MY FAKE BOYFRIEND CAN HEAR MY THOUGHTS
Chapter Five: Our First Kiss Wasn't in the Contract
The rain started right as he kissed me, sudden and loud against the glass roof above us, and for one entire, suspended second I forgot every single reason this was supposed to be a terrible idea.
This is not in the contract. This is definitely, definitely not in the contract.
Thomas pulled back just far enough to rest his forehead against mine, breathing like he'd run somewhere instead of just standing perfectly still in his dead mother's art studio, and said, low and rough, "I know."
That was an hour ago. First, though, there was the damage control.
The blind item had not, mercifully, named names outright, which meant we had exactly one narrow window to make it disappear before somebody connected the last remaining dots themselves. Thomas's PR team, a terrifyingly efficient woman named Priscilla who communicated almost entirely in bullet points, had spent all of Friday morning explaining to me, over speakerphone, that "one of them has a twin" could plausibly refer to roughly forty percent of Larkspur's junior class, and that the correct strategy was to do absolutely nothing, since panicking would look far more suspicious than silence.
Says the woman who is not currently living as a fraud inside her own sister's identity.
Julian, predictably, brought it up at lunch anyway, sliding into the seat across from me with his phone already out, the blind item pulled up like evidence in a trial only he seemed to be running.
"Anything you want to tell me, Elowen?" he asked, watching my face with that same patient, cataloging attention.
"That account posts vague nonsense every week," I said, borrowing every ounce of Priscilla's bored confidence. "Last month it accused the entire lacrosse team of being secretly one person in a trench coat. I wouldn't read too much into it."
Julian's mouth twitched, not quite convinced, not quite willing to push further without more to go on, and he let it drop, at least for the moment, though the look he left the table with told me clearly enough that he hadn't stopped watching.
Buy time. Just buy time. That's the whole strategy right now. Buy enough time to figure out who's actually behind that account before they figure out the rest of the truth.
Priscilla called again during study hall, walking Thomas and me through a fresh set of talking points in case anyone asked directly, and made us both promise, separately, that we would not be photographed together anywhere near the quad for at least a week. Thomas agreed to all of it in the same flat, patient tone he used for every instruction his family's team ever gave him, and the second the call ended he looked at me and said, entirely deadpan, "So, studio, after school. Officially unrelated to any of that."
"That is extremely related to all of that."
"Only if someone's watching," he said, and I decided, against my better judgment, that this was a technicality I was willing to accept.
Thomas found me after school, waiting by my locker with two coffees, one of which he handed over without asking what I wanted, which was, I realized with a small jolt, exactly the way I actually took it.
"How did you know that's how I take my coffee?"
"You've complained about Elowen's version of your order twice this week," he said. "I pay attention."
He pays attention. Of course he pays attention. That's sort of the whole problem, isn't it.
We went back to the studio that afternoon, mostly because I had eleven pieces finished out of twelve and a deadline that no longer cared how complicated my personal life had gotten, and partly, if I'm being honest with myself in a way I hadn't quite managed to be honest with him yet, because it had become the only place in my entire double life that felt like it belonged to nobody but us.
The light came in gold and low through the glass walls, exactly the hour Thomas said his mother used to paint in, and I worked on my final piece while he sat on his usual paint stained stool, quieter than usual, watching the canvas take shape instead of watching his phone.
"Can I ask you something," he said, after a long stretch of comfortable silence.
"You can ask. I reserve the right to not answer."
"Fair." A pause, careful, like he was deciding how much weight to put behind the next sentence. "Do you regret it? Signing that day. Becoming her, even for two weeks."
I set my brush down and actually thought about it, because he deserved an actual answer and not a deflection.
"I regret that I didn't get a choice," I said slowly. "I regret that Elowen got to run away and I got left holding all the consequences of a life that was never mine to live. But I don't." I hesitated, surprised by what came next before I'd fully decided to say it. "I don't regret meeting you. Which is a complicated thing to admit, considering the entire premise of us meeting is a lie my sister is currently living out in Maine."
Something shifted in his expression, quiet and unguarded in a way I'd only seen a handful of times since the crossroads party.
"I used to think this whole arrangement was the worst thing my family had ever asked of me," he said. "Being paraded around for cameras, performing a relationship that was never supposed to mean anything, for the sake of a merger I don't even particularly care about. And then you signed that pen with the wrong hand, and I heard you panic about a stolen name, and somehow the worst thing my family ever asked of me turned into the only part of my life that feels like it isn't scripted."
He means that. He actually means that. This is not a boy performing sincerity for cameras. This is just him.
"You heard that," he said quietly, watching my face. "You know I heard that."
