Page 17 of My Fake Relationship With the Popular Boy
“Relax,” he said. “It’s just Sabrina’s seat.”
“You still shouldn’t kick it!” I said. He ignored me and kicked it one more time. Unsurprisingly, a moment later, Sabrina’s head appeared above the seat. Based on her messy black and pink hair and swollen lips, she and Eli had been making out. I was just thankful that I couldn’t see it through the crack between the seats because that would have made this already awful bus ride just so much worse — I wasn’t a fan of PDA.
She rested her arms along the top of the seat and grinned at us.
“Miss me already, Andrews?” she asked. Jaxon smirked.
“You wish,” he said. He jerked his chin toward the seat in front of me. “I actually wanted to talk to Eli.”
“Of course you do,” Sabrina sighed. “Couldn’t have kicked his seat instead, though? No, you had to kick mine.”
“This was more fun,” Jaxon said.
“Eli!” Sabrina called, as if her boyfriend wasn’t sitting right next to her. Eli popped up a second later. We were technically supposed to be wearing our uniforms today but the teachers were being pretty lax about it, so he had a rainbow knit sweater on over his collared shirt. He looked a little dorky but I could also see why Sabrina liked him.
“What’s up?” Eli asked. He brushed his sandy brown hair out of his eyes. His bangs were getting a little too long, so he had to do that constantly. I’d suggested many times that he just cut it but he kept saying he would get around to it later.
“Is Violet a morning person?” Jaxon asked him. I rolled my eyes. Did he really care about proving me wrong so badly? I guess that wasn’t fair of me to say — I wanted to prove him wrong just as badly. It was just more annoying when he did it.
“Yeah, of course she is,” Eli said.
Jaxon pointed an accusing finger at me, his brown eyes lighting up. “Ha!”
I did my best to ignore Jaxon and focused my attention on Eli instead.
“Thanks for selling me out,” I said flatly. Eli just shrugged with a goofy smile.
“Oops,” he said.
“If you’re a morning person, then you and Jaxon are well-matched,” Sabrina said. “Heloveswaking up at five in the morning to go for runs and I would appreciate it if he would force somebody else to go with him instead of me.”
Jaxon and Sabrina were cousins — raised more like siblings — who had lived next door to each other for their whole lives. I had no doubt that when she said Jaxon forced her to go, she meant it.
I grimaced. “I’m not much of a runner.”
The other day was very much an exception and not one that I particularly wanted to repeat.
“Neither am I,” Sabrina sighed. She dropped back onto her seat. Eli laughed.
“Sorry, she’s a little grumpy this morning,” Eli said.
“Believe it or not, we noticed,” I replied.
Ms. Moscowitz got on the bus and called out for us all to settle down. Eli smiled at us then sat back down.
“Boys and girls!” Ms. Moscowitz called out. “We need to stop talking now.”
Sometimes, our teachers seemed to forget that we were graduating high school in less than a month and instead spoke to us like we were five years old. It was more than a little grating and made me that much more excited to get out of there.
The general sound of chatter slowly fell away. Ms. Moscowitz smiled and clapped her hands together.
“Well,” she said perkily. “Isn’t that better?”
I wondered how dead we all looked staring back at her.
“Do you think she’s going to go over the rules of the bus again?” Jaxon whispered to me. Ms. Moscowitz was notorious for spending twenty minutes at the beginning of every field trip going over basic bus rules like “don’t stand up when the bus is moving.”
“I hope not,” I murmured.
