Page 17 of Scarlett and the Fake Boyfriend (Scarlett #2)

Friday

I yawned and started to stretch. But there was something holding me down. No, not something. Someone. There’s a zombie on me!

My eyes flew open but I’d fallen asleep in my contacts and I was pretty sure one of them was stuck to my eyelid. I could barely see anything. But I knew I was about to be eaten.

I threw my elbow back hard and it collided with the zombie.

The zombie groaned.

I reached out to try to find some kind of weapon in the zombie’s den. My hand collided with a book. I turned around and threw it at the zombie’s chest.

The zombie cursed under his breath and caught my arms so I couldn’t throw anything else at him.

“Die zombie!” I tried to knee him, but he moved on top of me, caging me in against the floor.

“Scarlett, it’s just me.”

I knew that voice. Wait. I blinked, trying to make my contact go back in place. “Axel?”

“Yeah, it’s just me.” Axel let go of my arms and put his hands on the sides of my face. “It’s just me. You’re safe.”

His face finally came into focus.

“Where are we?” I asked .

“You’re in your new room.”

Right. I wasn’t in a zombie den. I was in my new room. On my bed. With him. That stupid scary movie! “I’m so sorry I hit you,” I said. “I didn’t know where I was...I...”

“It’s okay. Take a deep breath.”

I followed his instructions and inhaled slowly.

“It was just a bad dream,” he said.

I nodded and slowly exhaled.

“Did I hurt you?” Axel asked. “You’re wincing.”

“My contacts are just super dry I think.”

“You’re sure I didn’t hurt you?”

I nodded. I’d finally calmed down. But my heart was racing for a whole different reason now. Axel was on top of me. In my bed. Staring down at me like I was the only thing that mattered in the entire world.

“I hate scary movies,” I said.

“I know. But you’re okay.” He stared down at me.

Any second, he’d climb off of me. And the moment would be over. All I wanted to do was reach up and sink my fingers into his hair. I wanted to pull his lips down to mine. And figure out if he was my kiss thief.

Axel’s eyes bounced back and forth between mine. Like he was trying to read my thoughts.

Maybe now was the moment. To tell him how I really felt. To tell him I was okay with his stupid deal about me not dating anyone on his team. As long as I could date him.

“You stayed all night,” I said.

He nodded. “I knew you needed me.”

This was my chance. I did need him. And I really needed him to kiss me right this second. “Axel, I...”

My phone buzzed on my nightstand, cutting me off .

Shit.

Axel slid off of me.

And just like that, the moment was gone.

“Thank you,” I said. “For saving me from the zombies.”

He chuckled. “Anytime, Scarlett.” He eyed my phone. “Is that the boyfriend?”

“You’re acting like you’re not best friends with him.” I grabbed my phone and stared down at my new message. It was from Jacob.

He’d texted: “I hope you slept okay.”

Axel looked at the text over my shoulder. “Interesting.”

I pulled my phone to my chest. I wasn’t sure what Jacob and I had been texting about before that. But it could have revealed everything. “Why do you keep saying everything about my relationship is interesting?”

“Because I find it very interesting.” He got up and stretched.

I watched the way the hem of his shirt lifted slightly above the waistline of his jeans. His arms fell and so did his shirt. I looked back up at him. “But what do you mean by that?”

He shrugged. “I just find it interesting that you never seemed into Jacob. And now the two of you are...what did Soph say? The cutest couple ever?”

“Well, I didn’t know that he liked me. Until he told me.”

Axel just stared at me.

“Did you know? That Jacob had a crush on me since we were kids?”

“No.” Axel grabbed his backpack off the floor. “He never mentioned it.”

“Ever?”

“Nope.”

“You two don’t talk about stuff like that?”

“We do,” Axel said. “Last I heard he had a crush on Olivia. At the beginning of the school year he told me he was going to ask her to homecoming. And then suddenly the two of you were an item instead.”

Seriously...who was this Olivia person? “Oh.”

“Just be careful. I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

Then why do you keep hurting me?

He walked over and lifted up the trapdoor.

“Axel?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for staying all night.” Except for the incident this morning, I hadn’t had a single nightmare. And I wondered if it was because his arms had been around me.

“Does it still take you about a week to stop having bad dreams after scary movies?”

I laughed. “Probably.”

“I guess I’ll be back tonight then.” And with that, he was gone. The trapdoor closed behind him.

I squealed and fell backwards on my bed. Axel was going to be sleeping over every night for the next week? Was this seriously happening? I squealed again.

