Page 16 of My Fake Relationship With the Popular Boy (Port Lane Romances #1)

ten

The next day, the teachers made us meet in the lobby at nine a.m. The meeting seemed pretty useless to me, though, because all they told us was that we were free to explore the city again until four o’clock, when we had to reconvene to get ready for dinner.

Like the day before, Madison and I immediately gravitated toward each other, then met up with Sabrina, Jaxon, and Eli.

“Does anybody else feel like the teachers are just giving us free time so they don’t have to actually chaperone?” Eli asked.

“Yeah, but do you really care?” Madison asked. “Would you prefer to spend all day with the whole class and our teachers?”

Eli shook his head. “Definitely not.”

“Is there anything you guys want to do?” I asked. Nobody responded. I guessed that everyone, like me, kind of assumed the teachers would plan activities for us to do while we were here and therefore hadn’t looked up stuff to do in the city.

“We could just walk around and explore,” Eli said. “Maybe do some shopping.”

“That sounds good to me,” Madison said. Everyone else nodded along as well.

“All right, let’s go!” Jaxon exclaimed. He grabbed my hand and pulled me outside.

“Jaxon!” I laughed, as I struggled to keep up. Once we were on the sidewalk, he suddenly stopped.

“By the way, I love your…” He frowned and tilted his head as he studied my clothes. “What’s it called?”

I laughed. “It’s a romper.”

It was a white and blue romper with spaghetti straps and pretty short shorts — even on non-uniform days, I couldn’t get away with wearing this at school, so I had to take advantage of the times I did get to wear it.

I was actually pretty proud of the outfit I’d put together — I paired it with a pair of flip flop sandals, a small purse, and a pair of sunglasses resting on my flaming red hair.

Jaxon held me at arm length to get a better look at the outfit, then whistled.

“My girlfriend is hot .” He laughed and shook his head.

I flushed bright red and tilted my chin down, trying to hide the smile that was blooming on my face.

I had no idea why I liked hearing him say that so much.

I knew Jaxon thought I was cute — he did ask me out every day for four years, after all — but he didn’t say it like that very often; in front of me and like he really meant it.

Jaxon twirled me then pulled me back close. I easily fell against him, as he threw his arm around my shoulders and pressed his lips to the top of my head, sending shivers down my spine.

When he first approached me about this fake relationship, I had been a little worried that we wouldn’t be able to make it believable, but Jaxon was really putting his all into it. Honestly, I hadn’t expected him to take this whole ruse so seriously.

Eli smiled fondly. “You two are so cute.”

Sabrina grabbed Eli’s arm and put it around her shoulders. “Eli, do something sweet,” she demanded.

“Uh…” Eli stared at his girlfriend in confusion.

“Come on, we can’t be less cute than Jaxon ,” Sabrina said forcefully.

Eli shook his head with a laugh but then kissed the top of Sabrina’s head.

“Sorry, dear,” he said softly.

Jaxon and I shared a knowing look. Sabrina and Eli had gotten together almost a year ago, to nobody’s surprise. I was actually more surprised it hadn’t happened sooner. But the dynamic they had was always a little funny to watch from the outside.

Madison rolled her eyes. “Great,” she bemoaned. “I get to be the one single friend in the group now.”

“Sorry,” I said, ready to push Jaxon away at a moment’s notice. “Too much PDA? We can stop.”

I hated to use my friend’s annoyance to my benefit, but I saw my chance and took it.

“No,” Madison said loftily. “I understand that you’re all in the honeymoon phase. I’ll just suffer alone, in silence.”

I laughed. Madison loved a good melodramatic moment. Still, I didn’t want her to feel uncomfortable, especially because of a relationship I couldn’t care less about.

“Tell me if you change your mind.”

Madison smiled gratefully at me. “Thanks.”

“So where do you guys want to…” The words died on my lips as I heard a voice up ahead that sent a shiver down my spine. I froze in place, too scared to even look.

“Violet?” Jaxon asked. “Are you okay?”

“I…” I stared at his concerned face for a moment. “I just… I thought I heard Lewis.”

“You did,” Sabrina said darkly. Jaxon frowned at her, but she just raised an eyebrow and pointed up the street. Against my better judgement, I looked.

Lewis was standing outside a convenience store with Rob, another boy in our grade — a boy I happened to hate quite a bit and I had been under the impression Lewis hated as well.

Jaxon let go of my shoulders. Despite the warm weather, I felt a little cold without him by my side.

