AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“So this would be a fake relationship?” she asks hesitantly.
“Yes. Completely fake. We’d be boyfriend and girlfriend in name only.”
She opens her mouth but closes it before saying anything.
I start to move toward her, but I stop myself. God, could I be any more desperate to get her to agree to this?
“What were you going to say?” I ask her.
“It’s just…you’re my best friend, Tyler. Doing something like this—pretending to be in a relationship—could make things awkward between us. Maybe even uncomfortable. I don’t want to ruin our friendship.”
I take in the worried look in her gold-brown eyes.
“I don’t want that either. You’re my best friend too.” I pause for a second. Just the thought of losing Tori as a friend fills me with dread. “It wouldn’t be awkward for me. Or uncomfortable. We’d just be pretending. It wouldn’t be real.”
She nods once while looking at me, like she’s thinking it over.
It finally dawns on me just how creepy I sound right now, trying to convince my best female friend to pretend to be my girlfriend.
Embarrassment heats my skin. I rub the back of my neck as my gaze drops to the floor. “Never mind.” I let out an embarrassed laugh. “I’m just now realizing how ridiculous I sound.”
“No, it’s okay.”
I’m taken aback by the hitch in Tori’s voice. I look back at her. I could swear I see a flash of determination in her eyes.
“I can fake it,” she says, her tone sure and…something else. She almost sounds playful.
That knot of anxiety inside of me starts to loosen.
“Are you sure?” I ask her.
She looks me in the eye and nods.
“I know this is a hell of an ask, Tori. It won’t affect how I feel about our friendship, but if you’re worried that it will for you, then I don’t want you to agree to it.”
She shakes her head. “I’m good with it. You’re right. We’d just be pretending. None of it would be real.”
“You’re okay with it then?” I ask one more time.
She smiles. “I am.” A beat later she frowns slightly. “How are we going to sell ourselves as a couple to everyone? Gage, Becca, Maya, and Theo know us well. How are we going to convince them that we suddenly decided to go from friends to a relationship?” she asks.
“Right…” I trail off, despite knowing exactly how to fix that problem. I just don’t want to say it because I’m scared I’ll come off like a scumbag.
I take a second before I put it out there. “We’d have to be physical with each other,” I finally say.
Tori blinks. “Like, kissing and stuff.”
I notice the way she quirks up her eyebrow. The corner of her mouth starts to curve up, like she’s about to smile, but she bites her lip. Well, damn. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think that Tori is intrigued by the idea of us kissing.
I can’t help but grin. “Yeah.”
Her cheeks and chest flush pink as she bites back a smile. There’s a flicker of excitement in my chest. She’s into this.
“We’d have to set some ground rules,” she says.
“Like what?”
“Kissing is okay. Hand-holding and hugging too. Standard PDA stuff I’m good with.” She pauses. “But no sex.”