There was a knock on my door. “Everything okay in there, pumpkin?” my dad asked.

“Everything is perfect!” But I pulled my comforter up just in case he walked into my room. I didn’t want him to see my silk pajamas.

“We gotta head out soon,” he said through the door.

“I’ll be ready in a few minutes!”

** *

My eyes were so dry from last night that I had to wear my glasses to school.

Well, had to might have been an exaggeration.

Axel liked them. And I liked that he liked them.

I figured one day of the old me wouldn’t hurt anything.

Besides, I really did only have a few minutes to get ready this morning.

“What happened to you?” Sophie asked.

“What do you mean?”

She gestured around my head.

I laughed. “Nothing.” I’d pulled my hair up into a quick bun too. That was probably what she was referring to.

“Seriously...something is going on. You’re like...glowing.”

Oh. She wasn’t saying I looked bad. She was saying I looked good.

“I haven’t seen you smile this big in ages.”

I hadn’t even realized I was smiling. “I have so much to tell you.”

“Well you have exactly ten minutes until we need to get to Mr. Halifax’s class.”

“Screw me.”

She laughed. “Seriously, what’s up?”

“Well, the kiss thief was definitely jealous all night. He kept texting me during my date. And when I got home, my mom gave me sexy first-time pajamas to use on Jacob. I think.”

“What the hell are first-time pajamas?”

I shrugged. “An old person thing?”

“Maybe. Weird. So are you going to use them with Jacob?”

“Um...no?”

“That sounded more like a question than anything.”

“Well, I already used them.”

Sophie raised her eyebrows. “I need you to say so much more right now.”

I laughed. “The kiss thief asked if I wanted a second opinion on my purchase. So I took pictures in the sexy pajamas and showed him.”

“You sassy little minx!”

I smiled. I was very proud of myself. But then I remembered what happened after that. “Soph, I need to show you something.” I pulled out my phone and opened up my texts with the kiss thief.

“Ooooh. He’s going to steal third base next? I love that for you.”

I’d completely forgotten about that. “I don’t even know how you’d steal third base. It doesn’t even make any sense.”

“Sure it does. He just pushes you to your knees, buries his fingers in your hair, and guides you.”

That was...graphic. “Well he can’t steal that. Because I have no idea how to do that.”

“But you have a fake boyfriend to practice on.”

I laughed. Because I thought she was kidding. But she looked dead serious. “Jacob doesn’t like me.”

“Mhm.”

“We’re just friends.”

She shrugged. “Friends or not, I’m sure Jacob is ready and willing to let you practice blowing him first.”

“No...I...no.” I shook my head. “We don’t even kiss right. We definitely can’t do that right.”

“From an outside perspective, it looks like you kiss perfectly fine.”

“Soph. ”

“Scar.”

“I can’t ask him that. And you shouldn’t want me to. Scroll up.” I pointed to my phone.

Sophie scrolled up to the part about the kiss thief wanting to teach me and her eyes grew round. “No.” And then her face fell. “No.”

I winced.

“No.”

“It’s Mr. Halifax, right?”

“No,” she said again.

“No...it’s not him? Or are you saying no because you’re upset?”

She didn’t respond. But then she slowly shook her head. “No it’s not him.”

She was being delusional. “Sophie, he literally said ‘I’ll teach you. Your first lesson will be when I steal third base.’ ”

“He did say that.”

I stared at her.

“But he also said ‘lol’ when you asked if it was Mr. Halifax. Which means it’s not him. It made him laugh out loud.”

“What about all that teaching you stuff though?” I pointed at my phone.

“I’ll teach you,” she read. “Your first lesson will be when I steal third base.” She shrugged. “He was just leaning into your teacher kink.”

“I don’t have a teacher kink!”

A few people turned to look at us in the hall.

Eek. I hid behind Sophie.

She laughed. “I know that. But you made that very unclear to your kiss thief. He was just leaning into it. Obvs.”

I wasn’t sure it was that obvious. Or even that plausible.

“Well it sounds like you had a very epic night.”

“None of that was even the best part,” I said. “Axel was waiting in my room when I came home.”

“I thought he had a date?”

“I don’t think he actually went on that date. He made up some lie about painting a portrait...but there was no way he actually took Gemma to that random place in Soho I sent him. He said he’d been waiting for me all night.”

“Shut up.”

“And he knew I was scared because Jacob took me to see a scary movie. So he spent the night.”

“Shut up!” She squealed. “Are you serious?”

I nodded. “He spent the whole night.”