"I know."
"I'm going to keep hearing things like that," he said, setting his own phone down entirely, giving me the full weight of his attention in a way that made the studio feel suddenly very small and very warm despite the cool glass all around us. "Every time you let your guard down. I don't know how to stop that, and some days I'm not entirely sure I want to."
I stood up from my easel without fully deciding to, crossing the small distance between us, paint still drying on my fingers, my heart going somewhere far too fast for a simple conversation about art and honesty.
"Thomas."
"Hazel."
Outside, thunder rolled somewhere over the hills, distant at first and then closer, and the first fat drops of rain hit the glass roof above us just as he reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, his hand lingering against my cheek in a way that made every rational thought in my head go completely, blissfully silent.
This is not in the contract. This is definitely, definitely not in the contract.
"I know," he said, and kissed me anyway.
It was soft at first, careful, like he was giving either of us a chance to pull back, and when neither of us did, it deepened into something that left my hands fisted in the front of his shirt and every single thought in my head reduced to the specific, overwhelming fact of him. The rain drummed harder against the glass roof, and somewhere in the back of my mind I registered, distantly, that this was the exact kind of moment Elowen's survival guide had never once prepared me for, three pages of instructions on locker combinations and lunch seating charts with absolutely nothing about what to do when the fake boyfriend stopped feeling fake at all.
When we finally broke apart, both of us breathing like we'd run somewhere, Thomas rested his forehead against mine, and for one long, quiet moment neither of us said anything at all.
"This cannot happen again," he said finally, voice rough, not quite steady.
He doesn't believe that. I can tell he doesn't believe that.
"You keep saying things like that like they're supposed to convince one of us," I said softly.
"I'm aware." He didn't move back. If anything, his hand found mine, fingers lacing through my paint stained ones like he had no intention of actually following his own rule. "I keep meaning it less every time I say it."
We stayed like that until the rain eased, tangled together on an old paint stool in a room built for a woman neither of us had really known, and I let myself, for one stolen, golden hour, believe that whatever this was becoming, it might actually survive whatever came next.
THOMAS
I have spent three years learning exactly how to keep my own face still, no matter what happens on the other side of a camera lens. It is, apparently, a much harder skill to hold onto in an empty studio with no cameras at all.
I meant what I said about it not happening again. I want that on record somewhere, even if only in my own head. I meant it the way you mean a rule you already suspect you're going to break, the kind you set specifically because you know exactly how easy it would be not to.
He doesn't believe that. I can tell he doesn't believe that.
She was right, obviously. She's usually right about the things I try hardest to hide, which should probably worry me more than it does. I walked her out to her car that evening with our hands still laced together, in clear, direct violation of Priscilla's very explicit instructions about public distance, and told myself the empty parking lot didn't count as public.
It did not get to survive the following afternoon in peace, which I suppose is the exact lesson every single warning sign in this story had been trying to teach both of us since the crossroads party.
HAZEL
The fall festival took over the entire Larkspur quad on Saturday, string lights and a dunk tank and a cider stand that Sloane Carrington had apparently claimed as her personal broadcast headquarters for the day, phone up, narrating the whole event to an audience that seemed to number in the hundreds. Thomas and I had agreed, carefully, deliberately, to keep our distance from each other in public for a few days, just enough to let the blind item cool off before anyone thought to connect it to anything real.
I almost didn't go at all. I'd told myself I would use the free Saturday to finish the last touches on my portfolio, and instead found myself standing in front of my closet for twenty full minutes trying to decide what a girl who was supposedly keeping her distance from her fake boyfriend was actually supposed to wear to a school festival she hadn't planned on attending anyway.
This is fine. This is a completely normal amount of time to spend deciding what to wear to a pumpkin patch fundraiser. Very normal. Very chill.
I was three bites into a caramel apple, blending into a crowd of people who had no reason to look twice at me, when a voice cut clean across the quad, familiar and delighted and entirely, catastrophically too loud.
"Hazel! Oh my god, is that you? I didn't know you went to Larkspur now!"
I turned, caramel apple frozen halfway to my mouth, and found Milo Marquez, my actual best friend from my actual real school, waving both arms over his head like he hadn't just said my actual real name at full volume directly in front of Sloane Carrington's phone camera, which, I realized with a plummeting, horrified certainty, was still recording.
No. No, no, no, absolutely not, not today, not after everything we just survived.
Milo was already crossing the quad toward me, grinning, completely oblivious to the particular brand of disaster he'd just set into motion, and somewhere behind him I caught a glimpse of Sloane lowering her phone just slightly, her expression sharpening into the exact kind of attention I had spent two entire weeks trying desperately to avoid.