Page 3 of My Fake Relationship With the Popular Boy (Port Lane Romances #1)

two

I didn’t feel like going to any of my classes for the rest of the day, but I also didn’t want to bail on Madison for our bus ride home together, so I hid in the library for the rest of the afternoon. I would have just stayed in the common room, but I couldn’t stand to be anywhere near Jaxon.

The library was in the oldest part of the school.

About half the school was comprised of an old mansion, while the rest of it was from various additions over the years.

You could tell what era each part of it was made in as you walked around since they didn’t even attempt to keep the interior look cohesive.

The library was at the side of the building, with windows that overlooked the gardens, and it had always been my favourite room in the school.

Tucked in the back corner was a little nook that seemed useless.

It was about five feet by five feet and was completely empty, save for the window with a sill that was just big enough to sit on.

When you sat there, nobody could see you.

I’d discovered the nook when I was in the ninth grade and soon began claiming it during every break that I’d had.

I didn’t go in there as much over the past couple of years, as I’d gotten more busy and started using my breaks as a time to catch up on homework or head girl duties.

And once I became a senior and gained access to the common room, I’d all but forgotten about this safe little space.

The window seat was smaller than I remembered but I still managed to fit.

I sat with my legs stretched out along the window and leaned my head against the glass.

The gardens were blooming with flowers, making the view colourful.

I loved this time of year; as nice as the trees looked when covered in snow, there was nothing quite like the beauty of spring.

“I wondered if I might find you here.”

My heart sank at the sound of his voice, and I felt a little nauseous. Lewis Stone had already ruined my morning, did he really feel the need to ruin my afternoon too?

“What do you want?” I asked. I refused to actually look at him, but I could see him a little in the reflection of the window.

His black hair was tousled, his tie was loosened so much that I was pretty sure it was a uniform infraction, and his hands were sitting casually in his pockets.

It was like he was trying to give off the air of being relaxed and like he didn’t have a care in the world, but I knew that wasn’t true.

“I wanted to apologize,” he said slowly.

“Not accepted,” I said immediately. “Bye.”

“Violet—”

“Just get out of here, Lew,” I interrupted.

I wasn’t interested in hearing all of his pathetic excuses for his actions.

When I went to find him earlier, I was hoping to make amends after our fight the other day.

Instead, all he did was scream at me and hurt me in a way that almost nobody had before.

“If you would just listen to me?—”

“No!” I snapped. My hand clenched in a fist, almost involuntarily.

I waited a moment to make sure the librarian wasn’t going to come tell us off for being too loud.

We were pretty far from her desk, another one of the perks of the nook, but it still wasn’t a good idea to talk too loudly.

“You made your opinion of me pretty clear so just go.”

“You don’t understand!” he said. There was passion in his voice; passion that would turn to extreme anger if I didn’t give in soon. I never noticed before how easy it was to rile him up but now it was impossible for me not to.

“Get out of here, Lewis,” I said. I finally looked at him. “Now.”

“We need to talk, Violet,” he said.

“She told you to get lost,” a voice said from behind him.

I leaned around Lewis to see who was there.

I was half-expecting to see Jaxon there, having followed me from the common room, but instead, I saw his best friend, Sabrina.

She was standing with her arms crossed over her chest and was staring at Lewis with a deadly expression.

Her black and pink hair was pulled in a tight ponytail and she was wearing dark makeup, both of which made her look like she was ready for a fight.

“Nobody asked you, Brooks,” Lewis sneered. “This is a personal matter.”

“Doesn’t matter what you think it is,” Sabrina said. “She told you to leave.”

Lewis glared at her for another few seconds before his gaze turned to look at me pleadingly.

“Just talk to me, Violet,” he said. “We can figure this out.”

“No,” I said coldly. “We can’t.”

I guess he knew a lost cause when he saw one because he sighed and walked away without another word. Sabrina watched him leave before she properly entered the small space.

“You stole my nook,” she said. She sat down on the ground, with her back against the wall opposite from me.

She also wasn’t wearing the school uniform entirely properly.

