Page 10 of My Fake Date With My Childhood Friend (Port Lane Romances #3)
five
The rest of the day felt like a sequence of romantic comedy scenes. At lunch, Alexander waited for me outside my class, and we walked down to the cafeteria together. Just like with my books that morning, he insisted on carrying my lunch tray for me, even though he had to carry his own too.
“You're my girlfriend,” Alexander said. “It's only right.”
“I can carry it myself,” I insisted. I tried to grab the red tray back from him, but he swerved away. I laughed a little as I tried again. “Alexander, you're going to drop both of our lunches! We'll have to wait in line all over again. Is that what you want?”
Alexander just shook his head and started walking towards his table. “You forget that I'm not as clumsy as you.”
“Hey!” I was tempted to shove him, but I wasn't willing to risk my food like that, so I let it slide just this once.
As we approached his usual table, it seemed pretty full. Eight people were already sitting at the table, which was generally meant for six.
“Uh, Alexander?” I asked. “Are you sure there's enough space for us?”
“Hm?” He followed my gaze. “Oh, yeah, don't worry. We always find space.”
“Penn!” Liv jumped up from her spot at the table and rushed over to give me a hug. I was so surprised that I barely managed to stay upright as she barrelled into me.
“Hey, Liv,” I said. She was practically pinning my arms to the side in the way she was hugging me.
I awkwardly patted her back with my limited range of motion, unsure of how else to react.
I appreciated that she was being so nice to me as her friend's girlfriend, but this seemed excessive.
Then again, I'd never had many friends. Maybe this was normal.
Liv pulled away, smiling widely at me, then looked at my empty hands in concern.
“Where's your food?” She asked. She grabbed my upper arms in a vice-grip. “Have you not gotten it yet? Do you need me to wait in line with you? I know how annoying it is to have to wait alone and?—”
“It's fine,” I said. I felt bad for interrupting, but I got the idea that she could keep talking forever if I didn't say anything.
It was surprising since I'd never heard her ramble before this, but I guess she was the kind of person to talk a lot around her friends, but not in class.
It wasn't exactly like we'd spoken outside of school before. “Alexander has my tray.”
Her head whipped around so fast that she must have gotten whiplash. I was just glad her hair was short enough that it didn't fully smack me in the face. Behind her, Alexander was just putting the trays down and fist-bumping his best friend, Kyle.
“He is so sweet!” Liv squealed. She turned back toward me. “You are the luckiest girl in the world, Penn! I thought Alexander would never date again after everything that happened with Janet, but here you are!”
She looked like she was about to tackle me in a bone-crushing hug again, but Alexander interrupted us before it could happen.
“Hey Penny, get over here!” he called.
“Oh, right, you have to meet everyone!” Liv said. She grabbed my wrist and pulled me towards them.
“Penny, you know Kyle, right?” Alexander asked. “He was in our English class last year.”
“Yep,” I said. “We got to play Romeo and Juliet together in our class play in ninth grade too.”
“Oh, yes,” Kyle said with a big sigh. “That was fun.”
“Right,” Alexander said. “Well, do you know everyone else here?”
I glanced around the table quickly. I didn't know any of his friends personally, but I knew their names and I figured that was enough for the time being. A couple of them were even old acquaintances, but we stopped talking when I got ostracized after my break-up.
“Yeah,” I said. It didn't matter much if I got to know them, anyway. In fact, maybe it was better if I didn't get to know them super well; it was easier to trick somebody if they weren't close friends with you.
“Perfect.” He turned towards the table and got their attention. “Everyone — this is my girlfriend, Penny.”
The whole table went so quiet that you could hear a pin drop, and they all stared at me. I looked from Alexander to Liv and back again. I wasn't sure what they were waiting for me to do. It felt like there was supposed to be some sort of protocol or something that I was missing.
“Um, hi,” I said softly. The only sound that came out of my mouth was a pathetic squeak.
Everyone at the table was staring at us, waiting for something to happen.
I could tell they were expecting something from me, but I didn't know what it was.
I wanted to say something else, but couldn't think of anything.
Luckily, the silence was finally broken with a sharp screech of a chair as the girl directly across from me scraped it back across the floor.
She rose halfway and stuck her hand out to me.
“So, this is the famous Penny,” she said. I reached out and shook her hand awkwardly. Her grip was a lot harder than I expected. “I'm Wendy. I've heard a lot about you.”
“You... have?” I asked, tilting my head. Alexander and I had only decided on this plan the other day. Why would she have heard about me? There wasn't enough time for him to have started talking about me that much.
“Of course,” her sidekick, Kenzie, piped up. “You're Alexander's family friend, right?”
“Yeah,” I said, still not understanding what was going on.
“We've been wanting to meet you for months,” Wendy said. “It's such a shame that we never got the chance before now.”
I couldn't believe it. All these people were interested in me, and I didn't even know it. It made me feel kind of... special.
“Well, now you have,” Liv said. She linked her arm through mine and grinned at me. “We're going to have so much fun together.”
“It's nice to meet you all,” I said, finally finding my voice.
The entire table started talking at once, asking me about my life, what I did, and where I was from.
It felt amazing to be surrounded by so many people who cared about me and wanted to know everything about me.
It felt good for people to talk to me again.
Nobody was looking at me like, Oh, Penny, the poor girl who didn’t know she was being cheated on.
I was starting to think that maybe this was what it was like to have friends.