Page 32 of My Fake Relationship With the Popular Boy (Port Lane Romances #1)

twenty

Madison and Eli were surprisingly calm about the whole thing, especially once I’d explained the whole situation and how this all came to be.

Eli had to leave pretty much immediately after I finished explaining, citing some family thing he had to get home for, but he seemed perfectly chipper when he left the room.

Madison, on the other hand, had a few more questions.

“But you two seemed so in love!” she’d said.

I shrugged helplessly. “We’re really good actors?”

The conversation went in circle for ages, as she kept insisting that Jaxon and I seemed perfect for each other, while I insisted there was nothing there.

I decided to leave out the part about my feelings for the time being — I didn’t want her to try and convince me that I should go and confess or something.

I was worried that she’d be mad about me lying to her but she didn’t seem to care about that at all.

In fact, the only person who was angry with me was the one person I’d hoped wouldn’t find out about me confessing; as I walking to class the next morning, I was once again unceremoniously pulled into a closet.

This time, though, Jaxon managed to avoid throwing me into a wall, so that was a small victory.

“Will you quit doing that?” I snapped. I yanked my wrist back from his grip. Gosh, had he ever heard of just calling my name to get my attention?

“What would you rather I do?” Jaxon asked. I was a little taken aback by the anger in his voice. “Maybe tell all of our friends that our relationship is fake?”

I looked away and ran my tongue over my teeth.

“Who told?” I asked.

“Sabrina.”

“I didn’t tell Sabrina.”

“No, but you told Eli who obviously told Sabrina,” Jaxon said. “Who told me because she’s a good friend.”

I sighed and hooked my thumbs through the straps of my backpack.

It was obvious what he meant by that: I shouldn’t have told and I definitely shouldn’t have kept it a secret from him once I did.

And he was right. I went back on our deal and he had every right to be angry.

It wasn’t like he’d done anything to cause it — except for making me fall in love with him while telling me he wasn’t in love with me, that is.

“I couldn’t take the pressure anymore,” I said because I had to say something. Besides, that was partially true; I hated lying to my friends and he knew it.

“One more week,” he said. He clasped his hands together like he was praying. Like he was begging me to do something to fix this when we both knew I’d already ruined it. “We just needed to make it work for one more week.”

“That’s not true,” I said. The more that I thought about it, the more that I felt like this would have fallen apart no matter what. “You wanted to keep this going until graduation and that’s still three weeks away! Besides, even if it was just until prom, then what? We just pretend to break up?”

“Yes!” he said.

“Don’t you think Lewis would find that a little bit suspicious?” I asked.

“I don’t care what Lewis thinks!”

“Then why are we doing this in the first place?” I snapped.

The words hung in the air between us for a minute.

I swallowed thickly. “Look, I… I know why this matters to you. I know why you want to beat him. I do too. But we didn’t think through how this was going to end and that was a huge oversight for both of us.

” I rubbed my hand against my forehead. “And now I guess we’re stuck dealing with it. ”

“You could have just talked to me about it,” Jaxon said. His voice was quiet. Broken. My heart sank just hearing it. “We could have figured something out.”

I wanted to argue his point, just for the sake of defending myself.

I wanted to say that no, there actually was nothing that we could have done, that there was no possible solution, but that probably wasn’t true.

We still had to find a solution to this mess but now it was just that much worse because we were united in it anymore.

I sighed. “Yeah, you’re right. I’m sorry. I just wasn’t thinking when I told them.”

He fell silent. Clearly, he hadn’t expected me to apologize and I knew from experience that it was hard to be pissed at somebody once they admit you were right.

“What should we do now?” I asked. What was done was done. Now we just needed a way to work through this mess.

“It’s up to you,” Jaxon sighed. He stuck his hands in his pockets. “Nobody but our friends know this is fake and they probably won’t tell anyone, so if you want, we can just keep pretending until prom. That’ll give us some time to plan a break-up that won’t make Lewis think that he won.”

I wasn’t sure a break-up like that was possible but I didn’t mention that.

“You really think nobody will say anything?” I asked.

“What, do you think they will?”

“I don’t know,” I said. Honestly, I was pretty sure they wouldn’t but I felt like I would be remiss not to say anything. “You were the one who was so worried about telling them at first.”

Jaxon angrily looked away.

“It was ideal that nobody knew,” he said, “but now that they do, we’ll just have to make it work. Or, if you’d rather, we can just pretend to break up now and deal with the consequences.”

“But if we don’t go to prom together, then you won’t win your bet against Lewis,” I said. “I mean, not really. Right?”

Jaxon ground his jaw. I was pretty sure I saw a vein pop out. “Whatever.”

I appreciated that he was holding his anger back in front of me, unlike when he was around Lewis, but I still hated that I upset him this much. The guilt of telling my friends was really settling into me.

“Of course we can still go to prom,” I said. “But, uh… Do you want to keep it going until graduation?”

This whole ruse had become so much harder since I’d realized my feelings for Jaxon, but as awful as it was, it wouldn’t be nearly as hard now that my friends knew it wasn’t fake.

I just couldn’t deal with them telling me how perfect the relationship was and how cute we were when I knew it wasn’t real — and when that was all I so desperately wanted,

“I feel like that ship has sailed,” he muttered.

I recoiled, his words feeling like a slap in the face. He shoved the gift-wrapped box he had been holding into my hands. It was pretty big and not at all easy to hold, but I barely even noticed it as his words ran through my mind over and over again.

Without another word, he walked out of the closet and slammed the door behind him. I stared out the window after him long after he had disappeared down the hall. Distantly, I heard the class bell ring, but even that didn’t get me to move.

That ship has sailed. Just like any feelings he might have still had for me.