Page 36 of The Girlfriend Agreement (Conwick U #1)

He laughs again, more heartily this time, and I’m taken aback by the sincerity of his smile, which, if I didn’t know him better, I would almost think is real.

I have to remind myself this is all fake.

That Damian is acting . And that, if I’m going to survive this ordeal unscathed, I have to start acting, too.

“Are you ever going to tell me?” he asks out of the blue.

Confusion furrows my brow. “Tell you what?”

That smile vanishes as he takes another sip of his coffee, and it’s only when he sets the cup back down on the table that he answers, “Why you need the money.”

My entire body goes icy cold. I’ve been hoping we’d avoid this subject, and I ignorantly assumed that because he hasn’t asked maybe he never would.

I sidestep the question. “Don’t worry, it isn’t for drugs or anything illegal that could be traced back to you.”

He narrows his eyes. “Wow, that wasn’t a totally sketchy response. Now, I definitely think you’re up to something weird.”

“I’m not—” I begin to protest, but he cuts me off.

“It’s porn, isn’t it?” He nods to himself, and before I’ve had a chance to process the stupidity of his words, he adds, “You have a porn addiction in need of funding. I had a feeling you were kinky, Dornan, but this?—”

“It isn’t porn!” I shriek, earning a few bewildered glances and giggles from the other customers sitting nearby.

Damian stifles a laugh with his fist. “Rare Pokémon card collector?” he guesses.

Christ, he’s not going to drop this, and I think I’m literally getting dumber every time he opens his mouth.

I could just tell him the truth, I suppose, but then that means exposing a part of my life to him that I don’t want him to know about.

He’s already caught on that I’m desperate, but the why is just too personal, and I need to do everything in my power to keep some boundaries between us since my traitorous body is clearly not on the same page as my brain or my heart.

“Oh, I know,” Damian muses, rubbing a hand along his jawline, “it’s totally for?—”

“Cosplay,” I blurt out without thinking.

I stiffen, silently cursing myself. Why the hell did I say cosplay?

I’ve never cosplayed a day in my life! Or played video games aside from Mario when I was a kid, and the only anime I’ve ever seen was a Studio Ghibli film Andie once made me watch—which, admittedly, I did greatly enjoy.

And don’t even get me started on comics, or Star Wars , or Marvel, or any of the major fandoms. I like some of it well enough, but that stuff is Andie’s bag, not mine.

I’m all about true crime, psychological thrillers, and numbers.

Give me a murder mystery or a quirky genius story any day.

“Cosplay,” Damian echoes, and I can tell from the look on his face that he doesn’t believe me.

“Uh…yup.” I swallow a sigh. No going back now.

“It’s a…new hobby, and I lack the skills to make the costumes myself, and um…

” Crap, where does Andie get her costume accessories from when she doesn’t have time to make them herself?

Take a wild guess, idiot! Just say something!

“Etsy is expensive?” I finish, trying not to wince at the obvious question in my voice.

Damian holds my gaze for a moment, and I can’t help feeling like a suspect sitting opposite a detective in one of those dimly lit interrogation rooms in a crime drama.

I’ve seen this scene play out hundreds of times on TV, and it is already a well-known fact what a terrible liar I am, so this can only go one way.

Oh, my god, what if he starts asking me questions about cosplay?

I know absolutely nothing about it other than the general notion of what it is.

Shit. I’m so busted.

But the cross-examination I expect doesn’t come. Instead, Damian just looks me up and down, his lips stretching into a lecherous grin. “Please tell me you’re doing the Princess Leia gold bikini sometime because that would be noice .”

I snort, trying to ignore the itch in my hand that wants to slap that ogling smile right off his face. “You’re such a perv. And also kind of a nerd,” I note with a touch of surprise.

He points a scolding finger at me. “There is nothing nerdy about appreciating a fine woman in swimwear. That scene blew twelve-year-old Damian’s mind…and his load.”

“Gross!” I admonish, though I laugh despite myself.

Damian’s attention shifts ever so slightly, and I follow his gaze to a table at the other end of Izzy’s outdoor seating area, where two girls are watching us.

I’m not sure if they’re trying to be subtle, but if they are, they’re doing a terrible job of it.

One of them is even holding up her phone—probably to film us.

The other girl shoves her arm down when she realizes we’ve noticed them.