Her tie was loosened so much that she might as well not have been wearing it, her blouse was unbuttoned low to show off her cleavage, and she was wearing combat boots, which were strictly forbidden.

“I found it first,” I said.

“Touché,” she said with a grin. She pulled a handful of bright candies out of her bag and held her hand out to me. “Laffy Taffy?”

“Thanks,” I said. I took a green one since my favourite flavour had always been green apple. Sabrina nodded in approval and took a red one for herself.

It was funny to be talking alone with Sabrina.

I didn’t dislike her by any means but we’d never really become friends either.

I’d seen a lot more of her since she and Eli started dating a year ago but only ever in groups.

She and Madison got along a lot more, though even they didn’t go out of their way to speak to one another from what I’d seen.

“Where are you supposed to be right now?” she asked.

“French class,” I said. I wondered how many people were actually in the class right then, because Lewis and Jaxon were both supposed to be there too. “What about you?”

She smirked and held up a pink slip of paper. “Detention.”

“You’re skipping detention?”

She shrugged. “It seemed like a rather stupid way to waste my time. Besides, it’s Mr. Rogers running it; he won’t even notice I’m gone.”

Mr. Rogers was the oldest teacher in our school at nearly ninety years old. He only taught one class a semester and ran detentions, which meant a lot of people skipped.

“Yeah, that was probably a good choice,” I said. “What did you get detention for?”

She looked at me in disbelief. “Have you seen my outfit?”

I laughed. “Good point.”

Uniform infractions didn’t usually lead to detentions but it did happen whenever somebody ignored the dress code consistently, which Sabrina did.

“I, uh, ran into Jaxon,” Sabrina said. She rested her arms on her knees, with her hands dangling down.

“Oh,” I said. I looked out the window again. It made sense that Jaxon told Sabrina about our conversation; they told each other everything. The thing that surprised me more was that she came to talk to me about it.

“He can be pretty stupid sometimes,” Sabrina said.

I snorted. “He’s stupid all the time.”

Apparently, I was one of the few people at school who recognized that. Even Madison, who wasn’t friends with him either, found him fun to be around.

Sabrina chuckled. “Yeah, I guess that’s true. The point is, he shouldn’t have asked you out like that.”

“He send you out here to do his dirty work?” I asked.

“He didn’t think you would want to see him.”

“He was right.”

“Look at that,” Sabrina said in a fake bright voice. “You two finally agreed on something.”

I rolled my eyes but couldn’t help the smile that tugged at my lips. It definitely was an uncommon occurrence.

“I’ll leave you to it,” Sabrina said. She stood up and brushed off the back of her skirt.

“Hey,” I said. She looked at me curiously. “Did Jaxon tell you about the other stuff that happened in the common room?”

Sabrina’s eyebrows pulled together and she tilted her head. “No. What other things?”

So, Jaxon wasn’t bragging about getting to kiss me, then. That was out of character. Even if the kiss was just to keep us out of trouble for skipping, I thought it would have been the first thing he told Sabrina.

“Nothing,” I said to Sabrina. “I don’t even remember what I was thinking.”

“Jaxon is an idiot,” I said.

“Mh-hm,” Eli responded. I could tell he was barely listening to me but I couldn’t blame him.

We were engaged in a very intense game of Mario Karts on DS and that was life or death for him.

I was leaning against the headboard of my bed while he was leaning against the footboard and our feet were tangled in the middle with my blankets everywhere.

Every time he got to an important turn or jump his foot would curl up against mine.

“I mean, he really asked me out while I was telling him about my awful day. And not even like a joke, he was completely serious.”

I complained about Jaxon to both Madison and Eli but the responses I got back from them were always very different.

Like me, Madison wasn’t always the biggest fan of Jaxon, so she would usually hype me up and say that any of my anger towards him was justified.

Eli, on the other hand, was one of Jaxon’s closest friends.

People were frequently confused when they found out that he was friends with me and with Jaxon, since Jaxon and I were such different people.

To be honest, I found it a little strange as well.

But sometimes, it was nice to complain to Eli because he could give me some insights about why Jaxon acted so strangely.

I could have asked Sabrina during our conversation in the library, but I didn’t feel like we were close enough for that.