Page 21 of My Fake Relationship With the Popular Boy (Port Lane Romances #1)

thirteen

As Jaxon and I walked down to breakfast the next morning, I felt like something had changed between us.

Not because Jaxon was acting any differently, mind you.

On the contrary, he seemed as normal as could be.

But I felt like now that I had seen this other side to him, I could see him in a whole new light.

I’d realized before this that I had severely misjudged him over the past few years, but this went beyond that.

It was one thing to recognize someone was a good person generally and a whole other thing for them to be that good to you.

The hotel had a free breakfast set up in a buffet style so we both just grabbed a plate and filled it to the brim with food.

Jaxon’s plate looked so much healthier than mine that I felt pressured into grabbing some fruit, though all I really wanted to eat were some croissants.

Once we got everything we wanted, we walked over to a corner table, where Eli and Sabrina were already eating.

As was often the case, the two of them looked like complete opposites, but for a different reason than most days.

Eli looked the same as one might expect, dressed and ready for the day.

Sabrina, on the other hand, looked as though she had just rolled out of bed and straight downstairs.

Her hair was still a total mess, she was yawning every five seconds and she was wearing black and pink flannel shorts that she pulled off well but that I wasn’t entirely sure weren’t pyjama pants.

“Hey guys,” Jaxon said as we sat down across from them. Neither of them responded.

“See, Eli,” Sabrina snippily, eyeing her boyfriend. “Even the morning people came down to breakfast later than us.”

Eli sighed and poured her another mug of coffee. “Yes, dear.”

I shot him a questioning glance. What was all that about?

“Like I said on the bus,” Eli said. “She’s not much of a morning person.”

Sabrina slumped in her chair, her hair falling in her face. “Eli forced me to come down to breakfast early.”

“I did not force you!” Eli said.

“Come down to breakfast,” Sabrina said in a mocking tone under her breath. She was glaring holes into the table. “Everyone will be there.”

“I’m sorry,” Eli said. Based on his tone of voice, I guessed that this was not the first time they’d had this conversation. “I really thought Jaxon and Violet would be here.”

Jaxon and I shared an amused glance . Eli pushed his plate towards Sabrina.

“Eat my waffle,” he said. “You’ll feel better.”

Sabrina, still pouting, took an angry bite of the waffle. She reminded me a little of an overtired toddler. Eli laughed and kissed the top of Sabrina’s head.

“I love you,” Sabrina muttered around her mouthful of waffle.

“Love you too.”

“Hello, my loves!” Madison sang as she slid into the seat next to me.

Despite it being way too early in the morning, she was completely ready for the day, with her makeup done beautifully and her blonde hair straightened and tied in a ponytail with a ribbon tied around it.

“Did you guys realize Prom Court nominations close tomorrow ?”

Of all the things she might have said, I was not expecting that.

As far as I knew, Madison didn’t care about the politics of high school, including who won Prom King and Queen.

I certainly wasn’t interested, so I only half-listened as I continued to eat my breakfast. Beyond it just not being her thing usually, I didn’t understand why Madison was so enthusiastic about it — it wasn’t exactly big news that the nominations closed tomorrow given that they’d been open for at least two weeks.

“What’s the big deal?” Sabrina asked. She glanced around the table. “It’s not like any of us are going to nominate, right?”

“That’s the thing,” Madison said, leaning forward and clapping her hands together in front of her chest. “I think we should nominate Violet and Jaxon for Prom King and Queen since they’re, like, the hottest couple in school right now.”

I choked on my orange juice at her words. Jaxon clapped me on the back as I struggled to catch my breath again.

“You okay, Violet?” Eli asked.

“We… are the hottest couple?” I asked.

Madison nodded. “Uh-huh.”

“Me and him?” I clarified again, pointing between myself and Jaxon. What was she thinking?

“Yeah, of course,” Madison said. “Like, you’ve been the biggest will-they, won’t-they couple at the school for years! Do you have any idea how many bets have been won from you two finally getting together?”

Even though she wasn’t talking about Jaxon and Lewis’s bet, the comment hit a little too close to home for me.

I looked to Jaxon in a panic, trying to tell him with my eyes to fix this.

Luckily, he seemed to get the hint to change the subject — though he didn’t change it quite as much as I would have preferred.

“Why aren’t you suggesting that we nominate Eli and Sabrina?” Jaxon said.

“Nope!” Eli said immediately. “Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope! There is no way in hell I am doing that.”

Sabrina laughed. “Eli isn’t big on being the centre of attention,” she explained. “And, as I’m sure you know, I’m not really into school-sanctioned stuff, so all-around, it doesn’t seem like we’d be a good pair for Prom Court.”

“Exactly,” Madison said. Her bracelets jingled a little as she gestured at them. “I knew it wouldn’t be your kind of thing.”

