Page 8 of Scarlett and the Fake Boyfriend (Scarlett #2)

“We saw Mr. Halifax put on the costume in the men’s locker room during your game.

But it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s him.

I mean yes, he’s been giving Scarlett a ridiculous amount of attention.

But maybe that’s a coincidence? Gah, my love life is in shambles.

Either way, he’s just one possibility. Because the kiss thief didn’t say he was always the mascot. So we’ve been trying to narrow it down.

“Scar kissed some of the possibilities at the kissing booth before it exploded. And she plopped one on a few others during truth or dare and eliminated them. And she tried it with Jacob, who apparently is not her kiss thief or her real boyfriend. Their fake relationship is part of an operation that I was left out of. They’re just trying to make Axel jealous so he wakes up and finally asks Scarlett out.

“Any who, we’ve narrowed it down to six potential stalkers.

Well, six plus Mr. Halifax. And Axel of course.

So...eight. But the way we narrowed it down was suspect at best. It was just guys on the team that currently have classes with her.

It didn’t include anyone on the JV team.

And the kiss thief could have easily just crashed the party. He might not even go to our school.”

“He goes to our school,” I said more firmly than I truly believed. I really didn’t want it to be a drifter. “Our second kiss was literally at the school. It’s one of those eight. It has to be.”

“Wow,” RJ said. “That’s...a lot.”

“But now we have three inside men,” Sophie said. “Scar, we really should have looped them all in earlier. Now we’ll narrow it down in no time. Want to hear my research about our remaining six?”

“No, I want to know what kind of things this kiss thief creep has been texting Scarlett,” Jacob said.

“Yeah, where’s your phone?” Liam asked.

“I’m not showing you guys my private texts,” I said.

Liam and Jacob looked at each other.

“No,” I said. “Stop planning whatever it is you’re planning. Just...stop it.” I turned to Sophie. “Yes, please tell me your research...” my voice trailed off as I felt Liam snatch my phone out of my pocket.

“Liam!” I lunged toward him and he threw the phone to RJ.

“A boyfriend, huh?” RJ read, reciting my most recent text from the kiss thief. “Does he know you dream about me when you fall asleep every night? I have a feeling he won’t be your boyfriend for long.” RJ’s eyes grew round.

“Don’t read that!” I tried to grab it from RJ, but he was too quick. He tossed it to Jacob.

Jacob lifted it in the air, way higher than I could possibly jump.

“Jacob, stop it!”

He scrolled through the text message thread.

“Jacob!”

“You were texting him pictures of yourself in barely any clothes?” he asked. “You don’t even know who this is. What were you thinking?”

I was thinking it was you. I knew my face was bright red.

“She was thinking he’d show her a picture of himself in barely any clothes too,” Sophie said. “But all he texted was himself in a mascot costume.”

“You were flirting with him?” Jacob asked.

“I...” My voice trailed off.

“You’ve seriously been flirting with him since the first party of the year?”

“Jacob, stop reading my texts!”

“Have fun dreaming about me stealing third base next time, baby.” He tore his gaze from the phone. “You let him get to second base?”

“I thought it was you! Okay? Happy?” I stepped up on the couch and was able to grab my phone out of his hand.

I shoved it back in my pocket and turned away from him.

I didn’t want him to see my face. I had thought it was Jacob.

I’d wanted it to be Jacob. And I hadn’t texted my kiss thief since I figured out that it wasn’t Jacob.

My heart and my head were confused and I didn’t want to talk about this with him.

RJ laughed. “Awkward.”

“It all makes sense now though,” Liam said. “I knew you had better taste in women, Jacob. And I knew you had a thing for Olivia.”

I ignored him. But seriously...who was this Olivia girl? I tried to shake the thought away. “Sophie, you said you’d done some research on the remaining guys? ”

“I thought you’d never ask.” She grabbed a folder off the desk and walked over to a bulletin board.

“I printed these out last night, so excuse the first one.” She pinned a headshot of Jacob to the bulletin board with a shiny golden push pin.

And then she grabbed a marker and put a big X over his face.

“Jacob is no longer a contender. I mean...right?” She turned to him.

“It’s definitely not you? This isn’t some elaborate trick where you plop a fake bad kiss on Scarlett to mess with her head? ”

“No, it’s not me,” he said firmly.

“Okay. And then there’s Mr. Halifax.” She pinned a picture of Mr. Halifax next to Jacob’s. Mr. Halifax was standing behind his desk with his arms folded across his chest.

It was pretty clear that she’d taken a picture of him during class. And I wondered how many times she’d done that without me noticing.

“He’s the school mascot,” she said. “So definitely a contender. Although I will literally die if it’s him.”

“I can’t believe it might be our teacher,” Liam said. “That’s so weird. Can’t he date someone his own age?”

Liam was one to talk. And also...my dad had been my mom’s teacher. Gah. I hated everything.

“Hooking up with a teacher isn’t that weird,” Sophie said. “Just ask your mom.”

Liam groaned.

Sophie pulled another picture out of her folder. “Next up there’s Axel.” She put up his picture. “Scarlett has had a crush on him her whole life. And he’s put her in the friend zone hard ever since sixth grade after a spin the bottle situation gone awry.”

I couldn’t believe she’d just said that out loud.

“How did it go awry?” RJ asked.

“When Axel spun the bottle it landed on Ava Williams,” Sophie said.

“Sophie, stop,” I said.

“Scarlett, we’re looping them into all of this. They need to know the details.”

I sighed. Yeah, maybe. I nodded my head to give her the go-ahead.

“Now where was I? Right. Axel tried to talk to Scarlett, but Scarlett told him it was fine. So he gave his first kiss to Ava and changed the course of history. Ever since then Axel has been a bit of a whore. And Scarlett has practically been a nun. Until the kiss thief.”

Everyone was quiet. This was highly mortifying.

“It’s probably just Axel,” Liam said. “He’s single right now.”

“He doesn’t like me,” I said. “If he didn’t want to kiss Ava, he didn’t have to kiss Ava. No one was forcing him.”

“I don’t know,” RJ said. “That was years ago, Scar. And Axel has been acting really weird since you and Jacob started hanging out. It would certainly explain why he keeps refusing to hand the ball off to Jacob. Maybe he’s jealous.”

Jacob shook his head. “I told Axel I was going to ask Scarlett out. If he liked her, he would have told me.”

“I’m with RJ on this,” Sophie said. “He’s been crazy jealous. Or...brotherly. It’s a really strangely blurred line.”

I groaned. “Enough about Axel. He’s on the list. Whatever. Can we please focus on the other six guys? I thought you said you did research?”

“Cool your loins, Scar. I’m on it. Time for our suspect list.”