Page 21 of My Fake Relationship With the Popular Boy
Right — girlfriends usually liked to share rooms with their boyfriends. Why anyone would want to share a room with a boy was beyond me but that wasn’t important. If we had to do this to convince everyone we were together, then so be it.
“Oh,” I laughed. “Right. Yeah, of course, that would be great.”
“What rooms do you guys have?” Sabrina asked. Thank goodness for distractions.
“We’re in 3009,” Madison said.
“Jaxon and I have 3003,” Eli said.
“And we’re 3017,” Sabrina said. “That’s not bad. We can get away with that.”
“Are we really all on the same floor?” I asked. “I thought boys and girls would be split up.”
“They just booked out an entire floor because it’s easier to chaperone and reduces the chances of us annoying guests,” Eli explained.
“Let me guess,” I said flatly. “You learned that at the staff meeting.”
Sabrina and Jaxon howled with laughter while Eli shrugged with a small smile.
“Are you sure we won’t get in trouble for this?” I asked. Honestly, I wasn’t overly worried about getting in trouble at this point in the year. What was another detention or two, in the grand scheme of things? But it was the only excuse I could think of to get out of sharing a room with Jaxon.
“Nah, the teachers are notoriously lenient on the grad trip,” Sabrina said. “They occasionally do room checks but they don’t put tape on the door or anything.”
“Tape on the door?” Madison asked. She had to squint as she looked at her because the sun was so bright. She had sunglassessitting on top of her head but she liked to keep them there as a fashion statement, rather than actually wear them.
“Yeah,” Sabrina said. “After they check your room for the night, they put a small piece of scotch tape with one end of the door and the other end on the doorframe. If you open the door, the tape disconnects. You obviously can’t put it back on when you’re inside the room, so it’s their way of seeing if you left during the night. But since they’re not doing it, we can switch rooms after bed check without any trouble.”
I couldn’t think of any other excuses to get out of this, so I turned to Jaxon. Since he was the only person who knew we weren’t dating, he would also be the only one to understand why I didn’t want to share a room. I assumed he wouldn’t want to share a room with me and would come up with an excuse that I hadn’t thought of. Instead, he just shrugged and casually threw his arm around my shoulders.
“I’d be happy to switch,” he said. “Anything to get to spend a little more time with Violet.”
I sighed deeply. There wasn’t any way I could argue against this now — everyone would realize the relationship wasn’t real.
“It’s settled then,” Madison said. She handed her room key to Jaxon and everyone else passed theirs around to the right person.
I forced a smile. “Perfect!”
eight
By the timewe sorted out who was sharing a room with who and actually got upstairs, we had almost no time to settle in. Jaxon barely even stepped foot in our room, instead choosing to just dump his bags on the floor and leave immediately. I, on the other hand, took a couple of minutes to freshen up and get changed. I wasn’t inclined to spend the whole day in the same clothes I had worn for a six-hour bus ride.
Just as I finished pulling on my new shirt, revelling a little in the fact that I didn’t have to wear my uniform now that the trip had started, somebody knocked on my door. I had to jump a little to see through the peephole since it was obnoxiously high on the door — probably perfect for somebody Jaxon’s height — but I got enough of a good view through it to see Madison standing on the other side.
I threw the door open with a wide smile. “Hello.”
“Well, don’t you look dashing?” she said. She was one to talk. Somehow in the few minutes we’d been apart, she’d managed to do a full face of makeup, put her hair in a nice style that probably would have taken an hour for me to figure out, and had gotten changed into a summer dress and sandals.
I quickly slipped on my shoes and slung the strap of my purse over my shoulder.
“Ready to go to the lobby?” I asked.
“Yeah.” Madison took a couple steps back so I could leave the room. As I shut the heavy door behind me, she peered over my shoulder. “Where’s Jaxon?”
“Don’t know,” I said. I tested the door handle to make sure it was locked before I turned back to her. “He just dropped his bags off and left. Probably went to see Eli and Sabrina.”
“And didn’t even tell you where he was going?” Madison’s eyebrows knit together in concern. “That’s a little rude.”
“Why should I care?” I shrugged and headed for the end of the hall. “Anyway, elevator or stairs?”
