Page 17 of My Fake Relationship With the Popular Boy (Port Lane Romances #1)

There was the Lewis I knew. He glared at us one more time, taking a second to look at me specifically, before he followed Rob down the street. Jaxon kept standing where he was, his body between me and Lewis, until the two boys turned at the end of the street.

“Are you okay?” Jaxon asked. He spun around the face me and put his hands on my upper arms, looking me up and down. I took a deep, rattling breath. I didn’t want Jaxon to know how much seeing Lewis like that actually shook me up.

“I’m fine,” I said. I tried to smile convincingly but it was clear that he didn’t believe me. I couldn’t stand looking into his intense gaze, so I looked at the ground beside me and wrapped my hands around my stomach, hugging myself. “Really.”

“Are you sure?” Jaxon moved his head, trying to catch my gaze, but I pointedly looked away.

“Yes,” I said. “Absolutely.”

Jaxon’s hands tightened a little on my arms.

“No, you’re not,” he said.

“Jaxon...”

He dropped his arms and straightened.

“I’m buying you ice cream,” he declared. “That’s your favourite dessert, right?”

“Yes…” I said slowly. I didn’t remember ever mentioning it to him. “But… how did you know that?”

Unsurprisingly, Jaxon ignored my comment.

“I’ll be back in a second.” He brushed past me and grabbed Sabrina by her hair, pulling her away from her make-out session with Eli. He dragged her a couple of doors down the street to a brightly-coloured ice cream shop.

“O…kay,” I said slowly. Figuring I might as well sit down while I waited, I moved over to the bench on the edge of the sidewalk.

It was a metal bench painted yellow with a plaque on it that said FRIENDSHIP BENCH.

It was fitting then that as soon as I took my spot in the middle, Eli and Madison sat down on either side of me.

“Are you okay?” Madison asked. She put her hand on my thigh and squeezed. “And I mean really. Not whatever BS line you fed to Jaxon.”

“Why doesn’t anyone believe me when I say I’m fine?” I asked in exasperation. Granted, it wasn’t true, but I wished they would just listen to what I was saying at face value. There was a reason I was saying it.

“Because the things that Lewis said were pretty awful,” Madison said softly.

Sometimes I wanted to tell Madison what it was that Lewis had said to me that ruined our friendship.

Over the past couple of weeks, I’d been close to doing it numerous times but it was almost impossible for me to get the words out.

But if she thought what he had just said was bad, she would be horrified at what he had said before.

“Yeah, well…” I crossed one of my legs over the other and stared at the clothing store across the street.

It looked like a fancy clothing store, maybe like the one where I’d buy a prom dress if I could afford it.

That juts reminded me of why I was in this situation in the first place. “It’s not like I didn’t know.”

What made me angry, beyond Lewis using something like to hurt me, was that he was acting like he was innocent in all of this.

As though Jaxon betting on getting into a relationship with me was wrong but what Lewis had done was all right, which was absolutely not the case.

They were both awful for doing what they did, but at least Jaxon had the decency to admit it.

“Regardless, that’s definitely not why Jaxon is with you now,” Eli said. “He doesn’t care about the bet anymore. Not really.”

I frowned. What did Eli mean by that? Jaxon obviously still strongly cared about winning against Lewis — that was why he suggested the fake relationship in the first place. We wouldn’t be doing this otherwise.

“I mean, he really likes you,” Eli continued. “He talks about you all the time.”

Right. Eli didn’t know about the fake relationship.

Gosh, I needed to stop forgetting that everyone actually thought I was dating Jaxon Andrews or one of these days, I was going accidentally say that we weren’t in a relationship.

Or worse yet, I would tell someone we were just faking it, which would obviously ruin the whole plan and probably cause Jaxon to kill me.

I smiled at Eli. “I know. Trust me, I don’t put much stock into what Lewis Stone thinks of me.”

It was a partial lie. I didn’t really care about Lew’s opinion but I did care about what he had said when we argued a couple of weeks ago because that hadn’t just been about what he thought.

He’d said that my mom was right about everything she said about me before she left — and that was my deepest fear and insecurity.

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised he was willing to tell me about the bet like that; he had done worse.

Jaxon and Sabrina reappeared a minute later.

Each of them were carrying an ice cream cone in one hand.

Jaxon made a beeline for me and handed me the cone.

