Page 20 of The C*ck Down the Block

Chris touched his neck and then looked down at his hand and arm, noticing the red stuff for the first time. “No, it’s wing sauce. I brought a packet along to taunt Luke with, and he jumped up and snatched it right out of my hands.”

“You’re telling me Luke Skycocker assaulted you with hot sauce?”

He nodded solemnly. “Ran at me, packet clutched in his beak. Shook it like a Polaroid picture. But don’t worry, it’s the mild kind. I don’t think he’s quite ready to upgrade to extra spicy yet.”

I had to cover my mouth not to snort-laugh. He glared at me and rolled his eyes like the whole incident wasn’t a hundred and twenty-seven percent his fault. “Where you headed? Not work.”

I was dressed in one of my fave chicken t-shirts and jeans. Not library appropriate attire. “No, I’m doing some volunteer work this morning. Working the closing shift at the library tonight.”

He just nodded and looked out over the lawn. It was a nice clear morning, and we had a magnificent view of the Flatirons and the Rockies today. We stared at the mountains for a bit, and it wasn’t exactly awkward, but it also wasn’t our normal comfy hang either. We were both waiting for the other to say something about last night.

I cleared my throat. This was Chris I was with, not some morning after a one-night stand. “You don’t have to go to my reunion if you don’t want to. I didn’t mean to put you in a weird position.”

I was this close to a full-on ramble of awkwardness, but he interrupted me. “Yes.”

“Yes?” Yes, I had made him feel weird and obligated, or yes, he’d be my fake date? I don’t know why I couldn’t just ask him. Why was it suddenly hard to talk?

“I’ll be your fake date, but, Trix,” he paused and I already didn’t like the ‘but’ I knew was coming.

Crap. I had made him feel weird, and I was going to be royally pissed at myself if this made our whole friendship different. He was such an important person in my life. My best friend. But lots of boy-girl friendships got ruined because of sex. Not like I’d asked him to have sex with me. Oh god, I was spiraling waiting for that but.

He glanced my way and then back out at the view, and I had to bite my tongue to let him say what he needed to before I made everything worse.

He moved his head from side to side, stretching his neck. He really was uncomfortable. I opened my mouth to renege on the whole thing and pray I didn’t make everything worse, but he finished his thought first. “You know I’m a horrible liar, so if we’re going to pull this off, we have to practice.”

“Practice?” I’d apparently forgotten how to have an actual conversation with him because all I’d done was ask a question by repeating the last word he said. But my brain had gone into a tornado of things he could be asking to practice with me. None of them were football, and all of them were kissing. Friends didn’t kiss. Not the kind you practiced.

Gah. See? Friendship ruined. What was wrong with me?

“Yeah. If I just show up with you on the night of and we have to dance and be together as if we’re more than friends, we need to spend some time spending time together, acting as if we’re actually, you know, together. If we don’t, I’m gonna fuck it up.”

“Oh. Like... you want us to go on a date?” I guess you could call the outing to Manniway’s a date. But that hadn’t been either my intention or his. Sure, I’d dressed up and we’d had dinner just the two of us, but it hadn’t been romantic.

If that’s what he was proposing, then I could do that. And it also meant I hadn’t screwed up our friendship. Probably. He still wasn’t looking at me.

“Yep. If we’re trying to sell me as your boyfriend to the Queen Bees in a couple of weeks, we need to be all in. Staring deeply into each other’s eyes and holding hands and... all the boyfriend-girlfriend stuff.”

All? I was ignoring what that did to my lower belly. Probably I was hungry.

“Queen Bees? You do not remember that.” Rachel, Amanda, and Lacey had self-styled themselves that in high school. Our school mascot was a bee, since our school was named after St. Ambrose, the patron saint of beekeepers. Those three had definitely ruled over the rest of their drones.

I’d likely complained about them back in the day, but I didn’t expect him to remember them or how horrible they were to me. I wasn’t sure I remembered who he was friends with back then.

“Of course I do. I would never forget the girls who made your life shitty. I don’t want them getting even a whiff that what’s between us isn’t a hundred percent real or give them any fodder to talk schmack. So, we practice until being together is second nature.”

Most days I felt that way being with him anyway. But that was when we were watching TV or playing board games or whatever. He was right. I’d been uncomfortable in the spotlight on that red carpet, and while there wouldn’t be Mustang fans and press, there would probably be a lot of people taking photos and scrutinizing our every move. Chris was famous after all. Especially in Denver. And I’d barely made it ten minutes in the spotlight before making a mad dash for cover.

“You’re right. But maybe we could start with something not so... public?” Not that I knew what that would be. He was a giant celebrity. Except to me and his family. Then he was just Chris.

His shoulders dropped and he blew out a breath I don’t think I was supposed to notice. Had he actually been nervous about this? Chris Kingman wasn’t nervous about anything ever. He was confidence and grace, like Miss United States. “Yeah. That sounds like a good idea. Especially after the way my phone blew up after the picture at Manniway’s.”

“Oh my god, mine too. I meant to ask you about that last night, but... uh, forgot.” Since I was focused on asking him something else entirely.

I pulled out my phone and showed him the little red number that said I had fourteen voicemails. I never answered a call from any number I didn’t recognize and had only listened to a few of the messages. They were all from journalists. Like I wanted my business all over the papers and internet. Gross. “How do you deal with people being all up in your business like that? And tell me it will go away.”

He grimaced and shook his head. “Sorry about that. I’ve got the PR girl that works with my agent playing interference. I really didn’t think we’d end up on the front page.”

He looked directly at me now. “But they probably won’t go away if we’re seen together again.”

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