Best Served Fake

forty-six // there will never be two

"Soon, Williams," he said, dropping his bag and falling back against the mattress with a groan of appreciation that sent all the blood in my head somewhere else entirely. "Don't try and lock me down too fast."

And there it was. The words I was afraid he would shoot back at me if I ever confessed something real. I couldn't even respond, giving him a half-smile instead and dropping my bag next to his, before crawling next to him on the mattress and sitting cross-legged beside him, letting the curtain of my hair cover my face.

Kai stretched across to push my hair behind my ear, revealing his frowning face behind it. "You know, because we have to tell the masses first?"

I swallowed. "Right. Yes."

Announcing a fake relationship wasn't a task I would have ever considered undertaking a few months ago, but my life had irrevocably changed since then. Because of that, though, I'd never put much thought into how, exactly, one announced they were definitely absolutely really dating, in a way that didn't scream of shameless bragging. We didn't want it to seem fake, after all. It took us almost an hour to decide the best way to do it, in between changing into pyjamas and getting ready for sleep. Given we resorted to the simplest option, seemed a bit overkill. But we had enough fun that it didn't matter.

Kai immediately vetoed a Facebook relationship status announcement, on the grounds that the ruse was for our classmate's benefit, so unless I wanted to have lunch with his mother (which he took pains to remind me that I really, really, really didn't), Facebook was not an option. This was probably a smart call; I couldn't make any promises about where my butterknife would end up lodged if I was forced to chat to Maria Delaney.

The easiest way to submit gossip for the court of public approval was Jameson Miller, which had been Kai's first point of call. But when the call had connected, Jamie was obviously inebriated—slurred and nonsensical babbling—and couldn't seem to understand what we were asking.

"What do you mean tell people you're dating?" he'd asked. "You're already dating."

Kai frowned into the phone. "We are now. We weren't an hour ago."

He'd replied with a bland and confused— "What."—that wasn't even a question. And despite the number of times we tried to explain to me that we were only now official, he didn't seem to understand. "But I've watched him feel you up, like, forty times. A day."

"And I've seen you after a fumble in the closet with Madeleine, about one hundred and forty times, who you're also not dating."

He did not seem to understand that the two situations were similar, but he just kept mumbling "no" and "that's not right" and even, in a fit of astounding passion, "why do you feel like you must lie to me? I am hurt and offended and will need to drink more whisky to cope with this unmitigated betrayal!"

If he was using words like unmitigated, he had to be mostly fine, but Kai still called Seb to send him over on babysitting duty.

Instead, we had to resort to the common, basic technique that was almost as effective as James Miller. Isabelle had sent through a series of photos from the wedding, and I was definitely more inclined to the classic Instagram post of officiality when I saw how good I looked in them. She texted the group chat with a link to a Google Drive holding any photos that featured the four of us—me, Isabelle, Kai and Will—and had put a note in with all of her favourites. Most of the ones that appealed to Izzy were unflattering shots of Will, but there was one of Kai and me that was... incredible.

The photographer had captured the moment when we'd been walking away from Lena and Jace. Kai was laughing unashamedly, because I'd just told him his brother was hot, and nothing amused Kai more thoroughly than when I surprised him with a joke that didn't fit with the Valerie Williams he thought he knew a few months ago. I looked self-satisfied, pleased to have made him laugh, and the photo was so natural it made me think I could tell him exactly how I feel, and I know he'd feel the same way. He has to. Because that photo was real.