Page 36 of The Fake Date Agreement

There was no way she’d have thought three hot hockey players would suddenly be obsessed with me.

“You do. You dress like an old lady.”

“Hey!” I yell, outraged. “I do not dress like an old lady.”

“Okay, maybe that was a little harsh,” she concedes. “But you cover up all the time. You go to extreme lengths to hide everything but your ankles. They’re pretty ankles, but you’re twenty-two. You need to be showing more than your ankles at twenty-two, Tobie.”

“I have rolls, Max. My body shape is awkward.” Hers is athletic. She runs. I don’t. And even if I did spend more time hitting the gym, I’ve always found it painfully hard to lose weight—a symptom of Hashimoto’s I hate with every fiber of my being.

“You’re curvy.”

I throw my hands in the air. “Why do people always say that like it’s a good thing?”

It’s not a good thing to have small boobs and big hips. I’m a human triangle, which makes shopping a pain because, other than wearing all black, baggy clothes, or the occasional wrap dress, I have never found something that flatters me.

I point an accusatory finger at her when she opens her mouth. “If you tell me I have curves in all the right places, so help me God, I’ll smack you with a cushion.”

A smile cracks her face. “You’re spicy.”

I blink at her. “I’m what?”

She gestures at me. “Ever since Marc cheated and the Magic Three entered your life, you’ve gotten spicy.”

“Magic Three?”

“When they step on the ice together, they make magic, blah blah blah, yadda yadda.” She snaps the book shut and puts it on my desk. “Passion. That’s what is important here. Passion is what you need and what Marc didn’t give you. He was as stale and dry as one of his law books.”

“No, he wasn’t.”

She raises her eyebrow.

I blow out a sigh. “I didn’t mean to defend him. But he wasn’t.”

Or he didn’t use to be.

We did more together in high school—went out on dates, things like that. This year and most of our junior year, he started pulling away from me. I thought it was the stress of studying and the pressure of getting into a good law school, but maybe that wasn’t it.

He looked happy at the hockey game. He was laughing and smiling with the blonde girl he cheated on me with, so that side of him was still there. Just not when he was with me.

“It wasn’t your fault, Tobie,” Max says softly as she flops on the bed beside me. “He was the fuck-up here, not you.”

“Maybe he thought I was boring. You’re right. I do dress like an old lady, and I never go out anywhere.”

“Because he nevertookyou anywhere.” She takes my hand and squeezes. “Even if he thought you were boring, which, side note, you’re not, he should have had the decency to break up with you if he wanted to be with someone else, not go behind your back. That is grade-A tool behavior, and he deserves public humiliation after what he did to you.”

“But it was my fault I fell.”

“No, it wasn’t,” she says, glaring. “It was his fault for cheating. Did he even come after you to check you weren’t hurt?”

“Well, no.”

“He just swanned off with Little Miss Blondie, and I bet…”

I walked home to my dorm room. It was a long walk. My head hurt, and I was heartsick.

I tried convincing myself I was wrong about Marc, and I’d find him waiting outside my room, ready to tell me he and the blonde were study buddies and the kiss was just a performance for the kiss cam.

But he wasn’t there.

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