Page 182 of The Fake Date Agreement

“You left practice in a hurry,” Caleb says.

“My dad called, wanting to know about spring break.” My finger hovers over the buy button.

Caleb’s sigh is barely audible, but I hear it. It sounds like relief. “We thought…”

“You thought what?”

“Nothing. Do you have a dress?” Caleb’s question throws me for two seconds.

I sit back in my desk chair, closing my laptop lid before I can finish buying my plane tickets home. “A dress? For what?”

“Coach told us there’s a party in a downtown hotel. A big sponsor is throwing it, and we’re all the guests of honor.”

“To celebrate the championship?”

“To celebrate themselves, most likely. It’s tomorrow. Are you up for it?”

“Um, that’s really soon.” Too soon to invent a reason to get out of it.

“I know, sorry. I was hoping we could skip it, but the whole team has to show their faces.”

I frown. A frat party is one thing. There are plenty of dark corners to hide in so someone else can be the center of attention. But this? “Which hotel?”

“The Westlake-Carlton.”

I break out in a cold sweat.

A five-star hotel. Literally the best hotel in the city.

“I don’t know about that,” I say, sweating more as I think about it.

“Coach says it’s not an all-night thing. As long as we show our faces and shake hands for pictures, we can leave. And there’s something we wanted to talk to you about.”

I sit up in my seat. “What?”

“It’s about spring break. And… well, something else.”

“I usually go home for spring break, but Javier asked me to stay on campus for a couple of days. Is it about the same thing?”

“It is.”

“And the something else?”

“The fake-date agreement,” he says.

Does he want it to continue? Is that what this is about?

“If you don’t have a dress, Javier says he can get one for you in a couple of hours. The party isn’t until six tomorrow, but we have to practice late tonight. It’s our last one before spring break, and Coach is determined to kill us.”

I briefly smile. “And Reid’s paper?”

After our all-nighter, he asked his professor a couple of questions and said he could handle the rest on his own. He just needed to read it until he hated it, then he’d know it was good.

I can tell Caleb is smiling when he says, “Submitted it. He’s feeling hopeful, which is something he never thought he would be.”

“That’s good.” My smile fades. “Can’t you tell me that thing now instead of during spring break?”

His silence stretches out so long that I get nervous.

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