Chapter 18
lilah
“I am not bringing lingerie,” I said flatly.
Poppy looked up from my duffle bag with the most dramatic gasp I’d ever heard. “Who said anything about lingerie?”
“You were holding my silk cami like you were about to fold it into the bag.”
“That’s just… layering!” she protested, pressing a hand to her chest like she was deeply offended. “And besides, if you and Tino end up sharing a room—”
“We’re not sharing a room,” I cut in.
“—you’ll thank me when you’re not wearing your ripped sweatpants from freshman year.”
I groaned and yanked the cami out of her hand. “For the last time, we’re not sharing a room.”
Poppy arched an eyebrow. “Do you know that? Did you ask?”
“No, but—”
She gasped again. “Lilah! You’re walking into a whole weekend trip with your fake boyfriend and you didn’t confirm the sleeping arrangements?”
“It’s not a romantic getaway, it’s an award show for my brother,” I said, stuffing clothes into the duffle bag harder than necessary. “We’re staying with Luca, not at a hotel. I’m sure there are separate rooms—you’ve seen the house. There are, like, a million extra rooms.”
“You know, I’m surprised at you, Lilah,” she said. “I mean, you pushed so hard for me and Bear to get together, and you want to be a matchmaker, yet you can’t see what’s right in front of you.”
I raised my eyebrows and stared at her. “Which is?”
“That you and Tino are totally in love with each other.”
I laughed. Well, more like I yelled “Ha!” right in her face.
Poppy just sighed. “You know I’m right.”
“You know as well as I do that Tino and I would kill each other if we were really together,” I said, ignoring the small flutter in my chest as I said the words.
The idea of anything being real between Tino and me should have disgusted me.
Half the reason I agreed to this fake relationship was to prove to him just how incompatible we were—I was just getting mixed up from the way he was acting as my fake boyfriend.
I was sure he wouldn’t be nearly as good as a real boyfriend, right?
“I think you’re in denial,” Poppy said.
“You’re out of your mind. Now can we talk about anything else?”
“Fine,” Poppy said, flopping onto her stomach and propping her chin on her hands. “So, you’ve got your dress for the award show, right?”
“Yes.”
“Let me see it.”
“No.”
She made an exaggerated gasp. “Why not?”
“Because every time I show you something, you start adding accessories and talking about Tino’s reaction.”
“Fine,” she said, unbothered. “Describe it then. I’ll imagine it.”
I sighed but gave in. “It’s long and blue.”
Poppy made a face. “You are really bad at this. But anyway, hear me out—you could do something with your hair that says ‘I’m pretending not to be in love with my fake boyfriend.’”
“Poppy,” I said in warning.
“What? I’m being supportive!”
I zipped the bag shut before she could sneak anything else in, then checked my phone. Tino had texted me ten minutes ago.
Tino
Packing done. I’ll be over in the next 30 mins
Poppy noticed my smile and pounced immediately. “Who’s that?”
“Tino.”
Her grin widened. “You smiled.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“You totally did.”
I gave up trying to argue and sat down on the bed beside her. “Are you done psychoanalyzing my fake relationship?”
“Almost,” she said cheerfully. “Do you want my travel-sized perfume?”
“No.”
“Because it’s the one that makes people fall in love with you.”
This was clearly revenge for how much I annoyed her when I was trying to convince her to get with Bear, but in my defense, the two of them had been made for each other. It was a completely different situation than the one I was in with Tino.
Luckily, I was saved from needing to answer that by a knock on the door. I walked to the door, stopping only for a moment to check how my hair was looking in the mirror before I opened it. I chose to ignore Poppy’s smirk that I saw in the reflection.
Tino stood in the doorway, tall and freshly showered, wearing a gray hoodie and dark jeans and the kind of effortless smirk that made it very hard to remember he wasn’t my real boyfriend. His hair was still damp at the ends, curling slightly over his forehead.
“Hey,” he said, in that low, easy voice. “You ready?”
Behind me, Poppy made a sound that was somewhere between a squeal and a cough. I gave her a look sharp enough to cut glass.
“Yeah,” I said quickly. “Just finishing up.”
Tino glanced past me at the duffle bag on the floor. “Is that it?”
“Uh, yeah.”
He nodded, stepped inside, and—without hesitation—grabbed the handle.
“Wait, I can—” I started, but he was already slinging the bag over one shoulder like it weighed nothing.
“Got it,” he said simply.
