Page 16 of Date Knight (Roll for Romance #2)

I sat down in one of the two empty chairs they’d pulled up, and Phil reached down to grab two of the legs, pulling it so forcefully towards him that it made a loud scrape against the floor, until my side was pressed fully to his.

Chloe and I exchanged a wide-eyed look– apparently she was just as giddy as I was over the whole thing, if not more so.

But even with the physical contact– and Phil did initiate a surprising amount of it, mostly casually like an arm on the back of my chair– I felt surprisingly at ease.

Despite their initial uproar, the group was acting…

well, normal. Like Phil and me being together was already old news.

And whilst my pride was a little hurt that they didn’t want every sordid detail of our supposed love affair, it did feel nice to know that they were comfortable enough with it to just accept it as canon with no real question.

Our team– Presti-quiz-itation, named by my very hilarious and not at all cringey boyfriend after a D I’d been thinking of what to contribute to our fictional history.

He’d have to hide his screen well, but Morgan was staring out the window, presumably trying to dissociate, and Fatima seemed thoroughly engrossed in her Broadway debut.

AMY

Daily Phamy lore drop #5: we’ve watched every single Meg Ryan film together in my attempt to educate you on non-Christmas rom-coms.

PHIL

Hey, initiating the lore drops are my job! What if I already had one ready?

AMY

Go on then, what are you waiting for?

PHIL

Daily Phamy lore drop #5: we’ve watched every single Meg Ryan film together in your attempt to educate me on non-Christmas rom-coms.

AMY

Wow, my favourite one yet.

PHIL

What’s your contribution then? Come on, I can’t do all the heavy lifting here.

AMY

You cried at the end of When Harry Met Sally.

PHIL

Well obviously. Again, I’m only human.

But so did you.

AMY

I always do.

A few hours later, I was slogging along the trail, remembering acutely why I hated camping, and we hadn’t even made it to the site yet.

My boots were so covered in mud that it was starting to soak through my socks– how was it so muddy when it hadn’t rained in weeks?

My backpack was so heavy with my tent, chair, and everything else that I was sure I was sinking twice as far into the sodden ground as I otherwise would.

Jack kept apologising for not realising the trail was so muddy, but I wasn’t mad at him.

Not for that. For wanting this bullshit for a birthday celebration?

Sure. For having a hot best friend that I was so obsessed with growing up that I jumped at the chance to be his fake girlfriend, resulting in being on this cursed trip to begin with?

Sure, I could find a way to make that his fault.

But he was carrying all the food and booze for the weekend in his backpack, so I couldn’t really complain.

But once we got to the camping spot, a sheltered area at the edge of a disused reservoir, I started to get it.

The ground was dry here, so once I got my sandals on, it was actually really nice.

Phil and I set up our tents close together because that felt like an obviously couply thing to do, and the tent was much easier to set up than I’d remembered.

Then we sat in our camp chairs and watched everyone else together.

Phil was clearly having a great time; I could see his smile, even behind his beard.

“You gonna keep that?” I asked, lifting my hand to touch it, but deciding that was too intimate and bailing at the last second.

He brought his own hands to his face and rubbed the beard self-consciously.

“What, you don’t like it?” He looked genuinely distressed by the thought.

“I didn’t say that.” It was the closest I could get to “actually it makes you somehow even hotter than you’ve always been” without shrivelling up in shame.

“I knew it,” he said, stretching his legs out and looping his fingers together behind his head. “The beard does it for you.”

“I also didn’t say that .” I’d very intentionally chosen not to say that, thank you very much.

Once everyone had set up camp and Jack had managed to get a small campfire going, we all dragged our chairs around it and got out our dice and character sheets. Fatima handed me the extra set of hers I’d used last time.

“We’ll have to get you your own set,” Phil said as he settled in next to me.