Breathtaking. He’s breathtaking. My breath has been taken, and I don’t know how to get it back.
The red dragon covers almost his entire chest, curling around on itself, all claws and fiery scales. The swirling water starts behind the dragon on the left side of his shoulder and then covers the rest of his arm. My eyes follow the rest of the waves, finally landing on the little boat that’s bobbing in that restless sea. Tentatively, I reach one finger out and trace it, tossing about in the chaos, and I understand what it means, even without him having to tell me.
He’s tense, waiting for my verdict, or approval. He doesn’t know he already had it.
“It’s beautiful.” He’s beautiful.
I keep following the swirls of the waves, and he turns, so I can see his back and the blue dragon. It’s less intense than the red dragon. More peaceful and calm. Fire and water. Yin and yang.
I could sit and look at him all day, but I feel bad ogling him.
“You can put your shirt on if you want.” It seems like a weird thing to say, so I look away from him when I say it. He’s still gazing at me over his shoulder.
After a beat of silence, he pulls his shirt back on and I say goodbye to the dragons and waves in my mind. Jett is very modest for a guy, or maybe he’s just trying to keep the Fake Dating boundaries clear. He’s better at it than I am.
The boundaries, even though we wrote them down, are becoming increasingly blurry in my mind. I mean, we’ve pretty much thrown out the Rule about incidental contact, because we sleep together every night. And I like it when he calls me princess when we’re alone. There are a million other little Rule violations each and every day that I totally ignore because I don’t care anymore. I’m having too much fun being a Fake Girlfriend.
“Thank you for sharing that with me. I feel like I should show you my tattoos, but I don’t have any.” He lies back down next to me, but on his stomach, propped up on his elbows.
“So tell me something. Something no one else knows.” I look away from his face and up at the ceiling. Well, there’s one thing I could tell him, but all my friends know about my virginity, so that actually doesn’t count. Thankfully.
So what can I tell him? Not something embarrassing. Something that will make him think I’m adorable and might want to take off his shirt again. The first is possible, but the second probably isn’t. Ah, got it.
“Okay, when I was seven, I was completely in love with Batman. I used to watch the cartoons and movies, even more than my brother.” I don’t think I’ve mentioned my brother to Jett yet. Oh well.
“Okay, so I’m obsessed with Batman. I wanted, more than anything, a Batman shirt to wear with the Bat Signal on it. My brother had one, but he would hide it from me, and lord it over me and I was so jealous. So I begged my mom for it, but she told me that girls weren’t supposed to wear Batman shirts. Yeah, I know. There’s a reason I don’t talk to my parents. She bought me a Disney Princess shirt, which was fine, but I wanted a Batman shirt. So I decided that I was going to get one, no matter what. The next time my mom took me clothes shopping, I ended up hiding in a rack and waiting for her to get distracted so I could run to the boys’ department, grab a shirt, run to the bathroom, tear the tags off with my teeth, put it on under my other shirt and walk out like nothing had happened. They didn’t have those tags that would set off the alarms back then. Or maybe they just didn’t have it in this store. I wore that shirt under my other clothes for the next month. Every day. No one ever noticed, but I couldn’t put it in the wash, so I hid it at the back of my drawer. It’s probably still there.”
It’s a stupid story, and not that great, but it’s one of those things that I think about sometimes that no one else knows.
“So there. Now you know about my history as a Batman t-shirt klepto.” Jett grins wide and grabs my face and gives me a kiss.
“You’re the sweetest klepto I’ve ever met. And I won’t tell anyone. Your secret is safe with me, princess.”
“Cross your heart?” I say.
“Cross my heart,” he says, making an X on his chest. Right on the red dragon. Hopefully the dragon will also keep my secret.
Chapter 13
“To the halfway mark,” Jett says as we have lunch on the exact day it’s been two weeks. I thought I was the only one who was obsessively counting, so I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it.
“To two weeks of successful Fake Dating. How’s it been for you?” I say, clinking my plastic glass with his.
“I think it’s been great so far. Javier is off my back and your apartment is much nicer than mine. Plus, you’re also better at cooking.”
“Not when it comes to nachos.”
“That is true. I am really good at nachos.”
“And art. You kick my ass at art. And folding paper. You’re the best at that too. And I think you’re a better liar than I am.” He’s definitely a better liar than I am. That’s been proven several times.
“But you’re the best at waffles. And picking chairs. And stealing Batman shirts. Speaking of that, I have something for you as sort of an anniversary present.” He pulls something out of his bag. It’s a present wrapped in the school newspaper.
“Sorry about the wrapping job. The only paper that I have is tiny origami paper that wouldn’t work. I was going to tape it together, but . . . Anyway. It was this or toilet paper. I figured you wouldn’t want toilet paper.”
