—friend or otherwise. How could I fix this? Maybe if I let her be, it would blow over by tomorrow.
…
Friday morning it seemed like everyone was trying to figure out weekend plans. I already had plans for my double date with Lisa, but I wasn’t sure if she still intended to go through with it. She hadn’t said a word to me so far today. Why had I thought she’d let this go? I had a sister. I should have known better. At her locker this morning, she’d talked to Nina and stared at her phone and ignored my general existence.
Now lunch was almost over, and she’d spent the whole time avoiding eye contact with me while talking to our friends. Since Charlie ate lunch with Clarissa and her friends, that didn’t leave me a lot of people to talk to. I checked the clock. We had ten minutes until the bell rang and then I wouldn’t see her again until after school. The sub sandwich I’d eaten was twisting around in my stomach. I needed to say something, but what?
I reached over and touched her arm. “Can we talk?”
She glanced at where my hand touched her arm and then met my gaze. “Careful. I might get the wrong idea. You wouldn’t want me to think you actually liked me.”
Okay. Still mad. I pulled my hand back. “I’m sorry about yesterday. I didn’t mean that how it sounded.”
She leaned closer. “Really? What did you mean?”
“I just…I don’t know. I’m afraid kissing you might mess up our friendship and I didn’t want things to get weird between us.”
“Well that worked out spectacularly.”
“I know. I’m sorry,” I said. “Can you give me another chance?”
“To do what?” she said.
How did I answer that question? “To show you that I’m not the tool you think I am.”
“This was your stupid idea so I don’t understand why you’re having such a problem with it. And I was joking about the kiss. You should have known that. Our friendship is based on joking around and giving each other crap. By the way, I liked friend-you but so far boyfriend-you sucks.”
Not what I wanted Jane to see. “I’m aware of that. And maybe I freaked out because what I’m most afraid of is losing you as a friend.”
She sighed. “If you’d said that instead of acting like I had the plague then maybe I wouldn’t be so pissed off at you right now.”
“Give me one more chance. I promise not to be a tool.”
“I’m not sure you can help it,” Lisa said. “It seems to be part of your DNA.”
I knew she was insulting me on purpose to get back at me. “Feel better now?”
She held her fingers out like she was measuring something an inch long. “A little bit.”
“Good, now can we go back to our plan?”
She stared at me for a moment like she was considering the deal. “I’ll give you one more chance. One. Just remember, if we aren’t friends once this is over, it’s your fault.”
“Got it. Are we still on for our double date?”
“I guess.”
I pulled to a stop in front of Lisa’s house later than night. For a second I considered honking the horn and hoping she’d run out, but that would be rude. And I’d made enough of an ass of myself lately. So I parked and headed toward her front door, intent on doing the gentlemanly thing. She must have been watching for me because she came out the front door before I made it up the sidewalk.
“Hey.” She came down the steps to meet me and something was very wrong. It looked like she’d forgotten to put on jeans. All I could see was her black coat and black boots that came up past her knees. Between the coat and the boots was some skintight black material. Definitely not pants. Definitely hot.
“Everything okay?” she asked in her normal friend voice which didn’t match the non-friend thoughts invading my brain.
“Yeah,” I said. “We should go.”
Once we were in the truck, I kept my eyes on the road. Why had she worn whatever it was she was wearing? This was not a real date. It wasn’t. She wasn’t wearing that to look good for me. She was wearing it so this would look like a date. Or maybe so Trey would see her and wish he’d asked her out. That thought made me tighten my hands on the steering wheel.
“Matt, did you hear me?”
Crap. “No. What did you say?”
“I asked you about popcorn. Buttered or plain?”
“Buttered.”
“Good, then we can share because plain popcorn tastes like Styrofoam.”
Okay, we were talking about popcorn. Time to focus on the date, or non-date, or whatever the hell this was.
We met Nina and West in the lobby. Lisa took her coat off. She wore some sort of red sweater that was almost long enough to be a dress. Almost, but not quite.
“What?” she said.
She’d caught me staring. Time to make a joke out of it. “Did you forget to put on pants?”
“I’m wearing leggings.” She pointed at the skintight black material. “They’re like pants but way more comfortable.”
“We should go find seats,” Nina said.
“Nope,” Lisa said. “First we need popcorn.”
The multiplex was pretty crowded. If we waited, we might end up in the nosebleed section. “I’ll get popcorn,” I offered. “You go find the seats.”
“Okay.”
I walked over to the concession stand, grateful there was a line because it would give me time to get my head on straight. No matter how good Lisa looked, I needed to focus on the fact that we were friends. This date wasn’t real. That would be a whole lot easier to remember if she’d worn some damn pants. It felt like karma was kicking my ass, because now kissing her didn’t seem like such a bad idea.
It was weird. I’d never thought of her as sexy before… She was my nerdy friend who wore sweatshirts and jeans. If she’d dressed like this when we first met, I might not have put her in the friend zone. Huh. That’s an odd thought. I liked Lisa as a friend… It shouldn’t matter what she wore.
I moved forward in line and ordered a large popcorn with extra butter because Lisa was right. Popcorn without butter tasted like Styrofoam. Once I had the popcorn and a wad of napkins, I went into the theater and looked around, trying to spot her. The theater was crowded. The previews were running, and the flickering lights made it difficult to distinguish one person from another.
I had to scan the theater a few times before I finally found her.
Chapter Eleven
Lisa
Okay. I admit it. I’d worn the sweater and leggings to torment Matt a bit. This look was outside my normal fashion comfort zone. I hadn’t been lying when I said the leggings were more comfortable than pants. I’d live in these things if I could, but I’d definitely wear longer sweaters.
I was still annoyed about his behavior earlier, but the mentally healthy part of my brain said I needed to let it go. Being irritated with Matt wouldn’t change him. It would just make me un
happy.
Nina led us to four seats together on the right side of the theater. I watched for Matt to come in. The theater was crowded. If he didn’t come in before they dimmed the lights, he might not be able to find us. I could go to the lobby to meet him and lead him to our seats. Or I could let him wander around like an idiot. I was leaning toward option number two.
Matt walked in as the lights dimmed and glanced around. The flickering previews on the screen probably made it hard for him to see. I waited. When he spotted me, he smiled, and despite our recent problems, I felt myself smiling back. He crossed the theater and sat down next to me. He balanced a giant tub of popcorn on the armrest between us.
“One large popcorn with extra butter,” he said.
I inhaled the buttery scent and my mouth watered. “Please tell me you remembered napkins.”
“Normally I wouldn’t bother. I’d just wipe my hands on my jeans.” He pulled a wad of napkins from his jacket pocket. “Since you forgot to put pants on, I thought you might need these.”
“Ha, ha.” I leaned in so no one around us would hear. “A real boyfriend probably wouldn’t gripe at his girlfriend for not wearing pants.”
He chuckled at my comment and leaned back in his seat.
I tuned in to the preview about people stealing cars and racing them across country. “I don’t understand why that’s entertaining.”
“It looks awesome,” Matt said.
“Such a guy movie.”
Matt seemed relaxed. More like his old self. That was a relief. The most important thing about this whole situation was keeping Matt as a friend. I liked him. Liked spending time with him. I didn’t want to lose that but once we dated other people how much time would we get to spend together? Huh? That’s a random thought.
The movie started and the volume increased to a seat-shaking level. Maybe they played the movies super loud so there was no way anyone could talk during the show. I reached into the bucket of popcorn and bumped Matt’s hand. I expected him to pull away from me but he didn’t. He didn’t even recognize the fact that our hands touched. Maybe he was finally on board with our fake dating game.