Page 10 of My Fake Relationship With the Popular Boy
“Look, my dad offered to either pay for the grad trip or for prom. I chose the grad trip.” I really didn’t want to be the only senior who didn’t go on the trip and miss out on the experience. That was also why I was determined not to get detention before then — I would feel endlessly guilty for making my dad pay for a trip that I didn’t even get to go on.
“Prom is in like two weeks,” Jaxon said. “You really haven’t gotten a dress yet?”
“I have a dress,” I said defensively. “It’s just a hand-me-down dress from my sister and she’s like a foot taller than me, so it doesn’t look good on me. And I would have been okay with that before but if I’m going to prom with you, then all eyes are going to be on us and I want to look good.”
My dad was stretching himself thin enough to pay for me to go to private school after my mom left when I was twelve, so I wasn’t going to complain, but that didn’t mean I was happy about wearing crappy dresses. If there was any chance that I could get something nicer, I was going to take it. Not to mention the Jaxon was the most popular boy in school, so being with him would mean no chance of falling under the radar.
“Nobody is going to look at you just because you’re with me,” Jaxon said. His face scrunched up in confusion.
“You can’t honestly think that,” I said. He looked at me hopelessly. I shook my head and scoffed. “You’re an idiot, Jaxon, you know that?”
“Hey!”
“Listen, I can promise you that I know what I’m talking about right now,” I said. I leaned forward like I was letting him in on a secret. “You are the most popular boy in school. Everyone will be looking at me and I am not going to wear a crappy dress when that’s happening. So if you want to stick this out for the rest of the year — and let’s be be honest, you really do, because otherwise Lewis will just mock you for only getting me to date you for two weeks — then you need to buy me these dresses.”
Once again, I expected him to negotiate a little. To say that he would buy me the prom dress but not the graduation dress (which I could definitely work with), or give me some sort of budget to work within.
“If you can pull this off, Evers,” he said seriously, “I’ll buy you whatever you want. The dresses, a prom ticket, graduation photos… anything.”
Anything. That was a lofty promise but it wasn’t hard to tell that he was being serious. I definitely wasn’t going to take him up on anything other than what I actually needed, but it was nice of him to offer nonetheless. Well, nice might not be the right word for that. What it did show was that he was desperate for this to work. What had happened between him and Lewis that made Jaxon hate him this much?
“You have a deal,” I said. I held out a hand for him to shake. He did so with a grim face, as though he was agreeing to a business deal he wasn’t particularly happy with instead of a fake relationship.
“Starting tomorrow?” Jaxon asked.
“There’s no school tomorrow,” I said.
He shrugged. “If anybody asks, we had our first date tomorrow, though.”
I rolled my eyes. “Who is going to ask when our first date was?”
He blinked. “Every single one of my friends.”
I frowned, unsure of whether he was messing with me. He looked serious, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything.
“Besides,” he continued, “isn’t that, like… what girls talk about?”
“Oh my gosh,” I muttered, putting my hand to my forehead. I took a moment to collect myself before looking to the oblivious boy in front of me. “Fine,” I said tightly. “In any case, I’ll see you Monday.”
I went to open the door but Jaxon moved beside me and held it shut.
“One more thing,” he said. I looked at him, my eyebrows pulling together in confusion. What else could he want from me?
“Everything okay?” I asked. Was this when he was planning to add in that catch that I was worried about? Did he make me agree first so I would feel guilty backing out once I heard the extra terms? If that was the case, he did not know me well.
“We can’t tell anyone about this,” Jaxon said. “If it gets out, the rumour will spread like wildfire around the school and the whole plan will be ruined.”
That was a reasonable condition. “Okay.”
“I mean it, Violet. If Lewis ever gets wind of this, it will give him leverage to mock me for the rest of our lives.”
“I don’t know about you, but my plan is to cut Lewis off as soon as I finish high school,” I said lightly. I was hoping this so-called relationship would be enough to get the point across that I never wanted to see him again. With any luck, in a few years,all he would remember of our friendship was that I dated the person he hated most in the world.
“This is serious, Evers,” Jaxon said. He looked at me over the rim of his glasses. Geez, he was being intense about this. “You can’t even tell Madison.”
“I’ve got it,” I said, enunciating every word. I straightened. “And maybe you should be worrying about yourself. Have you ever kept a secret from Sabrina in your life?”
Jaxon grinned. “Touché.”
