Chapter 11 #3
He counts off on his fingers.
“One, people stop pitying you.”
“I do not need pity management.”
“Clearly.”
I ignore that.
“Two,” he goes on, “everybody loves a rebound arc.”
“I am not having a rebound arc.”
“Fine. A revenge arc.”
That actually gives me pause.
He sees it and smiles like a man who enjoys watching doors crack open.
“Three,” he says, “you make Vale twitch.”
I straighten.
“I do not care if Tristan twitches.”
“Sure.”
“I don’t.”
He leans down slightly, lowering his voice just enough to make the moment feel conspiratorial.
“But you care if the whole campus stops acting like you’re the sad girl in the background.”
That lands.
Clean.
Annoyingly clean.
Because yes.
I do care about that.
I care about not being looked at like a cautionary tale.
I care about walking into a room without people softening their mouths in sympathy.
I care about being Isa Calloway again instead of the almost-girl who got edged out by a better love story.
Drew sees me thinking and presses his advantage immediately.
“Also,” he adds, “I’m fun and you’ll be amazed what I can do with a can of whipped cream. Besides, I was drunk and hurt you walked out on me after my stellar performance. So… there’s that.”
I look him up and down.
“No. You’re a walking human head injury.”
He puts a hand over his heart.
“You know exactly how to flirt with me.”
“I am not flirting with you.”
“Okay. If this is how you wanna foreplay. I’m down…”
My eyes narrow to slits.
He grins wider.
God, he’s unbearable.
Big.
Loud.
Ball-hogging.
Confident like the world has never once failed to bounce in his favor.
Exactly the kind of man I should avoid.
Exactly the kind of man who, at this particular moment, is not looking at me with pity.
Just interest.
Just challenge.
Just the kind of maddening male certainty that says he has already decided this is a good idea and is merely waiting for me to catch up.
“What’s in it for you?” I ask.
There.
That’s the real question.
Because no man that big and smug and campus-visible offers fake dating to a girl fresh off public heartbreak just out of civic duty.
He doesn’t even blink.
“You.”
I roll my eyes so hard it almost strains something.
“That is the worst answer in the world.”
“It’s still true.”
“Try again.”
He shifts his jaw once, like maybe this is the first time today someone has made him work for a sentence.
Then—“You’re interesting when you’re mad. You tasted like sweet cream and I’m addicted to you when you speak to me in dirty broken up Spanish.”
“Honest.” I shrug, pretending my heart rate is still normal.
He keeps going.
“And I think maybe if I can’t date you for reals—fake dating you might help me get over whatever this is.”
My mouth falls open a little in spite of myself.
Not because that’s smooth.
It isn’t.
Because he says it like a fact.
Not a line.
Not a tactic.
Just a deeply Drew observation he sees no reason to pretty up.
I recover enough to say, “That was somehow worse and better at the same time.”
He smiles.
“Story of my life.”
I should walk away.
I know I should.
Tell him no.
Tell him to go fake date a mirror.
Tell him I would rather be publicly pitied forever than voluntarily become part of whatever giant football-player scheme he’s building in that suspiciously underused brain.
Instead I hear myself ask, “And what exactly would fake dating you involve?”
His whole face changes.
Victory.
Warm and immediate.
Not smug.
Worse.
Pleased.
“Well,” he says, like we’re discussing a joint business venture, “you’d have to stop looking at me like I personally invented mosquitoes.”
“No promises.”
“Some public lunches. A couple games. Maybe let me walk you places so people stop offering you emotional casseroles with their eyes.”
I bite back a laugh and fail.
He notices.
Of course.
“And,” he adds, “sleepovers at my place. Netflix and chill. A few Instagram selfies of the two of us….public hand holding.”
I look at him for one long second.
Because beneath all the dumb jock swagger and the giant shoulders and the outrageous audacity of kissing the corner of my mouth in the middle of campus like a caveman with a strategy, there it is.
The actual offer.
A way out.
Not from heartbreak, exactly.
Nothing gets you out of that except time and ego reconstruction and maybe excellent mascara.
But a way out of humiliation.
A way to change the story before it calcifies around me.
He waits.
No push.
No fake charm offensive.
Just that big body planted in front of me and those steady eyes saying he’s serious.
Infuriating.
I exhale slowly.
“You are a terrible idea.”
His grin flashes like sunlight off a helmet.
“Absolutely.”
I point at him.
“That is not persuasive.”
“It’s honest.”
There’s that word again.
The last few days have been disgusting with honesty.
Maybe that’s why I don’t immediately run.
I shift my bag higher on my shoulder and give him my most skeptical pageant-queen death stare.
“I’m not saying yes.”
“Yet.”
“I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.”
I narrow my eyes harder.
He starts walking backward, still facing me, still grinning like the overgrown menace he is.
“Think about it, Texas.”
I should let him go.
Instead I call after him, “If I say yes, you are never calling me ‘baby’ again.”
He keeps walking.
“Deal.”
A beat.
Then, over his shoulder, “Sweetheart.”
I actually laugh.
I hate that I do.
I hate even more that when I start walking again, the ache in my chest feels different.
Still there.
But no longer like the whole story.
And somewhere behind me, because the universe apparently enjoys theatrical timing, I hear Drew shout to one of his teammates:
“Tell everybody I’m busy. I’m negotiating.”
I keep walking without turning around.
But I’m smiling.
Just a little.
Which, under the circumstances, feels like the beginning of something dangerous.