“Operation Too Hot to Handle is working, Scar! I knew it! Axel is going out of his mind with jealousy.”

I was smiling so hard that my cheeks hurt.

“And since you’re in such a good mood, I feel like I need to take this opportunity to bring up the kissing booth again...”

“Soph, we’re not doing another kissing booth. And it’s an away game tonight. We can’t set up an exploding kissing booth at another school.”

“Says who? It’s actually better. Because if it explodes, we won’t have to clean it up.”

I didn’t think that was how anything worked. “Sophie you promised all the V21 cameras were destroyed.”

“I may have found another box.”

“You need to throw them out. ”

“I don’t know how to dispose of them properly. If I just throw them in the garbage, a garbage truck might explode or something.”

Huh. Fair. “Maybe ask your dad about it?”

“I think if he knew how to dispose of them we wouldn’t have so many in our apartment right now.”

I laughed. “That seems very dangerous. Just promise me you won’t handle them anymore.”

“Eh.”

“That was not a yes.”

“Eh.”

I shook my head. “We should probably get to class.”

She gave me a look.

“What?” I asked.

“I’ve just never seen you so excited to go to Mr. Halifax’s class before. You’d tell me if you actually liked him, right?”

“I swear I do not like him.”

She breathed a sigh of relief. “Good. But we still have a couple minutes before class. So tell me, how do you plan on popping the question to Jacob?”

“What question?”

“Where have you been the last five minutes? The practicing third base on him question.”

“That’s not happening,” I said.

“Oh, it’s happening.”

“I can’t ask him that.”

“Of course you can.”

I shook my head. “No, I literally can’t. There is no way to ask that.”

Sophie laughed. “At the party tonight, just pull him aside and tell him you want to blow him.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

She smiled. “Yes!”

“What are you guys talking about?” Jacob asked.

He and Axel had just walked up to our lockers.

“Nothing,” I said.

“Blowjobs,” Sophie said at the same time.

Ah!

Jacob laughed. “That’s a fun conversation to start the day.”

“And a fun way to start the day,” Sophie said. “And speaking of blowjobs, on a scale of one to ten, how much do you like them?”

This isn’t happening.

“I think every guy in existence would tell you ten,” Jacob said.

“Yeah?” Sophie turned to me and waggled her eyebrows.

Stop looking at me!

“You wore your glasses,” Axel said.

I looked up at him. “I did.”

He smiled down at me. “Are you coming to the game tonight?”

“I wouldn’t miss it.”

“Yeah, she’s gotta cheer her boyfriend on,” Sophie said.

Right. Yes. I turned to Jacob. “Even though I’m furious with you for making me watch that scary movie.”

He laughed and put his arm around my shoulders. “You’re not furious with me.”

“I am very furious with you.”

“Definitely not. ”

“I so am.” I lightly elbowed him in his side.

“Cutest couple ever,” Sophie said. “Oh, I almost forgot.” She turned to Axel. “Axel, how was your date with Gemma?”

“The bell’s about to ring,” Axel said. “Scarlett, you don’t want to be late for class.”

I mean...none of us did. But, yeah. “Right. Mr. Halifax’s class.” Yay me.

Jacob guided me away from Soph and Axel. “Why were you and Sophie talking about blowjobs?”

This was kind of the perfect lead up. But...I couldn’t do it. Just because my mom bought me first-time pajamas didn’t mean I had to jump right in. I wanted to do this with someone who wanted it. Who wanted...me. I cleared my throat. “She was just joking.” I laughed but it came out forced.

“Oh.”

Sophie caught up to us. “Time to go hang out with your kiss thief,” she said. She put kiss thief in air quotes and then laughed.

I wasn’t sure how she was so sure it wasn’t Mr. Halifax.

“Back to thinking it’s Mr. Halifax?” Jacob asked.

“You should have seen the saucy things the kiss thief texted her last night,” Sophie said. “All about teaching her and lessons.”

Jacob looked down at me. “Did you two talk all night again?”

“No, just a few more texts. It was nothing.” I knew what Sophie was doing.

She wanted me to ask Jacob if I could blow him.

And that wasn’t something I should have to ask.

Honestly, it was something he should ask me .

I shook my head. Which he wouldn’t. Because even though his arm was around my shoulders, none of this was real.

“It wasn’t not nothing,” Sophie said.

“So it was something?” Jacob asked.

Sophie stared at me.

Luckily I was saved by the bell.

“Ah! Later! We’re late!” I ducked out from underneath of Jacob’s arm and ran into the classroom. Right into Mr. Halifax’s waiting arms.