fake smile // pete davidson

06. real life

it was ridiculously sweet. she got a toothache just thinking about it.

thoughts swirled around in her head as she pondered what pete was doing just then. going a date? having sex? at a strip club?

---

pete crushed his joint in the ash tray. the t.v. in front of him droned on about the latest trump tweet and he couldn't care less. pete felt around for his phone on the couch, finding it when the screen lit up with a text from kaia.

kaia
What are you doing?

pete
smoking. what's up?

kaia
You were supposed to meet up with me hours ago!

pete
that's next week

kaia
That's TODAY you idiot!
read

pete leaped to his feet. shoving his feet in a pair of busted black converses, he dashed out the door, forgetting to turn off the t.v. he mentally beat himself up for being such an idiot. but a nagging voice in his head questioned the urgency of this impromptu meeting.

would roman do this?

it doesn't matter!

fuck roman. fuck ariana. fuck kate. fuck margaret. fuck cassie. fuck love.

no, that's not right.

kaia. she took a chance on him when he was getting ridiculed left and right. the feelings of resentment were replaced by gratitude. she loved him. the least he could do was show up to their date. she deserves this.

pete wanted to make her happy at all cost. she deserved it. he owes this to her. but the nagging voice remained, buried underneath trauma that pete wasn't quite ready to face.

----------

cherrie reapplied the lip gloss stressfully. the bubblegum flavor was delicious and before she knew it she unconsciously scraped it off for the hundredth time that night.

she lifted the gloss wand up to her lips yet again and in one swift movement her bottom lip was a highly-reflective pink. she did the same to her top lip. biting her tongue to avoid licking it off, she stuck the wand back in the tube and put it away before she could apply another coat. cherrie read somewhere too much gloss could minimize the appearance of her lips and that was the last thing she needed.

cherrie was in new york. staten island, new york. aka the hometown of he-who-shall-not-be-named. roman and the previously mentioned guy hadn't talked to each other in 3 months. 3 MONTHS. the plan was not going well and she had to find a way to make it work. even if it meant waiting for someone in the back of a bug-infested dollar store.

unlocking her phone, cherrie glanced at her reflection in the camera. her cheeks were flushed with glossier's cloud paint, and her cheekbones glowed with specks of highlighter. the layer of lip gloss she applied complimented the soft pinkish hue of her light eyeshadow.

"perfect," she mumbled, stuffing the phone back in her pants pocket. the pink cargo pants, along with a cropped white tank top, made her look like a character from "Bratz". It was a little too matchy-matchy and tomboyish for her liking, but jaime specifically told her that color coordinated outfits showed that you cared about your appearance. jaime did say that on april 1st though. whatever, it was too late to change.

while cherrie mentally debated the pros and cons of wearing her long black hair in pigtails, a figure engulfed her in a bear hug from behind.

"oh my god!"

she whipped her head around to mean mug the perpetrator, but smiled when she saw who it was.

cherrie planted a glossy kiss on aaron's cheek. his body shook with laughter and her gloss ended up smeared around the side of his lips. "do not scare me like that!"

"or what?" aaron's face twisted into a playful smile. she snatched up the baseball cap that rested on his soft, bouncy curls and plopped it on her head. the dark blue yankees cap looked awful times ten with her strickly pastel pink and white outfit, but oh well. the course of true love never ran smooth (or whatever that shakespeare guy said).

(a/n: y'all I-- I don't even know what to say. thank you continuing to read fake smile! my personal life has been awful, and my mental health is at an all time low, which has prevented me from update. and frankly, I'm not as interested in pete as I was when I started this book. however, I promised that I would update in november and I didn't keep that promise. and for that I am truly sorry. update definitely will be longer than before and will probably take a month. please remember that I'm currently very busy right now and that I don't have as much free time as I did in the summer.

with all that being said, I would like input on fake smile. I hate how the story was going and wanted more of a slow burn for roman and pete's relationship, so I broke them up for now. don't worry, they'll end up together! I originally wrote this with kaia being margaret, but I like the idea of kaia being pete's current love interest (you'll see why eventually). what do you guys think of what has happened so far? leave your thoughts below:

what do you think about roman and pete's short-lived relationship?

what do you think about roman dating tom holland? (he'll be more important later)

will roman and yuki's friendship last?

what are jaime's motives? cherrie's motives? who the hell is aaron?

thank for reading fake smile. I love you.