Page 32 of The Midseason Fakeout

“What?” she fires back at me, her eyes blazing.

I hold my hands up. “Woah, calm down.” She peers away, and I can still see that it’s bothering her. I never knew she was uneasy about her body. “In a purely platonic way, you’re gorgeous, Bails. Do you think I get hard when any girl dances up against me?”

She places a strand of hair around her ear. “Yeah, actually. I thought exactly that.”

Technically, I guess it’s something that can’t be helped, so I throw something else out there. “Why do you think I keep touching your ass then?”

She peers up, and I have to swallow the sudden dryness in my throat. What am I doing? Am I trying to talk us into this?

“Because we’re fake dating,” she says, brows rising like she’s not sure if she should be saying it like a question or a fact.

This isn’t going well. I need to steer this back around. “As a friend,” I clearly point out. “You shouldn’t be self-conscious about anything. I promise.”

Awkwardness seems to engulf us as Bailey peers around the room.

“So, what?” she asks. “We stay up here for a little while so people think we did the dirty and then we can go back downstairs?”

I shrug. “Sounds about right.”

She smirks. “What’s that word you’re always using to describe me? Oh, I know. Boring…” She draws the word out and sends me a look.

From the room next to us, soft moans begin to bleed through the thin walls.

Bailey gasps and throws her hand over her mouth. “There’s someone having sex in there,” she whisper-yells, pointing that way.

I laugh at her shocked expression. “I have news for you. People are probably having sex in all of these rooms. Cliché, remember?”

She giggles into her hand, and I wonder if the few sips of beer she had are getting to her, or if she’s truly that innocent that she thought I was pretending. “You weren’t kidding,” she muses, then continues to peer around the room. Luckily, I chose one that’s decently clean. There’s no dirty laundry anywhere, and it doesn’t smell like a mold-infested locker room. Whoever lives here even made their bed.

A headboard knocking against the wall comes from the same room as the moans. Bailey laughs again, her cheeks red. “This is crazy.” Then, without hesitation she hops onto the bed on all fours. The look of excitement on her face catches me off guard. “I have an idea!” She shifts on the mattress like I did with her bed earlier, and the frame hits the wall, mimicking the sound that’s coming from next door. “Perfect.”

“What are you doing?” When I’d done the same back in her room, she’d freaked out.

“We’re supposed to be having sex. That’s what the quarterback of the football team does with his very gorgeous, very new girlfriend.” She says the words like she’s reading from a spicy novel. “They can’t even take one night off from having their hands all over each other. They need each other. Now.”

Her tone drops an octave like she took a side job as a sultry sex operator, and I’m all too into it.

“QB1 needs to win at everything. He needs to be louder, sexier than the room next door.”

She starts rocking the bed into the wall in time with the couple next door before letting out a passionate groan. I’m instantly hard, my cock pushing against my zipper. But that’s not enough for Bailey. She calls out, “Yes, Aidan.”

“Jesus Christ,” I mutter. It’s bad enough that she’s saying it, but she throws her head back like she’s acting it out.

She stifles a laugh, but she’s into it now. “Yes, like that!”

On the sly, I peek down to make sure I’m not showing how much this is affecting me. When I glance back up, she tosses her head back again, her hips making the bed hit the wall. I’m not sure where she learned to do this, but I’m completely turned the fuck on.

She moans again.

Next door, the other girl gives a short cry, and Bailey covers her mouth to stifle another giggle. “It’s working,” she whispers, waving me over. “Say something.”

I’m at a loss. I’m enthralled at her performance. I’m…completely taken aback. I don’t know how to pretend to have sex.

She locks gazes with me. “You’re so fucking huge.”

Her statement is punctuated with bangs against the wall. It might be my ego come into play, but finally, I lean over, my hands pushing against the mattress to make the springs creak. “You like that?”

Bailey moans in response.

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