Poppy’s eyes were darting between us like she was watching a live episode of her favorite show. “Wow,” she said faintly. “Chivalry isn’t dead.”
Tino grinned at her. “Some of us were raised right.”
“Good luck this weekend,” Poppy said in a singsong voice. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!”
“Goodbye, Poppy.”
Tino laughed under his breath as we stepped into the hallway. “She’s subtle.”
We made our way down the hall together. His stride was unhurried, casual, like this was the most normal thing in the world—him carrying my duffle bag, walking beside me through the quiet dorms.
“Whose car is that?” I asked as he led the way toward a dark green sedan that definitely wasn’t his.
“Mako’s,” he said. “He doesn’t drive much but his parents like for him to have a car here, so I managed to convince him to let me use it for the weekend.”
He stopped by the trunk and set my duffle bag down gently, brushing his hands off. “I haven’t driven in a while,” he admitted, glancing at the car like he was still getting used to the idea.
I raised an eyebrow. “That’s comforting.”
He smirked. “Don’t worry, I’ve still got it.”
“You ‘still’ have it? When was the last time you drove?”
He opened the trunk. “Sometime over the summer. Maybe Canada Day?”
I crossed my arms. “So, you’re telling me you haven’t driven in five months, and now you’re taking me on a three-hour road trip?”
He grinned. “You scared?”
“No.”
“Liar.”
I glared at him, but he just looked amused. The worst part was he knew I wasn’t actually worried about the driving. I was worried about being stuck in a car with him for three hours. Alone. With no friends to deflect the teasing or rescue me from my own thoughts.
“I’m just thinking about how if you crash, I’m haunting you.”
He opened the passenger door for me, smirking. “Deal.”
The tiny gesture—holding the door open—shouldn’t have mattered. It was nothing. Just Tino being polite. But something about it made my chest tighten anyway.
I climbed in, and he leaned down slightly, resting one hand on the roof. “You comfy?”
“Mh-hmm.”
For a second, we just looked at each other—me sitting there with my heart doing something unreasonable, him with that easy confidence that always made it hard to tell if he knew exactly what effect he had on people.
Then he closed the door, walked around to the driver’s side, and slid in.
As he started the car, I looked out the window, trying to focus on the familiar shapes of the campus instead of the fact that everything about this weekend suddenly felt… charged. Maybe he was right about this being like a romantic getaway after all.
What a terrifying thought.
In minutes, the campus disappeared behind us in a blur of stone and iron gates, the familiar buildings shrinking until Hartwell was nothing more than a shape in the distance.
Tino drove with one hand on the wheel, relaxed in a way that felt almost unfair given how many rules it felt like we were breaking by going on a weekend away together.
It made me wonder exactly how he felt about this trip—if he’d been thinking that it was falling dangerously into “real couple” territory too or if this all felt so natural to him.
Was I making it weirder than I should be?
I stared out the window, chewing on my lip to stop myself from blurting out something I would regret by asking him his feelings.
I wasn’t sure why I cared so much. I was the one who was supposed to be so calm and casual about all of this.
I was the matchmaker for my friends, the one who could take one look at a boy and tell them if they were meant to be together.
And yet when it came to myself, I was practically melting into a puddle trying to figure out what was going on with Tino and me—when I’d spent years insisting there could be nothing.
“So,” he said, after a few minutes. “If we want to survive this trip without murdering each other, there are some decisions we need to make.”
“Such as?”
“Who controls the music, for one,” he said. I drew in a deep breath, ready to fight for why I should be the one to choose the playlist, then deflated as he said, “I figure you should.”
I blinked. “What?”
“You hate my playlists,” he said. “And I don’t feel like listening to you sigh aggressively every time a song comes on.”
“Well, yeah, because your taste in music is terrible. I just thought you’d insist on playing it anyway.”
“The music I listen to is experimental,” he sniffed. “You just don’t understand.”
“It was a man whisper-singing about a pigeon.”
Tino grinned. “Art is subjective.”
“I’m really not sure it could be considered art.”
“That’s like saying a hot dog isn’t a sandwich.”
My mind spun trying to keep up with how his mind had gone from point A to point B there, but I absentmindedly responded, “Good, because it’s not.”
Tino looked at me with such a flabbergasted expression that you would have thought I said the earth was flat.
“What?” he asked.
“Look at the road!” I snapped.
He did as I asked but repeated, “You don’t think a hot dog is a sandwich?”
“So?”
He sighed and shook his head. “It’s like I’m looking at a stranger.”