Page 18 of You Started It

“She’s not bad,” Axel says as he reaches for the radio knobs. “We’ve got to go.”

“Fine, fine. Have a good day. Make sure to thank Jamie for the drive,” she whispers loud enough for me to hear before tossing another smile my way and closing the door.

“I’m okay?” I repeat, once his mother’s out of earshot. “I thought we were supposed to convince your parents I was your girlfriend.”

“We are.”

A mix between a laugh and a sigh escapes me. “Very convincing.”

“I’m not the kind of guy to fawn all over a girl. They know that. Especially my mother. She’s got like a sixth sense or something.”

“Whatever you say.”

Just as I’m about to drive away, Axel places his hand on top of mine and stops me from shifting gears. He leans in; his warm breath is minty. “Ben’s getting into Olivia’s car but he’s looking over here. Pretend you know how to flirt and touch my hair.”

“Your hair?”

“Just do it. He’s watching.” His lips tickle my ear and I swallow, resisting the urge to pull away (or lean in farther).

I bring my left hand up and run it through Axel’s light-brown curls. They’re soft. Really soft. And he smells nice. Like clean laundry and maple syrup.

“That’s good,” he says, nuzzling his face into my neck. He’s not actually doing anything, aside from pretending to…I don’t know, smell under my earlobe, but it’s been over two months since I had any real interaction with a guy and, well, it’s kind of nice being close to someone. A car passes and Axel leans back in his seat. “He totally fell for it. Couldn’t keep his eyes off you,” he says, as he fingers his curls back into place.

I sit with my body still slightly angled toward his, frozen. “Oh. Good. Good.” Shaking it off, I face forward and shift gears.

“Mind if I reprogram your stations?” he asks as I begin the short drive to school, still in a bit of a daze.

“Yeah, whatever.”

He settles on some obnoxious pop song that I recognize only because my mother made me set one of her reels to it.

“We need to figure things out,” I blurt, letting the nerves take hold of me. “Eli assumes something’s going on, and I presume your mother does as well based on how much she was cheesing at the sight of us. I think we should come up with a contract or something so that neither of us gets screwed.”

“A contract?” he asks.

“You have just as much at stake as I do. Possibly even more. You wouldn’t want me to scam you out of your money or rides to school or fake-girlfriend-ing in front of your parents.”

Axel sighs. “How about you draw it up and I’ll just sign it.”

“No.” I pull into the school parking lot. “That’s not going to work. If we’re going to pretend to be in a relationship, we have to learn to work as a team.”

“Partnership.”

“Fine. Partnership.” I put my car into park and unbuckle my seatbelt before reaching into the backseat and grabbing my notebook and pen. I open the book to a fresh page and jot down the wordCONTRACTin upper-case letters.

“Do we have to do this now? I was kind of hoping you’d show me around.” There’s a softness to Axel’s voice. Vulnerability maybe? He’s nervous, which makes sense since it’s his first day at a new school. I’m nervous too. Nervous this will blow up in my face.

“Fine, but let’s set some major ground rules first. Orally,” I say, closing the notebook.

He twists in his seat to face me. “Lay it on me.”

“Okay, first rule, we don’t tell anyone about this fake relationship. All it takes is one set of loose lips and the whole plan falls apart.”

“Got it. What else?”

I bite on my lip, trying to figure out what the most important rules are. It’s not like I’m well-versed in faking relationships. “Rule number two: limit your flirting with other people while we’re doing this thing.”

He shakes his head. “That might be a challenge. People kind of flock to me.”

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