Page 17 of Fake It Till You Break It
“Usually my mom would practically push us into a room together, yet now that we’re dating, she seemed kind of reluctant for you to come into my room.” She eyed me from head to toe with a raised brow. “Do you look hornier or something today? Like she’s worried that you’ll take advantage of little innocent me?”
Scoffing, I fell back onto her bed, bouncing a couple of times as I made myself comfortable. The bedsprings squeaked a bit. Loudly. I half expected one of our moms to come bursting in. “Whatever. If anything, she’s probably worried that your messy room will scare me away before this relationship even starts. Seriously, when was the last time you cleaned in here?”
Her lips pursed together as she thought about it. “Last June.”
“Oh. God.” I tried to get up, but Mia shoved me back down and swung her legs onto my lap—practically sitting on top of me—to trap me. “If your mom walked in right now, she’d know that I’m not the horny one.”
“Please, like you could ever make me think about you likethat.”
Was that a challenge? “That makes two of us. I am surprised that they believed us, though.”
“Yeah, especially with that sad excuse for a kiss.” She smacked her hand against my shoulder. “Why were you trying to kiss my ear? Is that your secret fetish?”
“Ouch. I was trying to kiss yourcheek. It wasn’t my fault that you turned your face at the last second.”
Her face scrunched up. “I had to turn away to gag when you called me ‘honey.’”
I let out a short laugh. “This plan is doomed to fail before we even get started. God, how are we ever going to convince them that we’re really dating?”
“Not with that kind of attitude! Now, what are we eating later?” With a frown, Mia grabbed a pillow and smacked the top of my head.
When did she get so abusive? I yanked it away before she could hit me again. “I’m not hungry.”
“Great, because I wasn’t going to eat with you anyway.” Her sigh was so heavy that I felt like I could practically see it. “We just need to figure out what we had in case our moms ask.”
She was right. Now I felt stupid. “Oh, right. Good thinking. How about pizza?”
“I had pizza twice this week.”
“Which would suck if we wereactuallyeating pizza. But we’re not.”
Mia wrinkled her nose. “Still, we have to be believable, and my mom knows that I would never eat pizza three times a week. How about ramen? Or sushi!”
I threw my hands up. “Fine, whatever. You can decide on the pretend food we’re going to have for dinner and just text me about it later.”
Again, I tried to leave, but she planted her foot firmly on my chest and pushed me back down. “You can’t leave yet. They’re still home.”
“Well, what are we going to do until then?”
“It is Sunday…”
There was a small smile on her lips as her fingertips tapped together like Mr. Burns fromThe Simpsons. My forehead scrunched together as her smile grew even wider. What the hell was she—
It finally clicked when she leaned back to open her nightstand and pulled out a couple of those Korean face-mask thingies that made you look like a ghost. “No. No. NO.”
“Yes. Yes. YES.” Her hand smoothed them all out on the bedspread like a colorful pack of cards. “Now which one do you want? I have moisturizing ones with aloe and cucumber. Some collagen wrinkle-free ones. Or even this one with a picture of a baby’s foot. I don’t really know what it does since all the words are in Korean, but I assume it’s something good. Look how soft and glowing that baby’s toes are!”
Picking up her feet, I shoved her off of my lap, and she flopped backward with a squeal. I grabbed the baby-foot mask from the bed and pointed it at her like a sword. “I’m not doing this.”
Her eyes widened innocently. “What? It’s not like it’s your first time.”
“One. Time,” I nearly growled. “And we swore that we would never talk about it again.”
“And now it’s about to be two times that we will never talk about again. Come on, pretty boy. You have to keep up your looks if you’re going to be dating me. By the way…” She knelt and faced me. Her elbows braced against my shoulder as she leaned forward and gave me a quick peck on the cheek. “For future reference, that’s what a kiss on the cheek is supposed to be.”
Not sure why, but the kiss took me by surprise. I stared at Mia for a moment before finally pushing her away. “Fine, you win. I’ll do it if it means you’ll stop kissing me.” I ripped open a package before slapping the mask on my face. The strip on my nose wiggled as I sighed.
Mia let out an identical sigh and poked at the moist edges around my chin to smooth them out. “Ah, we’ve only been dating a few hours, and the magic is already gone.”
