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“We’re friends?” I ask with a laugh. “Since when?”
She swallows, her whole body going taut as she holds my gaze. “I know it may not seem that way with the distance I’ve put between us, but I’ve never stopped caring for you.”
“Then why the distance?” I find myself asking. Her eyes search mine, and I know I could be pushing her away. “I know what happened was a lot—”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she cuts me off, looking down at her hands. “The guilt eats me alive over how I treated you, but I couldn’t process it and I didn’t know how to tell you that.”
I watch as she squirms in her seat. I don’t like seeing her like this. Hell, I don’t like feeling what she is feeling. It was really hard, what we went through, but I thought it would bring us together. I didn’t think she’d push me away, but I also understand. It’s hard to be constantly reminded of a choice neither of us was ready to make. Like Quinn and Emery, maybe we needed time to heal.
Maybe this is our second chance, but she’s disguising it as a fake-dating situation. Just knowing she chose me for this fills me with such hope. But I gotta keep my wits about me. I can’t just fall.
No matter how easy it would be.
“I know this won’t fix how I handled things, but I wouldn’t ask anyone else but you.”
I scoff. “Because my insights are good?”
She gives me a dry look. “That’s part of it, but because I trust you.”
My heart warms, and man, I want to drop to my knees for this girl.
To keep myself from doing so, I take the file from her and start reading through it. As she said, she outlined outings and video ideas for our social media. She came up with a posting calendar for our accounts. She’s prepared scripts and even prompts for us. I know this is to be a fake relationship, but it all feels so planned. I don’t like it.
“Since we’re both busy with sports, it’ll be easy to just do our thing until it’s time for a game or a meet or a video. On the outside, we’ll be in a relationship, but on the inside, we’ll be focused on our own lives.”
If she thinks I won’t care about what she’s doing when I’m not seeing her, she’s got another think coming. I don’t say that, though. Everything is here, but she’s missing something.
“So, what are the rules?” I ask since I don’t see them.
She licks her lips. “What do you mean?”
That surprises me. I figured she’d have included that since she’s included everything else. “How far are you willing to go to make this look real?”
Her brows crash together as her eyes burn into mine. “I don’t understand.”
I want to laugh at her. “Do you think us showing up to games and making videos is really going to convince people we’re together?”
“I’m sure if we say we are, they’ll believe it since they already assume something is going on.”
“They may assume, but until they see me with my arms around you, and my mouth on yours, that’s all they’ll do—assume.” Her cheeks darken with color as her lips part. I see her thighs clench, her hands wringing together so tightly, her knuckles turn while. “People need to see us together around campus, there needs to be PDA, it needs to be believable.”
She swallows thickly. “I don’t really go on campus.”
“What?”
“People bother me.”
My blood boils within seconds. “Who?”
“People,” she says offhandedly.
“Who? Give me names.”
Her face scrunches up as she meets my gaze. “Why?”
“So I can fuck them up,” I say simply, my gaze burning into hers as her eyes widen. “If we’re dating, no one will bother you.”
She flashes me a look, but I see her lips wanting to curve. “We won’t be truly dating.”
“I don’t give a shit,” I say. “No one will bother you. Who is it?”
Her eyes stare into mine. “I don’t know, Benson. I have creeps galore, and they feel I owe them my attention since I’m all over social media.”
“Not anymore,” I say as a promise. “No one will bother you, Cameron.” She doesn’t look at me, but I watch as she chews on the inside of her cheek. “Is that why you aren’t in my classes anymore?”
She nods. “I do everything I can online.”
I nod slowly. “I’ll walk you to your classes.”
“Benson,” she says on an exhale. “That’s unneeded.”
“Let me decide if that is unneeded,” I announce as I shut the file, leaning back in the chair, crossing my ankles. I look her over, and while I know she has done her research and set up a nice proposal for me, I know she hasn’t thought everything through. “Since you chose me for this, you’re not involved with anyone?”
