“I do not beg!” he said, pointing an accusing finger at me. I just raised an eyebrow in response, thoroughly unimpressed. If this was how he planned on convincing me, he was failingmiserably. He dropped his hand again and cleared his throat. “Sorry. Anyway, the situation is just a little hard to explain.”
“Try me.”
He took a deep breath. “So, Eli told me you know about the bet.”
My face darkened. “I do.”
He looked taken aback by the change in my tone. “Uh, right, well… basically, Lewis is being a total ass about it. So I was thinking, if you and I pretend to date, then he’ll think I won the bet and he’ll be knocked down a peg.” He rushed to add, “I promise I don’t expect anything to come from this.”
Normally, I would just shoot down the suggestion immediately. I had no interest in helping Jaxon Andrews with anything, especially some childish bet. But the timing of the suggestion was actually pretty convenient. I may not have been particularly pleased with Jaxon right now, but I liked him a heck of a lot more than Lewis. And Lew getting knocked down a peg or two was something I could absolutely get behind.
“What exactly do you want?” I asked. I couldn’t say yes right away. I needed some room to negotiate if I was going to do this favour for him.
“I want to start pretending to date as soon as possible,” Jaxon said. “That way, when we leave on the grad trip next week, it will seem like we’re together.”
The grad trip was something that couples always loved to do together, so that did make sense. Plus, given how much time everyone was forced to spend with one another on that trip, there was no way Lewis would be able to miss us.
“Okay,” I said neutrally.
“After that, we just need to keep faking it for a couple more weeks until graduation,” Jaxon said. “Once we graduate, I don’t really care. I never run into Lewis outside of school so it doesn’t matter to me.”
Unfortunately, I did see Lewis quite a bit since he lived down the street from me, but then again, normally we were meeting up all the time. I had no idea if I would accidentally run into him a lot when I was actively trying to avoid him.
“If you want to keep this going until graduation, that means you want me to go to prom with you,” I said, more as a statement than a question. Jaxon frowned in confusion.
“Yeah, that’s generally what couples do,” he said slowly. “Why? Is that a deal breaker?”
“No,” I said. “Just curious.”
The whole thing didn’t sound too terrible, but I also didn’t completely trust Jaxon and I wasn’t willing to blindly agree to anything he asked of me. I needed to know how badly he wanted this.
“What’s in it for me?” I asked.
“Name your price.”
I blinked in surprise. I wasn’t expecting him to be so willing. I thought it over for a moment. What did I need that Jaxon Andrews of all people could help me with?
“I want you to buy me new dresses,” I said. I lifted my chin. “A prom dress and a graduation dress.”
The two things together were pretty expensive and I wouldn’t be surprised if they were out of his price range, especially as payment for this, but I figured it was better to set my price high and let him negotiate down.
Except he didn’t negotiate. He just said, “Why do you needmeto do that?”
I sighed. I wasn’t in the mood to get into this.
“It’s a bit of a long story,” I said.
“Try me,” he shot back.
A swarm of voices broke through the silence of the hallway. I glanced through the small window in the door and saw it wasa group of grade nine girls comparing their test scores. Behind them, Ms. Moscowitz called, “Keep moving, ladies!”
I moved away from the window so she wouldn’t notice me in there and looked at Jaxon again.
“Are you sure you want to do this here?” I asked. “We’re going to get in trouble for being in the hallways too late.”
“I have track practice at four,” Jaxon said flatly. Right — I forgot that some people actually did extracurriculars that ran on Fridays. Eli and I were head boy and head girl of the school, but we rarely had to stay after school, unlike the sports teams. “And don’t try to distract me, Evers. Why do you need the dresses?”
Gosh, why did he care so much?
