Page 24 of It Was Always You

He pursed his bottom lip. "Well, I'm thinking since this is only fake, if we get sent into seven minutes of heaven at a party, we should only make-out for five minutes tops."

Panic rose in my chest. "D-do they play that game a lot at the parties you go to?" I thought they only did things like that in the movies.

He lifted a shoulder. "Well, you never know. I thought we were planning foreverything."

"Do you think they'd know if we really made out or not?"

"You don't want to make-out with me, Lexi?" He put a hand over his chest as if I'd just offended him in the worst way.

But it was more like I was scared to death of ever being in that situation. I'd never even kissed a guy.

"I just don't think we should have to make-out because of a silly game."

"Fine. I can just mess up your hair a little with my hands and call it good."

I was sooo out of my element here. I might need to call Juliette again and have her talk me through this.

But no, I was a big girl. I could figure this fake dating thing out on my own.

"How about we just don't show up to those kinds of parties, okay?"

He sighed. "Okay."

"So let's talk about school. Do you want me to eat with you every day? Or do you like space from your girlfriends?"

Noah and Ashlyn had spent all their free time at school together when they were still dating. But I wanted to make sure he understood that I didn't expect things to be the same as they were with her.

"Yeah, let's eat together. Raven won't believe any of this if we don't. And, if you want, I could pick you up for school in the mornings."

My mind imagined what it would be like to show up to school in his car in the morning instead of being driven by my dad or Easton. It would be pretty amazing. Except for one thing.

"I'm pretty sure my dad would get suspicious. And I doubt he'd believe that it was for your English assignment."

"Good point," he said. "So, I know you don't want tokiss me or anything, but I'm pretty sure Raven will expect us to hold hands and cuddle. Would you be okay with that?"

My palms went sweaty at the thought. I'd never done that before either. Would he be able to tell the first time we held hands?

I wiped my fingers along my pants. "Yeah, we could hold hands."

"And cuddle?" He raised his perfect eyebrows. Was it weird that I thought he had amazing eyebrows?

"Sure," I squeaked. I'd never done any of these things with a guy before, just my cute two-year-old nephew Grant, but I wasn't about to tell him that now.

He gave me a half smile. "Looks like our relationship is progressing already. Just last weekend you were telling me we wouldn't be cuddling on our first date. And now I get to hold your hand and everything."

How could he be so nonchalant about this whole thing?

"Just holding hands and cuddling, right?" I confirmed as I finished typing the rules of our agreement into my phone.

"I promise not to kiss you unless you ask me to."

My heart spiked at his mention of kissing. But I cleared my throat and did my best to appear unfazed. "Sounds good. Just don't hold your breath, because I'm not the PDA kind of girl."

8

NOAH

I checkedmy phone for the time. It was almost ten. Easton and I had decided to play video games in his basement after Lexi and I finished our game-planning session for the next days at school.

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