A flutter of anxiety fills my chest as I anticipate the shitstorm that will hail down from Ronnie when she eventually sees whatever picture or video that girl just took.

Hopefully, by the time she comes across the unavoidable social media post, it will have gone viral enough (at least within the bounds of Conwick) that she’ll forget all about being mad at me for lying, and instead kick straight into defensive mode, making it her new life’s mission to protect me from ridicule.

And with news of Damian and me out in the world, she’ll have to finally accept that she and Andie won’t talk me out of this agreement.

I am all in—nothing will change my mind—so she’ll have to support me or risk losing me, and I know she would never choose the latter.

Our friendship might seem unexpected or strange to some people given how little we have in common, but Ronnie is my ride or die.

The moment we met at my freshman orientation, she imprinted on me like a newborn bird—or like that werewolf kid in the Twilight movies, who imprinted on Bella’s vampire baby.

We had barely even introduced ourselves, and yet, we both knew without saying a word that this connection between us would be for life.

It was the closest thing to love at first sight I’ve experienced or ever seen for myself, and I was just lucky enough to get Andie as a bonus. Two for the price of one.

And though I suck at verbalizing it, they mean everything to me.

They’ve given me the unconditional love I’ve only ever known or received from my mom and Gina, but more than that, they’ve been there for me without fail through the hardest time of my life.

Hell, they met me when I was in the throes of my mom’s cancer diagnosis, and instead of running away from the messiness of the situation, they chose to put their hands on my shoulders and try to help me through it.

Frankly, I don’t know what I did in a past life to deserve them, but I’ll forever be grateful for it.

“Well, would you look at that? This plan of ours is already working,” Damian coos delightedly, grinning at me over his coffee.

“That reminds me. When you said you need this to work to ‘get my parents off my back,’” I paraphrase in a crude imitation of his voice, “were you?—”

“Whoa, party foul!” Damian interrupts before I can finish my question. “You never bring up my parents without advance warning. Geez, and just when I was starting to enjoy myself. You’re such a buzz kill, Dornan.”

I blow an exasperated breath through my nose. “And you’re so dramatic,” I mutter. “Seriously, though…are they really threatening to disown you?”

I don’t know why I ask or why I even care. It doesn’t matter why he needs this to work so long as he fulfills his end of the bargain. And it’s not like I feel bad for him.

And yet, my stomach twists when Damian bristles. “Oh, believe me, the threat is real,” he says, averting his gaze to some far-off point in the distance.

“Is it because of the bet? Because of what happened last spring?”

I’m impressed I manage to ask that without flying into a blind rage. Damian seems surprised, too, because a weed of panic takes root in his eyes as they snap back to mine.

“What?”

“It was quite the scandal, right?” Wow, I’ve even managed to maintain my composure enough to press the issue. Huh. Maybe this is that whole personal growth thing people are always talking about. “I can’t imagine they took it well.”

He chokes on a bitter laugh. “That’s the understatement of the century.”

“So, that’s it. That’s why?” I need to know—not because I care about his well-being, but because there’s a side of me that still clings to the hurt he caused me last school year.

Call me petty, but I want to be able to sit here in the contentment that he fucked around and is about to find out, and that I’m going to benefit while he does all this for nothing, only to crash and burn.

Welcome to the consequences of your actions.

He would certainly deserve whatever comes to him.

He shakes his head, stops, then nods a little only to stop again. “It’s…part of it, but not the only reason. Let’s just say, I’ve been doing things to piss them off for a very long time now.”

I raise a brow, intrigued. “On purpose?”

“Well, it wouldn’t be any fun if I did it by accident,” he says, his mouth curling at the corners.

I scoff. “What a fuckboy answer. Color me shocked.”

His responding grin is shameless. “What can I say? I am nothing if not true to form.”

Damian raises his cup to his lips, and my eyes inadvertently lock on his throat…

and on his Adam’s apple, which bobs when he swallows.

The sight shouldn’t do anything for me. Woo, a dude swallowed some coffee, alert the press!

And yet…for some reason I can’t explain (and despite hating his guts), it’s remarkably sexy.

He’s incredibly sexy. His gorgeous bronze skin, the strain of his chiseled jaw when he draws the liquid into his mouth…

Honestly, the scene before me seems to straddle the edge between PG-13 and downright pornographic.