Faking Love (Complete)

Chapter 12 - The Sleepover

As our eyes were locked onto each other, I started to lean in slowly, but right before my lips touched Takashi's, he pushed off the sink and stood up, sliding around me and heading into the bedroom.

I stood there stunned, blinking my eyes and asking myself, "Did that really just happen?"

I replayed the last five seconds over in my head and cringed at the memory. What was I thinking? Of course Takashi didn't want to kiss me. He was way out of my league, plus he thought I had a boyfriend. Now he was gonna think I was a cheater. I had to come up with an excuse really quick.

"Hey," I said lightly-heartedly, trying to play it off like it was no big deal as I walked into the bedroom. "I was just reaching for the gauze that was behind you. I wanted to make sure you didn't think I was like, going in for a kiss or something," I laughed. "I obviously wouldn't do that. I have a boyfriend."

He nodded and laughed too. "Yeah, not gonna lie. I was a little freaked out. I was about to be like, 'You're cool and all Sydney, but I just don't like you like that.' It's a good thing we don't have to have THAT awkward conversation."

Hearing that felt like a dagger plunged right through my heart.

"Yeah," I laughed half-heartedly. "It's a good thing. That would've been embarrassing."

I tried to be nonchalant and play it off, but it definitely broke my heart to hear him say he 'didn't like me like that.' I wondered if he liked me at all, even a little bit. The worst part was that he was known as the school player that hooked up with as many girls as he could. Apparently that didn't include me.

I walked back into the bathroom and washed my hands as I stood there, studying my reflection in the mirror, looking at the dark-rimmed glasses that took up most of my pale face and my frizzy brown hair that was laying in a messy lump on top of my head. I couldn't help but wonder if I looked more like Caitlyn, Jasmine or Dominique, if Takashi would've wanted to kiss me. I wasn't beautiful or exotic like them. I was just plain and ordinary, nothing special.

"Hey, are you ready to get to work? I've got plans later so we need to get a move on," Takashi shouted from the bedroom, breaking me out of my trance.

I cleared my throat and said, "Oh, yeah. Sorry. I'll ummm, I'll be right there," as I turned off the water and dried my hands on a towel.

I took a deep breath in and let it out, blinking away the tears that were burning at my eyes, dabbing them away with a Kleenex. When I had finally composed myself, I walked back into the bedroom and sat down at the table next to him.

He didn't even notice my red eyes as he started flipping through the text book and said, "Ok. Our assignment's on page twenty three. I'll work on the top half of the questions and you work on the bottom half. Then I'll check your paper afterwards to make sure everything looks right."

"Shouldn't I check your paper too?" I asked, scrunching my eyebrows.

He shrugged. "If you want to you can, but it's not really necessary."

"Okay, ummm. Yeah, that works," I told him, opening up my book to page twenty three.

I did my best to block out any thoughts of Takashi and tried to focus on answering the questions in front of me. It was hard. I couldn't help but steal a glance over at him from time to time, noticing how handsome he looked, but he was too busy concentrating on his work to notice me looking.

He finished his part first and started messing around on his phone while I was still struggling to finish my part. I was normally really good at science, but this stuff she had us doing was complicated, like advanced college level work. Being distracted by Takashi didn't help. When he was around my brain kind of shut off and refused to function.