Chapter 11
It was silly to feel like Luke meant it when he said there was no one he'd rather be with.
It was even sillier to feel like she meant it when she said she was keeping him.
But Sabrina had never felt so sure of herself as she did just then, all nestled up against Luke's side and laughing with her college friends.
This wasn't the time to talk about it. The whole weekend wasn't the time to talk about it. They needed to get back to Virtue, get back to their daily lives, and maybe see whether fake dating could turn into real dating. If Luke was even interested in that, which he might not be.
Which was obviously not the absolute worst thing that could happen in the entire universe, but for a heartbeat or two, Sabrina felt like it was.
Fortunately, before she could get too emotional about it, they got back to their hotel and everybody piled out of the minivans to check the time and stand around in the parking garage discussing whether lunch or naps were more important.
After about ten minutes of that, Sabrina, decisively, said, "I am going to go take a nap.
The rest of you can do whatever you want, but I'm guessing there'll be enough dinner tonight to justify skipping lunch.
Except for maybe you," she said to Luke, who ducked his head with embarrassment.
"I'll probably snack," he admitted. "But I'll save my appetite for dinner."
"I've used all my calories losing a padderbee race," Craig announced. "I'm going with Luke to find food."
"Fine." Mindy threw her hands in the air. "Boys go get food, girls go get naps? Or are any of you starving?"
"Girls go get naps," Keana agreed firmly. "Boys better be awake and charming and functional for the rehearsal dinner, or else."
"I would literally not dare otherwise," Cole said, and after he stole a kiss from her that set off a cascade of boys kissing girls, they split up, though Luke lingered a moment, looking into Sabrina's eyes as if making sure the stolen kiss was still within the boundaries of fake boyfriending.
She smiled and stood on her toes to steal the kiss herself, and he left with a smile.
The moment the Boys were gone, the Girls surrounded Sabrina, expressions bright and greedy. "What was that?" Gina demanded.
Sabrina felt herself blushing. "What was what?"
"That look," Jan said breathlessly. "I thought you were going to burst into flames. The heat! My God! I can't believe you didn't just drag him off to bed!"
"Chemistry in action," Keana agreed. "He kind of seems like a keeper, Sabs."
"Oh." Sabrina put her hands over her hot cheeks. "I didn't know it looked that…intense." It certainly shouldn't have. All they'd been doing was making sure they were on the same page before kissing. But apparently from the outside it had looked—
"Intense? I've seen dozens of romcoms where the leads didn't have that much intensity, Sabrina, I mean, God. You're really into him, aren't you?" Mindy put her arm through Sabrina's and got them walking to the elevators. "Pretty hot stuff for a guy who doesn't exist."
Sabrina pulled back to eye her. "What, you think he's the manifestation of my incredibly powerful imagination? I promise if my imagination was that strong I wouldn't have been losing padderbees all these years. I'd have just conjured up a hot guy to win them for me."
"Well, obviously he's real now," Mindy said. "I just didn't think he was, before. You wouldn't show us any pictures of him or anything."
"Again," Keana said as they filled the elevator, "I didn't introduce Cole for a year. You ladies are a lot."
"Yeah, but c'mon, we all said she'd made him up."
Sabrina, both guilty and angry, snapped, "Yes, you're right. I did make him up. And then I just happened to meet an incredibly hot guy two days ago and convinced him to come to Las Vegas with me."
The burst of laughter filled the elevator, and a moment later they all poured out onto their floor. "That was the luckiest meeting of your life, then," Jan said through her laughter. "Nobody is that lucky."
Sabrina, having told the complete truth—well, maybe not the complete truth, since Emmy had convinced Luke to come along, but at least most of the truth—managed a smile. "I guess I am."
Mindy bumped her shoulder against Sabrina's and smiled. "Guess we're going to have to start calling you Lucky Charm, then, or something. I'm glad you've met somebody, Sabs. Sorry for being weird about it."
Sabrina mumbled, "I mean, I don't blame you for thinking I'd invented him," and found herself at the center of a group hug that left her feeling even guiltier. Once they let her go, everybody went to their own rooms, and Sabrina again collapsed on the bed, still fully dressed.
It would all work out, she thought. Either she and Luke would somehow actually get together, or they'd break up and she'd tell The Girls after a while.