“Stay here,” he said, his voice hard. I’d never heard that tone from him. “Sabrina and I will deal with it.”

The two of them walked off before I could respond. I was tempted to follow them just to spite Jaxon for thinking he could tell me what to do, but my need to stay away from Lewis overpowered that desire, so I hung back with Eli and Madison.

“Since when is Lewis friends with Rob Halt?” Madison asked.

I shook my head, pressing my lips together to stop myself from crying.

“I have no idea,” I choked out. Gosh, I hated that I gave Lewis this much power over my emotions.

As Jaxon and Sabrina got closer to the boys, Lewis sneered at them.

“The hell are you looking at, Stone Face?” Jaxon yelled.

Stone Face . I wasn’t sure where the nickname originated or what it was supposed to mean, but Lewis’s bullies had been using it since we were kids and Jaxon had adopted use of it when we got to high school.

I used to hate that nickname, but after everything that happened between us, I thought it was fitting. He deserved it.

I backed away a little as Lewis responded to Jaxon and looked at a store across the street, trying to tune out what they were saying.

I didn’t want to have to listen to Lewis right now.

I appreciated Jaxon jumping in to defend me but part of me wished that we just kept walking without giving him the light of day.

Though, knowing Lewis, he would have just followed after us.

“Are you okay?” Eli murmured to me. I nodded but didn’t say anything. I didn’t trust my voice not to shake again.

“Violet!” Lewis yelled. Against my better judgement, I looked at him. My hair forward, blocking his view of my face, which I thought was for the best. “God, look at you. You?—”

“No, you don’t get to talk to her!” Jaxon shouted, cutting him off. He put himself between me and Lewis, while I wrapped my arms around my stomach, feeling oddly violated by Lewis’s words. “You don’t get to say a single thing to her. You don’t even get to look in her direction!”

“What, she needs her boyfriend to defend her?” Lewis said snidely.

“Don’t be jealous just because she didn’t want you.”

Lewis looked at me over Jaxon’s shoulder. My stomach turned at the look in his eyes.

“You know, Jaxon bet me years ago that he was going to get with you first,” Lewis said, his voice almost devoid of any emotion. His eyebrows pulled together a little as he studied me. “He doesn’t view you as his girlfriend. Just a trophy to be won.”

I felt gutted by his words. Even though I knew it was true, I couldn’t believe Lewis would just throw it in my face like that out of… jealousy. Where was the boy I’d been best friends with for so many years?

“Get out of here before I beat your ass, Stone.”

Lewis sneered again. “I’d like to see you try.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Jaxon’s hand to start to curl into a fist. Nope, that was where I was drawing the line today. I jumped forward and grabbed Jaxon’s arm.

“Don’t do it, Jaxon,” I whispered. “He’s not worth it.”

Sure, it was strong words coming from someone who got into fights almost monthly, but I didn’t want Jaxon to get in a fight over me. Jaxon’s hand flexed, then grabbed mine. I thought I might have convinced him to back off but all he did was pull me hard behind him.

With every passing second, I was becoming more worried that this was going to devolve into a physical fight.

Though, I had to admit, it was better that it happened here, where we were essentially unsupervised, than at school.

The teachers would question the bruises, sure, but there were plenty of lies we could tell to get out of that.

It was always funny to witness Jaxon tell his absurd stories to get out of trouble.

I was sure that if he and Lewis did fight, he would come up with some ludicrous story of how they conveniently got all these bruises.

The teachers definitely wouldn’t believe him, but it would be difficult to give out detentions without proof — not to mention how little time there as left in the school year.

The sound of a phone ringing cut through the air. At first I thought it was Jaxon’s phone, which would have been surprising since all of his closest friends were with us, but then I saw Rob pull his phone out of his pocket and turn away as he talked to the person on the other side.

“Jaxon,” I begged again. His head turned a fraction towards me, but his eyes remained on Lewis.

Rob turned back towards us and hit Lewis lightly on the arm. He tilted the phone away from his mouth and quietly said, “Come on, let’s go.”

Lewis didn’t move, which actually surprised me a lot.

Lewis had never had much of a backbone at all, especially when it came to the likes of people more powerful than him.

Rob was practically the top of the food chain at our school and if Lewis was spending time with him, I would have expected him to fall to Rob’s will.

“Lewis,” Rob said sharply. “Let’s go.”

Lewis took a big breath and took a couple steps back. “Yeah. Okay.”