Chapter 13 #3
Something quieter.
“You want to break up with me on New Year’s Eve?”
“Yes.”
“That’s cold.”
“It’s practical.”
“It’s theatrical.”
“That too.” I reached for another fry, because apparently I had given up pretending I was above them. “People will talk for a few days, maybe a week. Then spring semester starts and they’ll move on. New classes. New games. New gossip. Clean break.”
Drew looked down at his plate, his thumb running along the edge of the basket. For a heartbeat, he did not look like the campus menace who had kissed me in front of half the athletic department. He looked like a man who had been handed a date for something he had not realized would end.
Which was ridiculous.
This was fake.
It had to end.
That was the whole point.
“New Year’s Eve,” he said finally.
I nodded. “Non-negotiable.”
His gaze came back to mine. “Fine.”
The word should have made me feel better.
It did not.
Then, as if sensing he had let the moment become too honest, Drew reached across the table again and stole one of my fries. “But for the record, breaking up with me at midnight is diabolical.”
“I never said midnight.”
“Now you have to. Anything less is lazy storytelling.”
“Fine. Midnight.”
He shook his head slowly, like I had wounded him. “After I give you the best fake boyfriend holiday season of your life.”
“Best and only.”
“We’ll see.”
“No, we won’t.”
He smiled, but his eyes stayed too sharp. “Keep telling yourself that, Texas.”
My phone buzzed on the table before I could answer.
Mom.
I stared at the screen until it went dark.
Drew saw. Of course he saw. “You gonna answer?”
“No.”
“You’ve been not answering her a lot.”
“She has been saying things I don’t want to hear a lot.”
His expression shifted, the playful edge dulling. “About Vale?”
“About everything.” I turned my phone face down. “About how I embarrassed myself. About how I should have tried harder. About how girls like me don’t get unlimited chances to marry up.”
Drew’s jaw moved once.
I did not know why I said the next part. Maybe because the rules made this feel safer. Maybe because fake dating gave us permission to tell each other real things as long as we pretended they were strategy.
“She doesn’t want me happy,” I said quietly.
“She wants me settled. Protected. Polished. Chosen by the right kind of man, in case my father’s investments don’t work out.
Or he trades her in. Whatever comes first. Do you know why I’m an only child…
? She didn’t want more stretch marks on her body or to “ruin” it again growing a human. ”
Drew’s face changed in a way I could not read.
Then he leaned forward, forearms on the table, and said, “And what kind of man am I?
The question should have been easy.
Loud. Cocky. Impossible. Football famous. Dangerous in corners. Built like a problem. A man who ate three cheeseburgers like a competitive sport and made my pulse trip over itself with one thumb on my wrist.
But underneath all that, I knew what he was really asking.
Was he the rebound?
The weapon?
The public answer to private humiliation?
I looked at him, and for once, I did not know how to make my face smooth enough to hide behind.
“You’re the kind of man who makes everything harder,” I said.
His mouth tilted, but the smile did not fully land. “That the best you got?”
“For now.”
“Good.” He sat back. “I like a challenge.”
“Of course you do.”
“Speaking of challenges,” he said, too casually, “Thanksgiving is coming next month.”
I narrowed my eyes. “That transition was suspicious.”
“My dad wants me home.”
“Congratulations?”
“He also wants me to bring you.”
The fry stopped halfway to my mouth.
“He already knows about me?”
“Yep. But I left out the ‘fake’ part when saying I had a girl.”
Drew watched me carefully now, the humor still there but thinner around the edges. “He saw the training room thing. Or someone sent it to him. Doesn’t matter. He thinks you’re good optics.”
“Good optics,” I repeated.
His mouth hardened. “Freshman soccer star. Texas debutante. Smart. Pretty. Checks all the boxes. Unlike the girl I brought home last year.”
There it was again.
The fake dating contract shifting under my feet; parents who looked at their children and saw strategies.
I should have said no immediately.
Instead, I looked at Drew across the table, at the football-star swagger and the guarded eyes beneath it, and realized he had not asked because he wanted to show me off.
He had asked because some part of him needed backup.
And maybe that was the most dangerous rule of all.
Because pretending to be wanted was one thing.
Being needed was another.
I set my fry down slowly. “So what, Travers? You need me to play quality girlfriend for your father?”
His smile came back, but it was rougher now.
“Yeah, Calloway,” he said. “Think you can handle that?”
I should have remembered my own rule.
No falling in love.
Instead, I lifted my chin, gave him my prettiest smile, and lied like a girl who had been trained for crowns, cameras, and family warfare since birth.
“Baby,” I said, “I was born for that.”