hot to go • hailey van lith

Chapter Three

Three days later, Clare was standing in front of Hailey's dorm room.

She'd never been to it before, but she had no problem finding it, after eavesdropping on some conversations and looking on social media.

The night before, Clare was up doing a complete internet stalk of Hailey. She felt super creepy, but she knew she had to do it to make sure she was actually "dating" a good person.

She sucked in a breath before knocking on the door. Then she sucked in another when Hailey said "Come in" and it took her an embarrassingly long amount of time to actually get the courage to open the door. When she walked into the room, Hailey was typing on her laptop. "I'm pretty busy right now, so–"

"It's me."

Her fingers froze on the keyboard. Then she closed it and put it to the side. "Clare."

Clare didn't know why... but she liked to hear Hailey talk. And she didn't want to admit that, either.

Clare looked around at the room. It was a single dorm, of course. There were two large windows that let in a good amount of light. Clare's dorm had the tiniest windows imaginable.

"I was gonna text you," Hailey said to her, making Clare look at her. "Sit with me." Clare walked over to the bed, and sat down on the end of it.

Hailey ducked her head as Clare sat, trying to hide her smile from Clare, but she saw it anyway. She looked up after a moment, a calm expression on her face. "Did you, um, make a decision?"

Clare pursed her lips while Hailey's serene eyes watched her. She took a deep breath. "Yes. I... will fake date you. It's a good idea. For–For both of us."

For more than one reason, too. It would make the Elysia situation go away, and quite literally the whole school. Once the rumor made its rounds to everyone at LSU, the way people behaved towards Clare changed. Some were intimidated by her, some tried to use her to get to Hailey, some were mean, and a whole bunch of other crap that annoyed her. If they'd made it official, instead of Clare just looking like a booty call, maybe they would tone it down.

Her only issue was the fact that Dolly wasn't talking to her; she hadn't uttered a word to Clare in three days. Despite that, Clare knew that she would eventually come around.

"Okay." Hailey said, her voice holding no tone. Like she was trying to act nonchalant.

"But... I've been thinking about it a lot."

Hailey nodded, motioning for Clare to keep speaking.

"I think we should just have some... rules in place."

"Rules? Like... what?"

"I just think it would be good to set clear boundaries, especially since this isn't a real relationship. Let's not cross any lines – I'd like to make those lines crisp and clear."

"Oh, okay." Hailey nodded, her voice quiet. "What boundaries did you have in mind?"

"Alright. We should keep this strictly on-campus. Obviously, I don't think you'd care to see me off-campus, but this is just an at school arrangement. I won't fake-date you in real life, if that makes sense. Like, if you need me to come have dinner with your mom... I'm just.. not doing that. Second rule is"– and Clare cringed before saying this–"no sex."

Hailey went rigid for a while. And then she parted her lips, but didn't say anything. Clare's eyes went wide when she realized that she had just made Hailey Van Lith speechless. While she should have been laughing, mostly it just made her scared. Why else would Hailey be shocked about Clare saying no to sex, if she wasn't planning on just using her for sex?