“Oh, but you thought it was mine?” I asked incredulously. Madison knew I was most definitely not into this sort of thing.

“Well—” Madison faltered a little. “Okay maybe not, but it is Jaxon’s thing! And trust me, Jaxon will win.”

“Oh, I know,” I muttered. The joys of dating the popular boy, right there.

“ And ,” Madison said, “if they vote for Jaxon, they’ll want to vote for his girlfriend too.”

While I understood why Jaxon wanted to have a fake relationship right now and the benefits of us going to prom together for the sake of the bet, but I also thought the timing was the biggest downside for me. I didn’t want to have to deal with all this stuff about prom.

“I think it’s a great idea!” Jaxon said.

“You do?” Madison asked excitedly.

“You do?” I asked in surprise at the same time.

“Of course,” Jaxon said. He rested his arm on the back of my chair. “What better way to tell Lewis to suck it, right?”

“How romantic,” Sabrina said drily.

“Does anyone know how to nominate someone?” Madison asked. So, I guess we were just going for it, then.

“It’s on the school website,” Eli said. He pulled his phone out of his back pocket and went to do it. Sabrina leaned her head on his shoulder to look at the phone as well. Eli visibly relaxed at her touch. He kissed her head quickly then went back to what he was doing.

I found them adorable but also equally hated them in that moment. While I normally wasn’t one to lament how my lack of being in a relationship, this ruse with Jaxon was forcing me to see how much I was missing out on. A reminder of how alone I was.

I replayed Jaxon’s words from the night before in my mind, hoping they would bring me some comfort: You are in no way unloveable. You just know that nobody in the world is good enough for you. But for some reason, they were a lot less comforting when it was Jaxon saying them to me.

Jaxon and I went back to our room after breakfast to finish getting ready. The entire way up, he talked about the Prom Court nominations.

“And Madison was right,” Jaxon was saying animatedly. “We’re definitely the hottest couple at school right now, so we’re basically guaranteed to win Prom King and Queen. Ah, Lewis is going to be so mad! Isn’t this great?”

“Yeah,” I murmured, lost in thought.

Jaxon paused mid-sentence.

“Are you okay?” he asked. As opposed to his enthusiastic voice before, he sounded very concerned.

“It’s nothing,” I said. I headed for my suitcase, but I didn’t make it two steps before Jaxon grabbed my arm and pulled me back.

“Hey,” he said softly. My heart thudded in my chest as I stood so close to him. “It’s obviously not nothing, Evers. What’s wrong?”

I couldn’t just stay silent or pretend it was nothing when he looked so concerned for me.

“I just feel like all of this is a bad idea,” I said. I rubbed my hands over my arms, trying to get rid of the goosebumps that had suddenly appeared. “I mean, I know I agreed to go to prom with you but nominating us for Prom Court makes all of this a lot bigger than I signed up for.”

Jaxon tilted his head in confusion, like he didn’t understand what I meant. Which made sense — from the beginning, he didn’t seem concerned about the possible long-term ramifications of what we were doing.

“It’s like…” I sighed, trying to find the best way to explain this. “A short term fake relationship? Sure, fine. Great, even. But something that will be brought up at our high school reunions? Not so good.”

“Oh. Right.” Jaxon bit his lip. “Do you want me to take back the nominations somehow?”

He looked so disappointed at the prospect that it broke my heart. It hadn’t occurred to me that being Prom King might actually matter a lot to him, outside of the scope of pissing off Lewis, but it seemed like it did.

“No,” I said. “It’s okay, we can do it. I was just surprised is all.”

“Are you sure?” Jaxon asked. “I mean, if we can’t pull off cancelling our nomination, I could rig the ballots to make sure Sabrina and Eli win even though they weren’t nominated. That’s sure to take the attention off of us.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt it,” I said with a grin. Then I shook my head. “But no, it’s really fine. If this is important to you, I’m not going to be the reason you can’t do it.”

He rubbed his thumb up and down on my arm and studied my face. I tried to look happy so he wouldn’t feel bad.

“It’s really not that important to me,” he said. “Especially not at the expense of your feelings.”

I shook my head. “It’s really fine, Jaxon. I just… I feel guilty about lying to my friends and it feels a little like we’re taking it to another level by doing this.”

“You know, Vi, Prom King and Queen aren’t always a couple,” Jaxon said. “I know they nominated both of us but it’s still possible people will vote for me but not you.”

I shrugged. I didn’t want to say it but I was pretty sure Madison was right when she said a lot of people would vote for me just because I was Jaxon’s girlfriend.

He made a small sympathetic noise before he wrapped his arms around me in a hug.

I held still for a second, shocked by this rare act of comfort, before I leaned into it and wrapped my arms around him as well.

Our height difference was obvious as he leaned his chin on the top of my head but for once, I didn’t mind.

I felt like I was getting to see a side of Jaxon that nobody else had ever seen before and I really liked it.