“You got that right.” I take the present from him and open it slowly. I don’t want to act like a kid and tear it open. Something black and soft emerges, and I realize what it is fairly quickly.
“You are such a dork,” I say as I pull out the Batman t-shirt. It’s exactly my size. He must have either gone through my drawers, or he’s looked at the tags in my shirts.
“Do you mean to tell me that you didn’t get me a present to celebrate our anniversary? Don’t chicks love that stuff?”
I look up from the shirt and I can see that he’s joking. He’d better be.
“I didn’t know we were doing presents. You should have informed me beforehand. I think we need to add that to the Rules. When presents are going to be given, the other should be informed so they can reciprocate.”
“But that takes all the spontaneity out of giving presents. Besides, I don’t want anything.” That’s silly. Everyone loves presents. “And you got me a chair. That’s all I need.”
That is true. I got him a chair. So maybe that makes up for the shirt.
“Do you like it?” he says.
“I freaking love it. I’m never taking it off.”
“So you have a shirt that has Batman on it and you’re going to wear it under all your clothes?” I know he’s paraphrasing a quote from Mean Girls and I love it.
“This one time, Batman punched me in the face. It was awesome.”
We both laugh and I hug the shirt into my chest. I’m totally putting it on as soon as I get back to the apartment, and I’m sleeping in it tonight.
“On a less fun note, I was thinking we should start talking about how we’re going to end this. I think it should be public, for maximum impact and finality. Don’t you think?” The topic shift leaves me with my head spinning.
I don’t want to talk about the break-up. I want to wait until the last possible moment, but I know deep down that we have to plan this out. There’s no point in going through this whole charade if we can’t end it convincingly.
“Yeah. That sounds great.” No. It sounds terrible. I hate confrontation. I avoid it at all costs, even if that means I get treated like crap. But this isn’t real. It’s Fake Fighting. I can handle that.
“I’m thinking I could say something stupid, and you get upset and then we yell and then you get to be the one to end it. I want you to come out on top.” In the midst of my sudden depression about our Fake Break-up, I have another little moment of swoon. How can I say goodbye to him?
“You don’t have to do that. I could say something awful. Blame it on PMS and then you could call me out on it, and then I still get to break up with you. Because of PMS.” This will actually work, cycle-wise.
“No, I think it should be me who is the a**hole. I want to give you plenty of things to bash about me when you get together with your friends. I probably should start being an a**hole now, so it doesn’t come out of the blue. We should have at least one or two fights beforehand. You know, make it convincing.” He’s thought about this. A lot. I’ve been trying to avoid it as much as I can. I know he’s making sense, but I don’t want him to be making sense. I want him to be talking about the Batman shirt, or his tattoos or anything else.
“Sounds— sounds good,” I say, swallowing because my mouth is dry. “So when do you think our first fight should be?” We should schedule it now and make sure all our fights are in public. Should we write a script, or just let it flow? Or should we say normal things and just make it look like we’re fighting? I have no idea how to do this. I suck at Fake Dating. I’m that girl who gets to foster a puppy, and then can’t let it go when it’s time to give it back to its forever family.
Except Jett is a lot sexier than a puppy. Puppies aren’t sexy. Well, they shouldn’t be if you’re a normal person. But there probably is some weirdo out there who’s into them—
“Should we rehearse?” Jett says, bringing me back to what we’re supposed to be talking about.
“Like, right now?” I don’t want to do this.
“Yes, right now. Why do you always have to be so difficult?” He gives me a wink, even though his voice is loud and the tone is anything but playful. Swallowing a lump in my throat, I play along.
“Why are you always trying to control things?” My voice echoes through the room, and a few people turn and stare.
His voice rises. “I’m not trying to control everything, I just think we should talk about this in a calm and rational manner.” Wow, he’s good. If I didn’t know better, I would think we were really fighting.
“Here we go again, you always treat me like I’m the crazy one.” I grab my tray and stomp off to the trashcans, making sure to separate out my silverware and my cup and leave them on my tray so they can get washed.
Jett is right behind me.
“Don’t you walk away from me!” he yells so loud that nearly all conversation ceases. Hearing Jett’s stern voice is a little scary.
I whip around and decide that it’s go big or go home.
“I’ll do whatever I want! You don’t own me!” With that, I storm back to the table, grab my bag, and storm out. It feels kind of good, even if it’s not real. I’ve never yelled at anyone in public before. It’s kind of empowering. I want to do a leap or something. So I do.
“What was that?” Jett’s voice says behind me.
“My leap of victory over finally giving my douchey boyfriend what he deserves. And in public, no less. That was a victory leap. I should have done the Breakfast Club fist pump.”