I felt a little guilty for letting him buy it for me, but I tried to reassure myself by thinking that it helped with the fake relationship.

Any decent real boyfriend would do the same in this situation.

“I got you two scoops: chocolate brownie on the bottom and mint chocolate chip on top. And sprinkles, of course.” He rubbed a hand on the back of his neck as he looked at me a little sheepishly.

In fact, he looked a little shy. It wasn’t an expression I was used to seeing on him.

I couldn’t believe I was thinking this but he actually looked a little…

cute. “I wasn’t which flavours you liked but I remembered us getting into an argument after I said mint tasted like toothpaste, so I figured you probably liked it if you got that heated about it. ”

I blushed a little. I remembered that argument clearly.

It was about a year ago in the cafeteria.

I’d heard Jaxon complaining to Eli about how the school never had good ice cream flavours and I had to jump in because there had been mint chip for weeks and that was the best flavour ever.

Jaxon had said that mint chip ice cream tasted like toothpaste.

I’d argued that it didn’t taste like my toothpaste.

He, of course, then asked me what kind of toothpaste I used and I had smiled cheekily and said cinnamon.

“The flavours are perfect,” I said. “Thank you. You didn’t have to do it.”

“Anything for you, my love,” he said with a grand smile. I couldn’t help but giggle.

I figured the ice cream Sabrina was holding was for herself but she handed it to Eli, who looked at her in confusion.

“I figured you’d want one once you saw Violet’s,” she explained.

Eli laughed and pecked her on the lips. “You know me so well.”

“What, no thought to get me one?” Madison asked drily.

“Well, if you had a boyfriend, Madison…” Jaxon said teasingly.

“What, a boyfriend like you?” Madison asked, raising her eyebrows. “Yeah, I’d rather die, thanks.”

“Such kind words for the boy your best friend loves,” Jaxon said, putting a hand to his heart. Instead of sounding upset, though, he actually sounded a little happy. “And I think you’ll be changing your tune pretty soon.”

“And why’s that?” Madison tilted her head, her blonde hair falling over her shoulders.

Jaxon smirked and pulled his right arm out from where he had been hiding it behind him. In his hand was another bowl from the ice cream shop.

“I didn’t know what flavour your wanted either so I just got you chocolate,” he said as he handed her the bowl. Madison immediately dug in. “I felt like it was a safe bet.”

“To be clear, though, he didn’t put nearly as much effort into deciding that one,” Sabrina added.

“Come on, let’s keep walking.” Jaxon held his hand out to me. When I grabbed it, he pulled me to my feet. We continued walking the direction we’d been going earlier, luckily turning a different way than Rob and Lewis had just gone. If I never ran into them again, it would be too soon.

Jaxon didn’t let go of my hand, so I didn’t let go either.

We let our arms swing between us. I was a little self-conscious about even that amount of PDA where everyone could see us, but I knew it was good for convincing everyone.

Jaxon was right that it was good for everyone to believe us, even the people in our class that we never talked to.

After a minute, I glanced behind us. Madison, Sabrina and Eli were walking a few feet behind us, all looking at something on Sabrina’s phone. I doubted they were paying any attention to us so I took advantage of the moment.

“Hey, can I ask you something?” I asked.

“Of course.”

I paused as I thought of the best way to phrase my question.

“Why do you hate Lewis so much?” I asked. “Like, where did your rivalry begin?”

Jaxon pursed his lips. “Anything but that,” he said.

“Seriously, Jaxon,” I said. I squinted a little as I looked up at his face. I did have sunglasses on my head but they were there more as a fashion piece than to be used. “You hate him so much that you’re doing all this to get back at him. There must be a reason.”

Jaxon shrugged. “I don’t remember where it started. I guess it’s just always been that way.”

“Please tell me,” I begged. I shook his arm a little. “I’ve always wondered. From my point of view as his friend… it seemed like you just came into our lives and hated him for no reason.”

He sighed deeply and stared forward. I pulled away a little. Clearly this was something he didn’t want to talk about. Although that honestly just made me more curious as to what could have happened, I wouldn’t push the matter if he didn’t want me to.

“It’s not really my story to tell,” he said after a minute of silence.

I wasn’t sure what exactly he meant by that but I respected him not wanting to tell me so I whispered, “I understand.”

He shook his head. “No, you deserve the story. I just won’t get into specifics, okay?”

“You don’t need to?—”