Page 6 of My Fake Date With My Childhood Friend (Port Lane Romances #3)

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“So let me get this straight...” Alexander said slowly. “You want me to be your date to the formal?”

He didn’t sound convinced, and I couldn't blame him.

The whole plan sounded insane when it was said out loud.

But Alexander was probably the only guy I knew who would agree to this — and it wasn't like I had many other options.

Besides the fact that there wasn't exactly a lineup of guys waiting to take me to the formal, Alexander would be the perfect date.

Everybody would be envious. He was kind, funny, and, most importantly, a showman.

Most girls in school were crushing on him, but he was single and didn't date much.

He'd only ever had one girlfriend, and he hadn't dated anyone since she broke his heart a few months ago.

“Relax, it’s not a real date—everyone else just needs to think it is. It’s totally fake,” I replied in reassurance.

Alexander sank onto my bed. I'd thought ahead and decided to tell him to come over to my house for me to ask the favour so nobody at school would hear.

I didn't need this getting around school.

I was even a little worried asking him, on the off chance he told anybody else, but I'd shaken that feeling off quickly.

Even if we had never been very close, I'd known Alexander for years, and I knew he wouldn't sell me out.

“Well, I guess it's not a terrible idea...” He said slowly.

“Please, please do this for me,” I begged. I clasped my hands together in front of my chest. “I already told everyone that I have a date to the formal. And you know how terrible it's been at school for me — everything Nikki and Joseph did. I just need everyone to stop talking about me.”

“Penny…”

I could hear it in his voice that he was going to say no. That he thought this was a stupid idea that would never work. He was probably right, but if we didn’t try, I was definitely screwed. So, I tried a new tactic.

“It's fine,” I said melodramatically. “I’ll just go alone after I already said I had a date. I would be made fun of by all the kids, not to mention my ex and ex-best friend. Then I would definitely have to transfer schools because I wouldn’t be able to show my face again and?—”

“Okay, okay, fine,” he interrupted. He sighed deeply. “I’ll do it.”

Alexander was a lot of things, but he had a conscience. He definitely felt bad if I became ostracized in school. More ostracized than I already was, that is.

“But Penny, you need to think about how this might look,” he added.

I tilted my head. “What do you mean?”

It would look like I had a date to the formal, and that was all that mattered to me.

“If we just go to the formal together and then don’t do anything outside that, people won’t believe that it was really a date,” he said. “Or worse yet, they’ll think you can’t hold on to a boyfriend.”

I guess I hadn’t thought the plan through as much as I should have.

He was right that people would get suspicious, especially if we went back to near radio silence after the formal.

People would be focused on how things had ended and think our relationship was a failure before it even started, which would be much worse than the alternative.

“So, what do you think we should do then?” I asked. “It’s not like we can pretend to date.”

He stared at me, unblinking. “Why not?”

I recoiled. “What?”

“Think about it, Penny.” He leaned forward with a grin on his face.

“The formal isn’t until the second last day of school, so we’ll just pretend to date until then.

It’ll make us going to the dance together seem more normal.

Plus, then everyone will be gossiping about your new relationship instead of everything with Joseph. ”

That sounded like a plan. Everyone would be jealous; they would think I had bagged a handsome boyfriend, and then, after a couple of weeks, we would amicably split, with my dignity resorted to.

“But when we break up, everyone will be focused on that, and we’ll be back right where we started.”

There was no way the break-up would stay off the radar of the kids in school. They would definitely think I got dumped — or cheated on again. And even if Alexander was more popular than me, he wasn't immune to their gossip.

“Not if we break up amicably without any drama. Everyone’s looking for hot gossip, like someone being cheated on, not ‘Oh, we broke up because we never have time to see each other’.” He shrugged. “It’s too boring.”

I wasn't entirely sure if that was true, but considering how infrequently people gossiped about him, I figured he probably knew what he was talking about.

After all, Alexander was always in the good graces of everyone in school.

He had a great reputation, so he definitely was an expert at winning their hearts.

“But why do you want to do this?” I asked. “I mean, what do you get from it?”

Alexander blushed and looked away. “To be honest, my whole family has been pressuring me to get a girlfriend for a while, and it’s getting a little annoying. Not to mention the guys on the team. I’m hoping this will get them off my back.”

