Me rather stupidly agreeing to fake date the guy.
No...it wasn’t a bizarre dream. It actually happened. I drag the pillow over my face and smash it down, attempting to smother myself. It doesn’t work. Demi gently pries the fabric from my white-knuckled grip until she can meet my gaze.
“Exactly how long has this been going on for?” she asks.
“What?” It takes effort to blink away the last remnants of sleep.
Demi rolls her eyes impatiently as if I’m too dense for words. “How long have you and Brayden been secretly seeing each other?”
“Oh.”
Me and Brayden.
Seeing each other in secret.
Right.
That’s an excellent question. Unfortunately, at the moment, I don’t have an excellent answer. We’ll have to get our stories straight if this has any chance of working. Otherwise, there’ll be more holes in this fabrication than Swiss cheese. Barely do I recall his sister—I can’t remember her name—grilling me for information. “Umm, it hasn’t been very long,” I say vaguely, hoping we can move on from this line of questioning.
One of her dark brows slants upward. “Well, that’s not evasive at all.”
I huff out a breath. Ambiguous is exactly what I was going for. I’m not a good liar under the best of circumstances, and certainly not when I’m staring my bestie in the face at the crack of dawn, and I’m still hung over. I drag myself up to a seated position. I really wish we’d hit a different party last night. Maybe then none of this would have transpired.
Is it too late to tell Brayden to forget it?
It’s not like Leo ever got back to me. I should probably make a last-ditch effort to reach out. If he’s willing to model, then I don’t need Brayden. And if I don’t need him...
Then I can back out of this stupid arrangement. He can find another girl to fake date for the next week or two.
Less than twelve short hours later, I’m chock-full of regrets and could kick my own ass for agreeing to this. I should have known better. If I remember correctly, news of our faux relationship spread through the party like wildfire. By the time I took off, everyone was talking about it. I think people were discussing possible ship names.
A groan slides from my lips. Even if it’s possible to extract myself from this unpleasant situation, it’s going to be a mess. What am I talking about? It’s already a disaster and it hasn’t even been a full day.
“I don’t understand how this happened,” Demi says. “You hate Brayden with the passion of a thousand burning suns.”
She’s not exaggerating. I really do. But I can’t agree openly with her spot-on assessment, now can I?
“Hate is such a strong word,” I mumble weakly.
Her eyes narrow as she frowns. “Is it?” Clearly, given my past aversions toward Brayden, Demi is skeptical.
Ugh!
“You know what they say...” my voice trails off. When her brows rise, I force myself to continue. “There’s a thin line between love and hate.”
She snorts as a smile trembles around the corners of her lips. “It must be a barely perceptible one.”
“Oh, trust me, it is.” I run my hand through my hair. It feels like it’s standing on end. Much like my life, it’s a complete mess. Before I can say anything else, my phone dings with an incoming message. I practically pounce on it, swiping it from my nightstand and glancing at the screen.
It’s from Leo.
Everything inside me lifts.
This right here could be my way out of this mess!
I tap the screen before punching in my password and pulling up the message.
Sorry. All booked up at the moment.
There’s a sad face emoji to rub a little more salt in the wound.
Damnit!
That leaves Brayden as my only viable option. I can’t afford to push off this project any longer. With everything else going on, I’ll need at least a month to prepare a portfolio of drawings.
Unwilling to accept defeat just yet, I fire off one last text.
Are you sure? I just need a few hours of your time.
I tack on the pleading emoji so he realizes how desperate I am.
“I thought after Ethan, you were going to take a break from guys. What happened to dating yourself for the time being?”
I shake my head, unable to come up with a plausible explanation. I really hate when people use my own words against me. Now I have to backtrack without sounding like a boy-crazy flake. When it comes to guys, I have a terrible track record. My relationships inevitably tank. And I end up hopping from one guy to another. This thing with Brayden makes me look like I’m reverting back to old patterns of behavior.
“What can I say?” It’s almost painful to force out the next words. They taste like bitter ashes on my tongue. “When the right one comes along, you just know it.”