I don’t plan on using his card, but I know how he is, and if I don’t accept it, he’ll just keep harping on it until I give in anyway.
Teddy glances at the girls at the table near us and waves. I guess they haven’t taken their eyes off of us. I’ve done surprisingly well ignoring the unwanted attention I’ve gained since becoming his temporary girlfriend. Since my freak-out where I confessed about my freshman year of high school it’s like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders, one I didn’t know I’d been carrying around all these years.
It’s one thing to deal with trauma, it’s another to let it go.
Thanks to Teddy, I’ve finally let it go.
“There’s going to be a party at Cree’s place this Friday. I want you to go.”
I wrinkle my nose at his request. Parties are not my thing, but I’m not working so there’s no reason for me to refuse. Plus, it’s part of my duties.
“Sure, who’s Cree again?” I wrack my brain, filtering through my mental images of all his friends I’ve met. “Dark hair?”
“Yeah. He plays ice hockey. He was the one sitting at the other end across from us at Harvey’s.”
“Mhmm,” I hum my agreement, even though for the life of me I can’t remember him.
“You’ll get used to everyone eventually,” he promises.
I wish I felt as confident as he does about it. Teddy seems to know everyone on campus and be friends with at least half of them.
“Wait,” his brow furrows as if something has just occurred to him, “don’t you have some friends I should meet? I mean, I am your boyfriend.”
I look down at the table, brushing a crumb onto the shiny tile floor. “You’ve already met Danika and she’s the closest thing I have to a friend.”
“That’s … that’s it?”
He’s obviously horrified by my lack of friendships.
“It’s not that I’m opposed to friendship,” I defend, playing with the ends of my hair, “I’m just so busy. I have classes and studying, work, there’s not enough time for anything else.”
“But … you make time for me.”
I give a small laugh. “Teddy, I don’t think people make time for you. You just appear.”
He ponders my reply. “This is true.”
I study the side of his face when he looks away, the elegant shape of his profile. The slope of his nose and pout of his lips and something heavy sinks into my stomach because I’m only beginning to know this guy, and reeling from his sudden appearance, but what am I going to do when he’s gone?
11
Teddy
“Dude, why are there so many fucking cookies in here?” Jude swipes one from a plate and pops it in his mouth. “Not that I’m complaining,” he spews cookie as he speaks, “but I’m going to end up gaining ten pounds, and it’s going to be hard to explain.”
He rubs his rock-hard abs and me being me, I lift my apron to show off my own since I’m shirtless beneath it.
And yeah, I wear an apron when I cook. A really fucking manly one.
Okay, so maybe it’s blue and white polka dots with a white frilly lace, but since I’m the one wearing it, I make it manly. Besides, Maggie got it for me, and I’ll never ever get rid of it.
“I’m stressed,” I grumble, turning away from him to pull out another batch from the oven.
When I’m stressed, I bake. It’s the only thing that seems to bring me any sort of peace when I’m in a certain mood. Right now, I have way too many things weighing heavily on my mind. Baseball, graduation looming, my father, and now Vanessa and the fact that I think I’m catching feelings.
I’ve never had feelings for a girl beyond lust.
But in the short time of getting to know Vanessa I find myself wanting to be around her and spend more time with her. She’s cool, and feisty, and fucking gorgeous. Sure, I think about what it’d be like to have sex with her, but it’s more than that, and it terrifies me.
He picks up another cookie and sniffs it before shoving the whole thing in his mouth. “You’re going to have to start handing these out on campus to get rid of them.”
I don’t tell him, but I have been.
“Are you gonna be at Cree’s tonight?”
It’s a dumb question, of course he will be, but I’d like to move the convo away from my cookies.
“Fuck yeah, man.” He swipes another cookie and saunters back to his room. “I’m not going to miss out on a good time.” The door closes behind him and I whip off my apron, hanging it on the plastic hook beside the fridge.
I throw the cookies that are already cooled into a plastic baggy and leave the rest sitting out. I’ll need to pick up Vanessa soon, so I hop in the shower. I don’t want to smell like baked goods. At least tonight will be casual and fun, not like this weekend’s dinner. I can’t believe my father has roped us into this, but at the same time this is exactly the kind of shit he likes to pull. I swear the fucker gets off on making people as uncomfortable as possible.
Changing into a pair of jeans and a long sleeve t-shirt, I stuff my feet into a pair of boots, and slip on a jacket. I know some guys get off on not bothering with a coat in the cold so they can be like Queen Elsa and say the cold never bothered them anyway, but that’s not me. It’s fucking freezing, and I’m putting on something warm.
I shoot a text to Vanessa that I’m leaving my dorm and then holler the same to Jude, who calls back that he’s leaving later.
I walk over to Vanessa’s dorm, flashing a smile at the girl who lets me in. She bats her eyes back and my smile disappears. I don’t want her getting the wrong idea.
Instead of waiting for the elevator, I take the stairs up to her floor and knock on the door when I arrive. For once there aren’t any girls lingering in the halls.
Vanessa opens the door and steps out.
I can’t help myself when I look her up and down. She’s wearing a pair of fitted jeans that hug her legs and accentuate her hips. I want nothing more than to grab her and pull her into me, to kiss her like I did in the dining hall. Fuck, that kiss has been living in my head rent free since then. I did it because I wanted to know if it would be as good as I thought it’d be.
It was better.
But then, I had the cover of our fellow student body to play into the ‘show’. Now, there’s no one, so if I kiss her it’ll be suspicious, and it’s way too soon to be telling my fake-girlfriend that I think I might be catching real feelings.
I shove those thoughts out of my head, putting on a carefree smile and tossing an arm around her shoulders. “Are you excited to party tonight, Van?”
She scrunches her nose. “Not particularly.”
“Aw, don’t be like that. You’re going to love it.”
“I don’t like it,” Vanessa announces as soon as we walk into the door. She grabs onto the side of my arm, sticking to me like glue. The lights are dimmed, a song by ILLENIUM blasting from several Bluetooth speakers stationed throughout the house.
“We only need to stay a little while.”