Chapter 15 #2
I have to make this day special for her.
Not only because she deserves it, but because I want to.
I want to make this the most memorable day for her so when she inevitably moves on and dates someone else—for real—they won’t ever compare to what she had with me. Fake or not.
But what can I put together in such little time that will withstand whatever grand plan future bastards would put together?
“So, I was thinking,” she says, shaking me from my mental breakdown.
I glance over at her. “Yeah?”
Her bright eyes hold me captive far longer than they should. You know, since I’m currently driving. “I do that sometimes, you know?”
“What?” I ask confused.
She giggles. “Think. I was thinking about Valentine’s Day.”
Good God, can she read my mind?
“Oh,” I say, a slight hitch in my voice.
Her eyebrows flatten as she watches me. “Yeah. I was thinking it might be the perfect opportunity to hard launch our relationship.”
“Hard launch?”
She backhands my arm playfully. “You know.”
“Uh, do I?”
She’s silent for a moment and I look back over to see her staring at me in shock. “You really do hate social media, don’t you?”
“Sunshine, I hate to tell you this—”
“Since it’s my livelihood!”
“Since I know you love all things social media,” I say pointedly. “But, I am not big into all the ‘look at me and what I had for breakfast’ or ‘I’m putting a blue filter on this picture because I’m a little sad.’”
“Social media is so much more than that and you know it.”
“I’m sorry. I’m not on the inner circle of all things Instagram.”
“Then it’s a good thing you have me, isn’t it?”
Pulling to a stop at a red light, I look over at her and the corner of my lips tips up. “Yeah, I guess it is.”
She smiles softly at me before shifting in her seat so she faces me fully.
“Okay, so a hard launch is essentially a post on social media where we basically announce that we are together. Some people do this through a short video of the two of them, others just simply post a picture of them together or of their boyfriend slash girlfriend.”
I nod, pressing on the gas when the light turns green. “Okay, I’m following.”
“Well, I was thinking that maybe a Valentine’s Day post could be the perfect opportunity for us to do something similar. I thought we could go with the picture idea.”
“Okay, and what do we do in the picture? Smile? Hug? I’ve never been in a relationship before so I don’t know the protocol for this kind of thing.”
Her jaw drops. “You’ve never been in a relationship? Like ever?” I shake my head. “Wha–how? You’re like forty!”
I jerk my head in her direction. “Excuse you. I’m not fucking forty. Take a decade off of that number please.”
“That doesn’t really help your case any more than it would if you actually were forty.”
“Can you stop saying ‘forty?’ I still have nine years until I have to have a crisis thinking about it.”
“Fine, but seriously? You’ve never had a girlfriend before?”
I shift in my seat as I pull onto our street. “Never met someone I wanted to take that step with.” No one I actually wanted, that is.
“Okay. Well, I guess we will be experiencing a lot of firsts throughout this then, won’t we?” she jokes but I choke on my next breath.
“So.” She draws the word out. “What do you think? Picture together or we just post one of each other?”
I put the car in park and twist so I’m facing her fully. “What do you want?”
She hesitates, nibbling on her bottom lip. “Well, I think a picture of us together—”
“Let’s do it.”
“Probably kissing—wait, what?”
“What?” We jolt forward as I accidentally slam on the brakes when I pull into my driveway.
She looks at me with wide eyes. “What?”
“Did you say kiss?”
“Did you agree to it?”
“I—”
“We don’t—”
“Uh.” We stammer talking over the other and I raise my hand and pinch the bridge of my nose. “I probably should have let you finish talking.”
“I know we talked about the whole kissing part of this arrangement already. And this falls into those parameters, so I just thought—”
“Okay. Yeah. We can kiss.”
“Are you sure? I don’t want to make you do anything you aren’t comfortable with. Open communication, remember?”
I’ve wanted to kiss you for years.
“I’m fine with it. Are you okay?”
“Mhm.” She bobs her head quickly. “Do you, I don’t know, want to practice?”
My head jerks back. “I know how to kiss.”
She rolls her eyes. “I meant with us. We’ve never kissed before and I don’t want it to be a situation where we both go in and our foreheads bump or we misjudge where the other is and I end up kissing your nose or something.” A laugh bursts out of me and she pouts. “It’s not that funny.”
I rub my hand over my mouth and shake my head. “That won’t happen.”
“Well now that I can’t stop thinking about it, it might.”
“Sydney, it won’t. We can practice if it makes you more comfortable, but I think we should also just see how it goes. After our date—”
She perks up. “Date?”
I smirk. “Yeah, sunshine. Date. It’s Valentine’s Day after all.”
“You know you don’t have to do anything right? This”—she gestures between us—“isn’t real. We can just post the photo and call it a night.”
I shake my head. “Nope. You’re being treated to a genuine Valentine’s Day date. I won’t have it any other way.”
She nibbles on her bottom lip. “Are you sure?”
I lean against the center console, bringing my face inches from hers. “Sydney Collins, will you please do me the honor of being my valentine?”
A stifled giggle bursts out of her and she slowly bobs her head. “Yeah,” she whispers. “I’d love to be your valentine, Lawson Moore.”
I pull away before I do something stupid like prove to her our first kiss will be anything but awkward. While I might not kiss her now, I will eventually have to if we are really going to sell this relationship.
But I refuse to let it be because of practicing to fool the world.
If I’m ever going to kiss Sydney Collins, it’s not going to be for show. It’s going to be for her… and for me.