Page 24 of My Fake Relationship With the Popular Boy (Port Lane Romances #1)
fifteen
We got back to the hotel about twenty minutes before our curfew that night. Even though that meant we still had time to hang out before we technically had to be in our rooms, Jaxon and I both decided to just return to our room and just stay in for the night, after such a long day.
As we walked inside, I noticed the shopping bags from earlier that were now safely tucked against the wall on his side of the room. I’d been wondering all day what they got up to that morning.
“Hey, what’s in the shopping bags?” I asked.
“Hm?”
“What did you buy when you were out shopping today?”
“Oh, that,” he said. “Nothing.”
“You bought nothing?” I asked. “Huh, interesting you got a bag for that.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Why won’t you just answer the question?” The more he evaded it, the more my curiosity was peaked. What could he be hiding?
“It’s just nothing important,” Jaxon said.
“The bag looks pretty nice,” I said. It was a big white bag, like one that would hold a box in it.
I couldn’t see the brand name on it but I had caught a glance at it earlier and even the font made it look like a nice place.
It was just one of those ones where it was easy to tell.
“I didn’t know you were someone with such expensive taste. ”
“It wasn’t really expensive,” he said. “Just some souvenirs.”
“Jaxon,” I whined. “Just tell me what it is!”
When I first asked him, I didn’t really care, but now the curiosity was killing me.
Jaxon sighed and looked away.
“It’s just this thing for some girl I like,” he mumbled. The smile dropped from my face.
“Oh,” I whispered. Jaxon sat down with his back to me to take off his shoes.
I wasn’t annoyed that he got something for a girl he likes.
That would be ridiculous. It wouldn’t be fair of me to expect that he never liked anyone else while we were in this fake relationship.
We were only doing this to make Lewis angry and it was serving its job as that.
Once it was over, Jaxon would have every right to ask out some other girl.
In fact, I was certain he would have a new girl before the summer was over.
Even though I knew all that before going into the relationship, though, I felt a little empty inside as I thought about it now.
I guess it was because even though I never wanted to be with Jaxon, I always liked the idea that he wanted me.
In fact, since starting this whole thing, he had stopped greeting me with his classic pick-up lines and I actually found myself missing them.
And sure, he told me the other day that he didn’t like me anymore, but at least he didn’t like anybody else like that either.
Gosh, I was an awful person, wasn’t I? Jaxon wasn’t mine .
I couldn’t expect anything of him. I’d turned him down a thousand times; it was only natural that his feelings would go away and he would try to find somebody else.
I wondered about who the girl he liked might be.
That girl from the bleachers who wanted him to ask her to prom?
Or was it somebody in our grade? That was weird for me to imagine — one of my friends dating my ex.
Fake ex! I mean, they wouldn’t know it, but I would and it made a difference.
Maybe it was somebody that I didn’t know, though.
A family friend or a girl on the track team at a different school.
He would like that, going out with someone who understood track more than me.
If he did start dating somebody more seriously, then he’d probably have to stop asking me out constantly.
Whenever he was in relationships over the past four years, he hadn’t stopped with the pick-up lines but I think that was because all the girls he was dating knew and understood the joke.
Even if they didn’t totally understand why he did it, I think they knew that it was something they had to put up with to be with him, just one of those odd quirks that he had.
Who knew, maybe that was why none of those relationships lasted long.
What I did know was that the only reason anyone would give in to that is because they didn’t want to give up on dating the most popular boy in school and he wouldn’t be able to coast on that forever.
Weirdly, even though I knew it was going to end soon either way, the idea of him stopping made my heart ache a little. As much as I acted like I hated it, I wanted it to keep going.
See, this was why the fake relationship was a bad idea. I was starting to think about Jaxon differently, as if he was really my boyfriend, when he was nothing close to that. I needed to be careful.
I stopped by the bed and kicked off my shoes. As I did, Madison’s words from the nail parlour popped into my mind.
“Hey,” I said. Jaxon looked at me over his shoulder. “Madison told me you’re going to Queen’s next year. Is that true?”
“Yeah,” Jaxon said. He looked surprised by the question. “Did I not tell you?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Oh, sorry. It was a last minute decision.” He grinned wryly. “Basically the last day it was due, much to my parents’ delight.”
I fell silent for a moment and his face went serious again.
“Do you think it will be weird?” I asked.
“Weird? What would be weird?”
“The two of us being at university together,” I said. “With all our high school friends.”
“Sounds fun to me.”
“Jaxon, if we’re all still friends through university, then everything we’re doing won’t just be some fun thing that won’t matter in a couple of months,” I said.
“It will follow us for years. Do you plan on telling people it’s fake after this or are we going to have to pretend to be exes for all of university? ”
“This is the prom thing all over again,” Jaxon said. “Do you really think this will continue to be a big deal?”
“What if you get a jealous girlfriend in university?” I asked. “What if she doesn’t like that you’re hanging around with me all the time because I’m your ex and she doesn’t know it was fake? Are you willing to throw away our friendship over that?”
Three weeks ago, the idea of that wouldn’t have bothered me at all but now, it killed me a little inside.
“You’re overthinking this.”
“Well, one of us has to!” I crossed my arms. “You didn’t even consider the long-term problems when you asked me to do this, did you?”
Jaxon just grinned. “See, this is why Madison thinks we’re such a great couple. You balance me out.”
“Take this seriously, Jaxon.”
“I am,” he said. “I just think that we should worry about this later. We can decide what to do once we’ve graduated or better yet, once we’re at school. Things have a way of working out.”
Unlike Jaxon, I wasn’t a go with the flow kind of person, so I really didn’t like that plan.
But I guess I could give in to not worrying about it until graduation.
We could decide how we were going to approach explaining this once we had our fake break up.
Besides, I had enough on my plate as it was, with school ending so soon.
I sighed and dropped my arms. “Fine. You’re right.”
Jaxon put a hand to his chest and looked around dramatically, acting shocked.
“Alert the media,” he announced to the air. “Violet Evers just admitted that I — Jaxon Andrews — am right!”
I laughed. “Shut up or I’ll take it back.” He did stop talking but the smug grin was still ever-present on his face. I shook my head good-naturedly and headed to the bathroom. “I’m going to take a shower.”
“Okay,” Jaxon said. He fell back on the bed. “Oh, Vi?”
I paused while closing the door and poked my head out again. “Yeah?”
“I promise if any girlfriend ever makes me choose between her and you,” he said seriously, “I will always choose you.”
Well, I wasn’t expecting that. My heart thudded hard in my chest and I didn’t trust myself to be able to string a sentence together, so I pressed my lips together and just nodded. As soon as it closed behind me, I stuffed my fist against my mouth and let out a long squeal.
This was wrong. I wasn’t supposed to care about Jaxon in this way or to be happy that he would choose me over some hypothetical girl.
I didn’t beat myself up for it, though. It was fine for me to feel like this for the time being, while Jaxon and I were still faking this.
It would just make it seem more believable.
But after this ended, I needed to get over all of this and fast.
My good mood remained for the entire time I was in the shower. I hummed to myself as I got out and wrapped myself in a towel. While I was squeezing the excess water out of my hair, my phone chimed. I knew from the specific notification sound that it was a text from Madison.
I leaned over to glance at the screen. As soon as I saw the text, my stomach dropped.
SOS. TEACHERS DOING BED CHECKS NOW.