Page 50 of Fake Game

“See, aren’t you glad I dragged you out?” She angles her wine glass toward me. “Told you it would be worth it.”

“You didn’t drag me.”

“Mmm, my thirty back-to-back text messages and four voice notes beg to differ.”

“You’re being dramatic. It was three voice notes, not four.”

Lee snorts as she cranes her neck to watch Jackson and his blind date. “What do you think they’re talking about?”

“Something boring,” I mumble around my straw.

As much as I try not to, I can’t help but continue watching them.

“Oh, she’s def interested,” Lee comments as the girl laughs and tucks a piece of hair behind her ear. “Doesn’t he normally dip from his dates within like ten minutes?”

“Supposedly.” I blatantly bite down on the straw, grinding it between my molars.

“Death glare, much?”

I release the mangled straw and flick my gaze to Lee who has switched her attention to me. I roll my eyes with a tense smile. “That’s my concentration face.”

“That is not the face you make when you’re trying to decide which villager to live on your island. That’s the face you make when the villainess appears in your dating sims.”

“Mean.”

“Just saying.” She reaches forward and tears one of the red bean buns in half before taking a large bite.

I follow suit, ripping open one of the taro buns and shoving half into my mouth.

My eyes narrow as I watch Jackson nod at whatever the girl is babbling about. I didn’t even know he was going out on another blind date tonight.

Not that he owes me that, but you would think it might have come up when I told him I was going to dinner with Lee. He’d grilled me for a solid five minutes about whether Lee’s security was coming with us and how long I’d be gone for. He wanted to make sure I was being safe—as if I wasn’t already freaking nervous as it was about leaving the damn apartment.

But as always, Lee is my weakness. She’s the only person who can get me out of my comfort zone and into functioning society.Plus, this is one of my favorite restaurants, so there is a level of familiarity here that makes me less nervous.

I polish off my drink, sucking on nothing but remnants of ice residue as I continue glaring at the couple. Jackson’s attention wanes from his date. He scans the restaurant, gaze colliding with mine. A fleck of ice flies through the straw and goes right into the back of my throat, and I let out a choking cough.

When I look back up, he’s still staring at me.

Shit.

His date takes notice, and she swivels her head, her eyes darting around.

Double shit.

I raise my hand to cover my face as discreetly as possible as I turn to Lee.

“What are you doing?”

“They’re looking at us,” I whisper under my breath.

“Why are you whispering? They can’t hear you from here.”

“You’re whispering, too!”

“Because they’re looking at us!”

I spread two of my fingers apart and chance a quick peek. The blood drains from my face as Jackson raises a hand and waves me over. He keeps looking back and forth between me and his date, saying something that is causing her to cross her arms.

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