Page 20 of My Fake Relationship With the Popular Boy (Port Lane Romances #1)
twelve
“Thanks for going through with the kiss like that,” Jaxon said once we got back to our room. “I’m sure it wasn’t all that fun for you.”
I was glad I was walking in front of him; he didn’t see the blush that covered my face as I remembered the kiss. I shut my eyes tightly and tried to think of anything else to get my face back to normal. Once I was sure I wasn’t bright red anymore, I grinned at him over my shoulder.
“What?” I asked teasingly. “Was it that bad kissing me?”
Jaxon groaned. “Don’t tease me, Evers.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said with a wink.
He snorted. “Sure you don’t.”
Jaxon kicked off his shoes and threw himself on the bed. He stretched and groaned again.
“I want to sleep for ten years,” he said.
“Me too,” I murmured. I laid down next to him, still fully clothed and over the covers.
I knew it was probably a bad idea to lay down before getting ready for bed because it would be hard to convince myself to stand up again, but I couldn’t help it.
I turned my head to look at him, my fiery red hair spreading out over the pillow, and watched him for a minute.
His eyes were closed and he looked so peaceful. I felt bad for bothering him.
“Hey, Jaxon?” I whispered.
With his eyes still closed, he murmured back, “Yeah?”
“I had a really good time today.”
He hummed. “I’m glad.”
I sighed and let my eyes drift closed. I couldn’t fall asleep yet. I still had to get changed into those… horribly inappropriate pyjamas and… okay, maybe falling asleep fully clothed was actually the better option after all.
“We can’t fall asleep yet,” Jaxon mumbled as if he read my mind.
“I know,” I mumbled back. My face was smashed into the pillow, muffling my voice a little. “But it’s so hard to care.”
“Mh-hm.”
I forced my eyes open again. “Hey Jaxon… would you really have fought Lewis if it came down to it?”
There was a beat of silence. “Yeah. Probably.”
I wasn’t surprised by the response. I’d seen the anger in his eyes that afternoon.
“Honestly, I’m surprised I’ve never heard of the two of you fighting before this.”
“Trust me, there were many times I wanted to,” he said. He rubbed a hand over his face. “So many times.”
I rolled onto my side and propped my head up with my hand. “Why didn’t you do it, then?”
“Because of you,” he said simply.
“I feel like you’re using me as a reason a lot today.”
“Well, to be fair, they’re related issues.
” He finally opened his eyes again, blinking at the harsh hotel lighting.
He rolled onto his side to face me. Our faces were inches apart, reminding me of all the photos we had taken that day.
I wasn’t sure how to feel about that. “You and Lewis were friends and I knew you wouldn’t like me fighting him, so I didn’t. ”
“But… you and I were never friends before this,” I said, waggling my finger between us. “So why did you care what I thought?”
He grinned. “You’re forgetting that I practically worshipped the ground you walked on in the ninth grade.”
I rolled my eyes. Sure, he was into me but not to that extent.
“I’m sure that’s an extreme exaggeration of your feelings toward me, Andrews,” I said. “But still, that doesn’t explain everything — you said you’re not into me anymore, so what changed?”
Jaxon shrugged. “It still just didn’t sit right. Even if you and I weren’t friends, I didn’t want to hurt you by fighting your best friend.”
“So what was different today then?” I asked. I traced a circle on the bedsheet with my finger. “After years of restraint, why were you suddenly so willing to fight him?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Jaxon asked. I frowned. Did he mean that because we were “dating” he should suddenly be willing to fight for me?
I shook my head slightly. “No.”
Jaxon frowned. “You and Lewis aren’t friends anymore. I didn’t think you’d be very angry if I punched him.”
“Oh,” I said. “Right.”
He was right. That should have been obvious.
“Hey, can I ask you a question?” Jaxon asked.
“Yeah,” I said. It was only fair given how much I’d asked him today.
“What happened between you and Lewis?” he asked. “Like, why do you suddenly hate him now?”
I was a little surprised by the question, but I supposed I had no real reason to be.
My first instinct was to just say the same thing I’d been telling everyone: Lewis and I had a bad fight and I couldn’t forgive him for the things he said, but I faltered.
It was technically true, but it left a lot of detail out.
Jaxon had shared a lot with me today and it was only fair that I reciprocated.
Besides, it would be nice to finally confide in somebody.
“I…” I couldn’t stand looking at him while I told him this story. His eyes looked oddly kind, much kinder than they ever had before. It was unnatural. I rolled on my back again and stared at the ceiling. “It’s a long story.”
“I’ve got time,” Jaxon said easily. “And I always love a good bedtime story.”
“I’m afraid this isn’t one of those stories,” I said. “It doesn’t exactly have a happy ending.”
“Good thing I like tragedies.”
I huffed a laugh. “Well, this sure is one of those.” I licked my lips as I thought about where to begin. “It all started a couple weeks ago when Lewis and I got into a fight.”
“The one that made you skip class that fateful day?” Jaxon asked. He smiled goofily at me, probably remembering the kiss from the common room.
I shook my head. “This was earlier than that. He got mad at me about something… something so stupid that I can’t even remember what it was. I thought we just needed some space from each other and it would all blow over, but instead, the next time I tried to talk to him, he was even angrier.”
“And that was the day of the big fight?” Jaxon asked.
“Indeed it was.” I swallowed thickly, a lump in my throat. It was hard to get these words out after bottling them up for the past two weeks. “He ended up screaming at me that… he said that my mom was right.”
I paused, needing a minute before I said his words aloud.
It hurt to remember him saying it, but it hurt even more to remember my mom screaming it.
She might have apologized and I might have said that I forgave her, but it didn’t undo the damage.
Besides, she up and left my life a year later, so it wasn’t like she’d really taken the words back.
“You don’t have to tell me,” Jaxon whispered. “I didn’t mean to pry.”
I shook my head. A pressure was building up behind my eyes as I tried to keep the tears at bay.
“No,” I said. I hated how obvious it was in my voice that I was trying not to cry. “He said that my mom was right when she said that I was unloveable and that everyone would be happier if I didn’t exist.”
There was pure silence for a couple of beats. For a second, I was worried that Jaxon had fallen asleep or something. But then he broke it in a more dangerous than I had ever heard from — all he said was, “I’ll kill him.”
I shook my head forcefully. I couldn’t bring myself to talk. That wasn’t what I wanted. I didn’t want to send Jaxon on some mission to get revenge against Lewis for me.
“Why the hell did you stop me from fighting him today?” Jaxon asked. “He deserved it. More than deserved it.”
“Don’t say that, Jaxon,” I said hoarsely.
“I mean it.”
“Lewis isn’t worth it,” I said. “Besides… he was only repeating what my mom already believed.”
Jaxon fell silent again. Then he exhaled loudly and reached over to grab my right shoulder. I wasn’t sure what he was doing until he pulled me towards him, making me lie on my side again, facing him.
“Yes?” I whispered for a lack of something better to say. He tightened his grip on my shoulder so much that it hurt a little, but I didn’t say anything.
“I need to you to listen to me,” he said intensely. He stared me dead in the eyes. “Are you listening to me?”
I had no idea where this was going but I said, “Of course.”
“You,” he shook my shoulder slightly, “are in no way unloveable, Violet Evers.”
I grinned wryly. “Oh yeah? Then why is the only relationship I’ve ever had a fake one?”
Jaxon let go of my shoulder to tuck some stray hair behind my ear. My skin tingled as his hand brushed over it.
“Because you know your worth,” he whispered. “You know that nobody at Bayshore… nobody in the world… is good enough for you.”