I could sympathize with that. I loved Alexander’s parents, but they could definitely be pretty pushy sometimes.

And I knew from experience that a break-up was a good way of getting people to stop asking you about your love life.

I just hoped that this time, it wouldn’t make people start talking about my lack of love life.

“All right,” I said. “Let's do it.”

Alexander nodded and looked around. “So... I guess we should come up with ground rules for the relationship.”

“Right,” I said. I got up from my bed and grabbed my backpack. I pulled out the same notebook I'd been writing in earlier and opened up to a fresh page. In bold letters, I wrote Rules for Penny and Alexander.

I immediately wrote the first rule: We will end when we get back from Christmas break. I turned the notebook towards Alexander so he could read it.

“Good?” I asked.

“Good,” he said.

“How do we feel about kissing?” I asked. “Or any physical contact?”

Alexander thought for a minute.

“It might be necessary sometimes,” he said, “So it shouldn't be off-limits completely. But we'll only do it when we're around people and need to convince them that we're together.”

I nodded and wrote it down. I wouldn’t want something as precious as a kiss to be fake; I wanted something real when it came down to the physical, not something to please the school.

Not to mention, I wasn't used to physical contact with a guy anymore.

He was right that it would be needed sometimes to convince people, but I was happy for it to only be occasional.

“We should also eat lunch every day,” Alexander said. “All couples do that.”

I wasn't about to say no to that — I was getting a little tired of my solitary lunches, especially when I had to look at Nikki and Joseph.

“Perfect,” I said, adding that to the list. “And obviously, we're going to the formal together.”

I loved imagining the shocked faces of everyone seeing me with Alexander. The way Joseph would be forced to realize that I'd moved on and found someone almost just as quickly as him. Maybe then, I could finally get the smug smirk off his face.

“Don't forget social media posts,” Alexander said with a grin. “We can post on Instagram with those cheesy captions like 'I was yours from the moment I met you.”

“Ugh,” I muttered, but I wrote it down all the same. Even when I had a boyfriend, I wasn’t a fan of sharing a couple of posts with cheesy captions. I found it utterly cringey. “Tell me you don't actually like those posts, Alexander.”

“Of course not,” he said. “But I do always laugh when I see them.”

“My little love bug, you are my everything, my ride or die,” I said in a false high voice.

Alexander laughed. “Gosh, tell me that's not one that you've actually seen.”

“I wish I could tell you no,” I sighed. Unfortunately, Nikki was one of those people that actually liked making posts like that, and she had done it all the time with her old boyfriend. She was probably doing it with Joseph too, but I had long since blocked her.

As we were laughing, my doorknob twisted, and my mom walked in, a plate of brownies in her hand.

“Hey, Penny, I was—” She paused in surprise. “Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize you had a guest! How are you, Alexander?”

“Hi, Mrs. Owen,” Alexander said politely.

“Oh please, call me Janet,” she said. “I’ve known you since you were a baby. Anyhow, I was just bringing some brownies up for Penny. I'll just leave them here.”

She put the plate down on my desk and then wandered closer to us, her arms clasped behind her back.

I pulled a blanket over the notebook page as casually as possible so she couldn't see what it was.

I doubted that she would understand what it was, but I didn't want to deal with the awkward conversation that would ensue if she read the title.

I didn't even know what I would say — because there was no way I was admitting to my mom that I was getting a guy to pretend to date me to shove it in the face of everyone who was gossiping about me at school.

I hadn't even told her about what had happened between Joseph and me, other than that we broke up.

“So, what project are you two working on?” Mom asked inquisitively. “Something for school?”

“Yes,” Alexander replied confidently. “It's a project for psychology. About social experiments.”

Nice one, Alexander. The social experiment was a good way to put it without outright lying. I just nodded along with him. I'd never been any good at lying, especially to my mom, so letting him take the lead was easier.

Mom smiled. “Okay, well, you kids have fun,” she said. She walked back to the door and pointedly closed it only halfway. “Penny, the door stays open.”

“Yes, ma'am,” I said. Once she walked off, I looked at Alexander appraisingly. “Nice job.”