Best Served Fake

bonus // kai's pov

"I panicked," she admitted. "I didn't want people to think the death of small children got me going."

I leaned back in my seat and grinned at her. "Good to know it is the culinary skills of a cartoon rat, instead."

"Shh," she admonished, reaching over to clap her hand over my mouth. Even though she was only teasing, the feeling of her hand touching me tightened my gut. "Don't make fun of me."

"I would never," I promised. That wasn't true; I loved making fun of her. It lit a spark behind her eyes, an expression of pure delight, and I would do almost anything to have her look at me like that. "I was just expressing a friendly curiosity for your proclivities."

She rolled her eyes at the unguarded desire on my face. "Yeah, okay, well. Train a rat to cook and I'll do you, Delaney."

I was so gone for this girl.

I snorted a laugh. I also weighed my chances of succeeding in that field, and judged them to be tragically slim. Shit.

Thank God our plan for today was what it was. There was no chance I was keeping my hands to myself—not when she was like this, so unguarded and rambly and goddamn fucking funny—and I was glad to have an excuse for it. Because, as much as I might wish otherwise, she was both literally and metaphorically in the driver's seat for this relationship. I was simply along for the ride.

It was hardly a secret that I was practically obsessed with her. Will and Isabelle were already giving me enough shit for it; so was Jamie, but that wasn't irregular enough to take any stock in. But Valerie... it was hard to know how she felt, really. She flirted with me incessantly, but it was hard to read how much she actually meant it.

She was only newly single from two messy relationships. Even if she did like me, she probably wasn't ready to date again so soon. If I thought for a moment that she was, I would have asked her out weeks ago. Probably from that first sober conversation, where she had joked about the ranking of her boobs, and I had thought in a startled daze that she was perhaps the biggest surprise of my life, in the best way possible. Definitely from that party, where she had kissed me and erased every thought from my mind that was not immediately related to her, until I was practically saluting the party with my dick.

That was fucking awesome.

Valerie glanced over at me again.

"Why am I driving again?" she asked, tapping her fingers habitually on the wheel. When she was nervous, she fiddled with useless things in the car. The knob of the volume button, even though there was no music playing, the temperature settings, even though there was no air whose temperature could be adjusted.

I liked to flirt, and I really liked to flirt with Valerie. She was funny, and she was a good sparring partner when it came to shameless come-ons, but in moments like this—when it felt serious, when it felt real—she shed the layers of unabridged confidence and tell-tale signs of stress began to appear. She was a master of light-hearted, meaningless flirting.

I'd been the same, before her. Flirting because it was fun, because it was easy, with no real intention behind it. I might pretend it was the same with her—because I could tell she found that easier, almost, to consider that I was simply doing her a favour because I hated Tommy, and not because I genuinely liked her—but it was not the same. Flirting with Valerie was all intention.

I wasn't particularly fussed with timing. I would wait as long as she needed. Especially when all of her plans seemed to involve hooking up.

"Oh, you'll see," I said, because it felt creepy to tell her that I was really just hoping she climbed over me.