Hoax in One

| 15 |

Whatever we were doing—it was fun.

Millie, Alice, and I should have been coordinating boyfriends all this time.

Not that Tate was my boyfriend, but we weren't acting like we were "just friends" anymore. And it wasn't fake.

With his hand wrapped around my right hip, he pulled me into his lap when we approached Alice, Bradley, Millie, and Taylor sitting on the front porch.

We'd laugh when everyone else laughed. We'd nod our heads in agreement when everyone else did. But we weren't actually listening to the conversation. At least I wasn't.

I was just going through the motions and drinking my organic beer, which I swear somehow tasted better.

Every time Tate brushed my hair to the side, he'd brush over my neck right below my ear with the tip of his nose and goosebumps would cascade down my neck in that ASMR that my body reserved only for him. Then Tate would make a low satisfied noise that only I could hear and kiss them.

I couldn't comprehend the words coming out of anyone's mouth because my brain would be fuzzy for the next few minutes. When it would clear, Tate would repeat it, starting the whole process over again.

"I can die happy now," Tate whispered against the cartilage of my ear.

I leaned my head back and pressed my lips into the side of his jaw. "You aren't very hard to please then."

"I'm extremely hard to please," Tate countered, running his fingers up my outer thigh and under the hem of my dress.

"What does that say about us that we're total opposites?"

"I'm sure my psych teacher could lecture for a week about why it's a bad idea. But I already know every little thing you do that annoys me, and I like you anyway."

"I am never annoying," I joked, pinching Tate's thigh. I used to do so many things that annoyed him, and he'd scowl and roll his eyes and appease me anyway. "Your pockets are the perfect size."

Tate chuckled. "Or you could get a bigger purse so I don't have to hold your phone all the time."

"And it's totally normal to open the microwave before it stops."

"Or you could just let it finish so I don't have to come behind you and cancel the remaining two seconds you left on the display."

I sighed. "But then I'd have to listen to the annoying beep."

"We couldn't have that, could we?" Tate smiled and squeezed me. He opened another two beers for us and handed me one.

"Tate," Bradley laughed, pulling me and Tate back to reality. "Taylor wanted to thank you for allowing him to win a trophy for once."

"You have enough," Taylor joked.

Alice scoffed playfully. "It's never enough with you boys."

"Alice, you have all of your middle school volleyball and soccer trophies on a shelf in your room," I teased her. "And a separate shelf for high school."

"They're pretty," she laughed and whispered something in Brad's ear.

"We should have our own little tournament. Boys coach the girls," Millie said excitedly. "Dammit, I forgot for the millionth time that Devin plays."

"You'd kick their ass," Tate chuckled into my neck.

"Fuck it," Millie smiled. "Let's do it anyway."

"I'll make you your own little trophy," Tate told me. "The girl statue can be wearing a silly pineapple shirt, and I'll paint her club pink."