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“Now that you’re done checking me out,” Cooper says cheerfully, “I want to thank you. James told us his last assignment didn’t suck quite as bad. What was it, a C-?”
“I got a C+, dickhead.” James bounds down the stairs to our left. When he reaches my side, he pulls me into a sideways hug and kisses me on the temple. His brothers know we’re not actually together, so there’s no need to pretend, but if there’s a word James Callahan doesn’t have in his vocabulary, it’s “halfway.” He gives my waist a squeeze. “Coop, we’ll be in the kitchen. Are you going out?”
Cooper groans. “I wish, but I have to finish readingCrime and Punishment.”
James leans in to whisper in my ear, “Is that really the name?”
“Yes,” I whisper back, feeling goose bumps where his breath brushes against my skin. “Wait, please tell me you knew that.”
His laughter is adorable. “You’re fun to tease, you know.”
We settle at the big dining room–style table in the kitchen. This is the safest place for us to study—if we’re in his room, I’m afraid I’ll do something stupid, like ask for a kiss when no one is around. Even if we’re alone here, it’s a common area. I take out my things and settle into a chair, waiting for James to do the same.
He pokes around in the fridge first. “Want something to drink?”
“I have my water bottle.” I hold up the battered reusable bottle. It’s covered in stickers, a guilty pleasure of mine. I don’t have a ton of money to spend on impulse purchases, but when they happen, I’m either buying stickers or cute pairs of earrings.
Tonight, though, I’m wearing the one good piece of jewelry I own: a pair of small gold earrings that belonged to my mother’s mother. And the dress in my bag is borrowed from Laura. James told me we’re going somewhere fancy, which I toldhimwasn’t necessary for a fake date, but he insisted.
He gets himself a glass of iced tea and settles down across from me. “I finished my draft.”
“Yeah? Can I see?”
“I tried writing it by hand like you suggested, and it worked, I think. I finished it faster than when I was trying to type and kept deleting things.”
He flips through his notebook and passes it across the table to me. His fingers brush mine accidentally, and it makes me bite the inside of my cheek. Focus. I need to focus on helping him, on upholding my end of our deal. Aside from a few annoying texts, Darryl’s been leaving me alone, just like I knew he wouldif he thought I was off the market. That’s allowed me to focus on school and work.
We’re working on implementing research in our writing. As a business major, I do this all the time, but it’s a skill that takes time to develop, and I don’t blame James for still needing practice. I scan over his work with my pen in hand as he waits.
“You have such messy handwriting.”
He shrugs. “Eventually I’ll only need to be able to write one thing.”
“Which is?”
“My autograph.”
I break into a smile as I shake my head. “Ego much?”
“Not ego. Manifestation.” He takes a sip of his drink, wagging his eyebrows at me when I kick at him under the table.
“Wouldn’t have taken you for that type.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” he says. “Yet, of course. You’re my fake girlfriend, you’ll have to know everything eventually.”
I set down the notebook and give him my sternest look. It works whenever I need to be firm with a customer. “Are we going to study or not?”
He holds up his hands. “You’re right. I’ll save the date talk for the date.”
“Thank you.” His words sink in after half a second. “Not the date. The dinner.”
“No one just goes to dinner at Vesuvio’s. It’s a date place.”
“That’s where we’re going?” Thank goodness I packed my good heels. That restaurant is the fanciest a small college town like Moorbridge has to offer. I’m surprised he would spring for it, and fine, a little flattered. No one will think we’re faking it if he takesme there. It’s so clearly a date place that for a couple months last year, there was an Instagram account run by some gossip at McKee that accepted photo submissions of every couple spotted there.
“Like I would take my girlfriend to get bad pasta.”
“Fake girlfriend.”
