Page 89 of Once Upon a Fake Date

She bit her lip but said nothing, her violet eyes holding mine.

I dipped my head, lowering my words to barely more than a whisper. “You didn’t want your friends to know I know what you look like when you come, hm? How you’re such a good girl for me, fucking my fingers and imagining I’m filling you up? That all I can think about is the fact that I’ve tasted you—twice—but I still haven’t seen you naked? Or is that not something your boyfriend would think about?”

Audrey’s breath stuttered when she responded, “I thought we were taking things slow.”

“We were.” I pushed my stiff cock, already aching in my dress pants, against her. “But maybe I don’t want to do that anymore, Audrey.” Because I already knew I wanted her. That I wanted this. I wanted her to want that, too.

“I thought we were pretending,” she said with a gasp. “That this was f-fake.”

“Does this feel fake to you?” I groaned against her mouth. “I’m so tired of that word, Audrey. I think we should retire it from our vocabularies.”

“You’re my best friend,” she insisted. “I can’t lose you.”

“Audrey.” I squeezed her hand, looking around the two of us, and then pulled her off to the side. “You’ll never lose me. Okay?”

“Okay.” She nodded.

I wanted to tell her more. About how I felt about her. That this wasn’t fake for me. That I loved her. But it was too soon, wasn’t it?

Ella told me not to break her heart.

So instead, I just kept her in my arms, letting the music say the words I couldn’t.

Hoping like hell that she’d choose to stay with me once all of this was over.

That I was enough for her.

Because she was the only one for me. And she always had been.

APRIL

“Can you try the lift one more time?” Mary asked, biting the end of a pen as she watched Audrey and I. We’d been practicing this piece of choreography for months, and today, we just weren’t nailing it. Maybe something was off.

Maybe it was just the aftermath of this weekend that had us off-balance.

We were deep into technical rehearsals, and I couldn’t believe how close we were getting to the actual musical performance.

It was insane to think that pretty soon, performance week would be here. Honestly, part of me couldn’t wait for it to be over so I could breathe again. The last few weeks, I’d had three or four hours of lacrosse a day, plus four hours of musical rehearsals.

I’d barely had time to spend with Audrey. Normally, we had dinner together, though sometimes that was just spent in silence, shoveling food in before we headed to the theater building.

And what would happen when this was all over? Would she still want to do this?

I nodded, and Audrey looked at me, frowning. “Can we have a moment first?”

Our student director nodded. “Sure. Let’s take a water break.”

My girl grabbed my wrist, pulling me offstage and into the wings.

“Are you okay?”

“I—” I thought about the unanswered text on my phone.I’ll be there for the game next weekend. Can we get together and talk?Did I want to see her? To talk about what had gone wrong in our relationship? No.

I just wanted to move on. Castleton had been my fresh start, and I was happier now. It wasn’t just Audrey, though feeling like I had finally found my person certainly helped. The guys back at my old school had been like my brothers, and when that trust had broken, when they’d taken Raf’s side over mine, it had hurt.

“Honestly, no.” I scratched the back of my head. “I’ve just got a lot on my mind. It’s messing with me.”

She wrapped her arms around me, unprompted. “I’m here for you, you know. Whatever you need.”

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