Chapter 4 #2
“What?” Mayte and I yell at the same time.
“Aw!” Claire swoons.
Janko puts his arm around Leo and she leans into him. “It’s only been going on for, like, a week, but we wanted to wait to tell you all until after Mayte and Auggie went on their date so they wouldn’t feel any weird pressure.”
“And even though you guys have been all hush-hush about the date, I assume at least one of you would’ve told us if it was an absolute shit show, so it had to have gone at least okay, right?” Janko wriggles his eyebrows.
I turn to Mayte. “You haven’t, um, said anything?”
She doesn’t look at me. “No. You haven’t either?”
“No,” I say. “I assumed you would’ve—”
“Well, I didn’t.”
“I saw the way you got all red when you saw him,” Leo says to Mayte. “Spill.”
Mayte looks at me and I can tell she’s trying to communicate something, but I have no idea what it is. Then she looks back at Leo. “Fine. But let’s go get some beers or something first. Drink and spill,” she says.
She’s going to give me up. While I’m sitting right here.
“Fine,” I say. Two can play at this game. “Give me a sec.” I jump up from my seat and run out the door to my car. Then I come back in and toss the yellow hat Mayte tried to pay me with at her. “By the way, you left this.”
If looks could kill.
“You have a fake?” she asks me through her teeth.
“Like a fake ID?”
“What else would I mean?”
“No, I don’t.”
Mayte nods at Leo and Claire. “Why don’t you guys go warm up the car while I look for my ID and I’ll meet you out there.” She turns to me. “And you can stay here till we get back.”
“Why can’t—” I start.
“Because,” Mayte says. “Because we’re all going to go, and you’re going to stay here.”
Leo, Claire, and Janko walk silently and awkwardly to the door. “Man, I’d stay,” Janko whispers to me. “But I don’t want to make them pay.”
“Whatever,” I say. “It’s fine.”
Once the three of them have gone out to the car, Mayte shuts the door and locks it behind them. “You didn’t have to do that,” she says.
“Do what?” I ask.
“Throw the hat at me.”
I lean back in my chair. “Well, if you’re going to tell them everything, then I’m going to tell my side too.”
“I’m not going to tell them, stupid. I’m giving us some time to come up with a cover that works for both of us.
” She grabs her phone. “Can’t find ID,” she says aloud as she types.
“Just go without me.” She puts her phone down and sits at the table with me.
“If they’re going to be dating, we’re going to have to somehow hide the fact that we can’t stand each other without causing them to think that we’re into each other. ”
“You can’t stand me?” I ask. “Pretty harsh.”
“Well, you can’t stand me,” she says.
“Touché.”
She rolls her eyes. “So, what’s the plan? How do we make them believe we feel exactly neutral about each other?”
I shrug. “Can’t we just tell them it didn’t work out?”
“No, because then Claire and Leo are going to ask me all kinds of questions. The goal is no questions asked, no answers given. You and I in the same room without constant glaring at each other.”
“Hopefully they just break up,” I say. “High school romances aren’t real anyway.”
“Oh, because you’ve been in a whole ton of them, I bet.”
“And how many have you been in?” I ask.
“Well, I can’t imagine Leo’s going to break up with him anytime soon. And obviously my prim—cousin is literally the world’s biggest catch, so it’s not like he’ll be doing the breaking up.”
I sit forward in my seat. “No one breaks up with Janko. If Leo’s the world’s biggest catch, then Janko’s the universe’s biggest catch.”
“What are you, seven?” Mayte asks. “What if they don’t break up? What if we have to spend the rest of senior year together? What if we have to see each other after high school? What if we have to walk down the aisle together at their wedding?”
“What are you, a walking existential crisis?” I ask.
She ignores me. “Here’s my idea. We tell them we had a good time, but we both realized we’re not in the place for a romantic relationship and decided we’re going to be friends. We kissed. We laughed. We drank milkshakes. You never slut-shamed me, and I never offered you a hat.”
“I didn’t slut-shame you,” I say.
“Well, we leave out everything about the hat,” she says. “Deal?”
“Am I a good kisser?” I ask, smirking.
Her face goes red, but she recovers quickly. “Only if I am.”
“Deal,” I say, reaching to shake her hand. She doesn’t reach back out. “We’re both good kissers, you didn’t try to pay me for sexual favors with a hat, and now we’re friends.”
She nods and then we’re silent. I’m staring down at my phone and she’s doing the same.
To be fair, I feel like it could only help my reputation for a rumor to go around that I’ve kissed Mayte.
Goodbye, Pool Puker; hello, Casanova. I look up at her for a moment.
She pushes a strand of hair behind her ear.
Never have I looked at a girl so beautiful and been so relieved that nothing will ever happen with her.
And also a tiny bit disappointed.
She looks up at me and I look away too quickly. “You know, Auggie,” she says. “You are the worst person I’ve ever met.”
“Right back at you,” I say.
Or maybe not that disappointed.
“I guess that’s the last insult I get to give you,” she says. “Our fake friendship is about to start.”
I look her in the eye. “I am never this forward, but you are the most melodramatic person I’ve ever met.
” Then I reach my hand out to shake hers again.
This time she holds my eye contact and returns the handshake.
I try with all my might to ignore the warmth that spreads through my body as our hands touch. “Let’s do this, fake friend.”