It was only pretending until it was more. (Shoni)

Chapter 9

Shelby couldn't stop herself from smirking when she noticed Toni getting nervous. She knew what effects she could have on people. Although she had never gone as far as to put a hand willingly on the thigh of one of her previous costumers, it just felt right with Toni.

She just kind of liked making Toni nervous, especially since Toni never skips a chance to be cocky. Shelby was wondering how far she could move her hand up on that thigh until it was inappropriate for fake dating. But she was only doing that to play her role and Toni was only acting like she was being nervous to play her part of the role too, right?

After contemplating for a few seconds she realized she anyways wouldn't be able to stop herself, so she moved her hand up just the tinniest bit more. In hindsight that was maybe a little too far. The action earned her a hiss from Toni. That was when she realized she had definitely passed the line of appropriate fake girlfriend behaviour.

Toni, now with a very red face, abruptly stood up from her seat and muttered something about going to the bathroom. It was the look that Toni gave her right before leaving the table that made Shelby realize that Toni wanted Shelby to follow her to the bathroom.

So Shelby left her seat as well after a few seconds and followed Toni a few feet behind. Once she opened the door to the bathroom, she had not even enough time to comprehend before she was being pressed against the inside of the bathroom door.

Something about being pressed up against Toni's body being trapped between her and the door suddenly made her normal confidence crumble. Toni was shorter than Shelby but somehow, she still seemed intimidating in this position. Maybe it was the way she was looking at Shelby or it were her strong arms, damn being a professional basketball player really did something to Toni's arms, Shelby wasn't going to complain though.

"What were you doing out there?" Toni hissed in her low raspy voice.

If Toni wouldn't be so close to Shelby and Shelby wouldn't be able to feel Toni's hot breath on her neck, she probably would have been able to come up with a good comeback. But in this case, she definitely was not. The only things she was able to do, was to enjoy the feeling of the hot body pressed against her.

But when her eyes travelled up, she saw that Toni was still looking at her and was still very much waiting for an answer, although by the way Toni's eyes seemed to have a hard time containing eye contact and Toni's body started to shake a bit Shelby noticed that the situation, they were in was also very much affecting Toni.

That was what gave Shelby the confidence back, that she needed to finally give Toni an answer.

"Pretending like we were a couple, isn't that what you are paying me for?" Playing innocent definitely was Shelby's strong suit.

"Oh yeah, you sure as hell were doing a great job pretending like we were a couple with your hand under a table where nobody could even fucking see you."

Shelby easily could have argued with that because both of them knew Fatin in fact that notice it and Fatin looking at them with doubt was actually the reason why Shelby did it in the first place but that was not the way Shelby wanted that conversation to go so instead she settled on a much bolder response.

"I would have stopped if I would have noticed you didn't like it, but it didn't seem like that out there."

That answer surprised Toni, what led to her temporarily loosen her grip on Shelby. That saw Shelby as a sign to push herself off of the wall and stepping away from Toni.

When she was already halfway out of the door Shelby turned around once again.

"Besides from that, we both know how us two leaving the table to go to the bathroom together will look like to them, especially to Fatin. We both know she had seen that hand early and she doesn't seem like the kind of girl that can't imagine what happens in a bathroom after that, so we I believe we convinced her, at least for now."

Then she finally left the bathroom to get back to her seat to continue her very interesting conversation with Martha. After a few minutes Toni came back as well looking like her normal self again.

That day the group decided to just go to bed early because most of them were still exhausted from travelling.

The entire elevator ride up to their floor was silent. It wasn't the uncomfortable one. It was just one filled with pure tension. They both were aware that they were thinking about that moment from the bathroom and they both knew that there was something going on back in that moment but neither of them wanted to address it.

They just ended up quietly getting ready for bed. Toni flopping down on their king-sized bed first. A few minutes later Shelby came out of the bathroom too, ready to get into bed. Toni would never admit it, but she wasn't able to not notice how cute Shelby looked in those pyjamas of her. When Shelby had finally settled into bed, Toni once again thought the position Shelby was in with all those pillows couldn't be comfortable, but this time she stayed quiet.

It was only a few seconds until she noticed Shelby's breathing getting slower and more frequent and that was when she realized that Shelby had already fallen asleep. How could she? She only went to bed like two minutes ago.

Toni thanked God that Shelby wasn't snoring or anything and tried to fall asleep as well. For some reason that did not work out quite as well for her, it took her another two hours until she was finally able to drift off to sleep.

Author's note: why did it become a common thing that I always apologize for updating so late at the beginning of my author's notes, like I don't even know how I would ever start an author's note if I would for once updated the story after a few days like I originally planed to do (also sometimes there is absolutely no reason for me to not updated a chapter because most of the times I have at least 4k more words written down but I am just too lazy to edit them). Anyways thanks for reading, have a nice day <3