She didn't have to ever confess to the truth, either way.
Even if technically she just had, and nobody had believed her.
That wasn't her fault. She couldn't be blamed if the truth sounded totally unbelievable.
Heroines in fake dating romantic comedy movies didn't seem to have this level of guilt over the fake dating thing. Sabrina was going to have to watch a few of them and pick up some pointers. Right after a nap.
The rehearsal dinner was at seven. Sabrina set her phone alarm for five, pulled a pillow over her head, and went to sleep.
She was very vaguely aware, some time later, that another weight settled on the bed, but aside from noticing that she was now warmer and cozier, she didn't think anything of it until the alarm went off and she reached over, fumbling around until she turned it off and settled back into the warmth.
The warmth eventually sighed, stirring her hair, and mumbled, "How much trouble would we be in if we just slept through the rehearsal dinner?"
It was somehow only then that she realized she was nestled up against Luke, a pillow tucked under her head and his arm across her ribs.
She had never actually slept comfortably in someone's arms before, and mostly regarded it as a logistic impossibility: somebody's arm was going to go to sleep, generally speaking.
Except Luke was so big that his arm was up there above her head somewhere, propped on a pillow but not awkwardly beneath her head or ribs or anything.
There was plenty of room for her pillow, so she didn't have a crick in her neck from sleeping with her head at a weird angle.
And she was so cozy warm. Cozy enough that she groaned and mumbled, "Probably friendship-ending levels of trouble? Which seems worth it?" back.
Luke didn't laugh out loud, but his silent chuckle shook the whole bed. "No, so far they seem to like me. I'd like to keep that going as long as possible."
Sabrina nearly whined, "But comfy," then grimaced at her own tone.
Luke breathed, "Yeah," into her hair and tucked her closer. "My alarm is set for five-thirty…"
"Ninety minutes is enough time to get ready, right?
" Sabrina didn't care if it wasn't. She was so comfortable, and however long she'd been asleep hadn't been long enough.
Although maybe no amount of time would be long enough to be curled into a snuggle with Luke Jones.
She was pretty sure she could stay there forever.
Luke made another agreeable sound in her hair, and a little to Sabrina's surprise, she fell back asleep.
Or she must have, because it felt like all she did was close her eyes and then his alarm was going off.
They both groaned this time, and Luke rolled away decisively, like if he didn't move immediately he never would.
Sabrina immediately rolled over, put her arm over him, and tucked her nose against his ribs. "Donwanna."
"Me either." He yawned, then chuckled again, another of those silent bed-shaking laughs.
If he could shake the bed just with his laugh, Sabrina could hardly imagine how he'd rock it if they actually—wait, Luke was saying something. "What?"
"I said, but I don't think you could stop me from getting out of bed. You're very small."
Sabrina still didn't want to get up, but between her own thoughts about him rocking it, and the idea that leaped to mind about how she could, in fact, prevent him from getting out of bed himself—well, she was wide awake all of a sudden, anyway.
She didn't quite trust herself to say or do anything, but hoo boy, was she awake.
After several frozen seconds, she cleared her throat and rasped, "Good things come in small packages, they say.
I'm gonna…I'm gonna shower again. Lake water. "
That made enough sense to her that she got up and hurried to the shower, although once she was in it, she realized she'd forgotten to grab her dinner clothes on the way.
This whole fake dating thing was much more inconvenient on a practical level than she'd imagined, but at least she was out of the one bed she was sharing with Luke.
Aloud, although not loudly, she said, "What was I thinking," and put her face into the water until she hoped all her dirty thoughts were washed away.
When she came out again, Luke looked up with a brief smile, then politely glanced away. "I'll grab a shower myself, while you get dressed?"
"Sounds like a plan. And I can hide in the bathroom while you get dressed, then."
"This is harder on a logistical level than I was thinking," Luke admitted as he headed for the bathroom, though he stopped when Sabrina laughed out loud.
"Sorry, go ahead. It's just that was exactly what I thought while I was in the shower. I know we're adults, we can probably get dressed and undressed in the same room with each other without the world coming to an end, but I feel like we're trying to be extra-polite."
Luke smiled on his way into the bathroom. "To be fair, in our culture we don't usually get undressed in front of people we've only known a couple of days."