Page 74 of Fall Fake-Out

Then everything changed once we got in the car.

She was all about the fakeness.

And okay, it wounded me a little bit. Because I thought maybe she was treating this like a real date too, but she’s not.

Fine.

FINE.

But I’m not going to sit here like some shy puppy while she controls this whole situation. I’m going to win this bet, and there’s nothing she can do about it.

“Miss Langford,” I say, holding out her chair.

There's a gleam in her eye that I should be worried about, but I’m not.

Before she sits down, she reaches up and fixes my lapel.

“There.” Her fingers smooth unnecessarily slowly down the front of my jacket. I turn my chin away, briefly closing my eyes to counter my body’s reaction. “You looked disheveled, honey bear.”

Honey bear?

My face turns back to her as my brows climb toward my hairline.

Of all the names available in the English language, that’s what she chose?

Such an amateur.

Once she’s seated, I reach around her for her napkin. The movement is slow and filled with unnecessary eye contact. The gleam from earlier still holds as I tuck the napkin in the neckline of her dress like it’s a bib for some BBQ ribs-eating contest. My knuckles brush the warm skin near her collarbone, but I’m choosing to ignore everything about that. I have work to do.

“There,” I say flatly. “Now you won’t spill.”

That’s when dinner becomes a battlefield.

Food gets passed around the table, but instead of filling our own plates, we start spooning massive portions onto each other’s.

A heaping pile of potatoes on mine. “I know how much you love your starches.”

A ridiculous amount of green beans on hers. “Fiber will help with your digestion issues.”

We’re a tangle of arms and spoons as we reach across each other, fighting to fill open real estate on each other’s plates until we both have so much food in front of us it would take us all night and stretched stomachs to get through it.

I stab into my salad, noticing for the first time the puzzled look on my sister’s face across from me, but I don’t care. It’s game on. I smile sweetly as I chew like nothing is amiss.

“So, Ari,” Sadie says, trying to start a meaningful conversation. “I hope you’ll tell us how your and Wade’s relationship came to be, because he won’t tell me anything about the two of you.”

“You don’t have to be shy about us.” Ari pinches my chin between her thumb and bent knuckle as if I were a child.

“Not shy,” I retaliate, taking my own napkin to dab at the corner of her lips. “It’s just a boring story.”

“Not boring at all.” Ari leans into my touch, which is a surprise. “Tell them about the faculty meeting.”

Oh, we’re improvising now.

“Right. The faculty meeting.”

Her eyes sparkle. “You know, when you accidentally admitted to the entire staff that you had a crush on me and were dying to ask me out.”

I crinkle my nose at her. “Did I do that?”