To The Only Boy I've Loved Before

Let's Do This

They were silent for the drive home, and it was half awkward and half companionable. Lauren was glad that she hadn't completely ruined their friendship, but she wasn't so naive that she didn't realise things had changed between them now.

They pulled up to her apartment, and she opened the car door.

"I'm sorry for the whole jumping you thing," she said apologetically before she got out of the car.

"Could have been worse," he said with a smile, and she looked away to avoid blushing. Was he saying what she thought he was saying?

"So what are you going to say to Darren?" he asked curiously.

"Well, I guess I'm gonna have to tell him the truth. He's hinted to me before that he has feelings for me, and I don't want to lead him on."

"Yeah, but what is the truth? I mean, do you like him, do you not like him?"

Lauren simply shrugged and climbed out of the car, Joey watching her wheel her bike away. She didn't know why she didn't just tell him the truth, that she didn't like Darren.

She was halfway to her front door when she heard running footsteps behind her.

"Hey, hold on!" He grabbed the back of her bike to force her to stop.

"What if you didn't tell him?" he said.

"What?" she said with a confused laugh.

"Yeah, what if we let people think, you know..." He ran a hand through his hair. "That we were actually together. Just for a little while!" he amended at her widening eyes.

"Why would you want that?" she asked, unable to understand Joey's motive here. She couldn't think of any possible reason why a fake dating scenario would benefit either of them.

"Well, if Darren thinks you're dating me then he might back off. You won't have as much fallout to deal with from that letter."

She considered that for a moment. It was nice of Joey to be looking out for her, but it still didn't seem like a plausible reason for them to pretend to be dating, and she couldn't figure out what Joey's real reasoning was.

"I don't think that's gonna work Joey," she said, pushing her bike along the path.

"Look, you don't have to give me an answer right now. Just think about it, okay?" he pleaded.

"Yep, don't hold your breath," she said over her shoulder as she walked away.

But as Lauren tossed and turned that night, she admitted to herself that maybe Joey did have a point. It would certainly make it easier to convince Darren that she genuinely didn't like him if she was dating Joey. Plus, she thought, there were certainly worse people that could have offered to be her fake boyfriend.

She marched up to him between classes the next day. 

"Hey, Richter!"

"What?"

"Let's do this," she said with a smile.

Joey looked at her with a soft grin, and then unexpectedly he leaned down and kissed her. Right there. In front of everyone. Lauren stumbled backwards as he pulled away, her legs feeling slightly unsteady.

"I'm going to class now," she said, more as an affirmation to herself than to Joey. "Have a nice day."

She couldn't stop thinking about the kiss for the next few hours, and she texted him asking him to meet her for lunch because she was starting to think that she should have thought this whole fake relationship thing through a little more.

"First things first," she said as he sat down next to her. "We need to have a contract, so we know we're on the same page about the rules."

"There are rules?" he said, smiling fondly at her.

"It's important to know where we stand on certain issues," she justified.

"Like what?"

"Well, for example, I don't want you to kiss me anymore."

"Are you crazy? Who's gonna believe we're in a relationship if I'm not allowed to kiss you," Joey said, his tone half joking but half something else. Was it... disappointment? Lauren felt like rolling her eyes at him. She wouldn't put it past him to only have suggested this fake relationship so she would kiss him again.

"I'm sorry, but I don't want you to kiss me when it doesn't mean anything!" she told him. As much as she pretended not to care too much about things, Lauren didn't want to kiss Joey knowing that it was all for show.

"Okay, but you kissed me first," he said with a smirk, and she shook her head at him in exasperation.

"Fine," he allowed, "but we need to figure something out because otherwise people are going to get very suspicious."

"Okay, you have a point," she accepted. "How about this, you can put your hand in my back pocket."

"What the hell is that?" Joey said.

"It's a couples thing," she said defensively.

Joey raised his hands in surrender, nodding his head at her to write it down in the contract.

"Okay, another rule. We can never tell anyone that this is fake, because it would be too humiliating for the both of us."

"Duh," he said with a lopsided grin.

"Anything else?" she asked.

"I could write you notes every day," Joey suggested, his voice suddenly going soft and, if Lauren hadn't known better, vulnerable.

"You'd do that?" she asked quietly.

"Sure. It's a couples thing, right."

She shrugged.

"Also, you have to come to parties with me," he said.

"Then you have to drive me places."

"Okay, but you're coming on the ski trip."

The ski trip was an annual event that the U of M students organised among themselves, and it was unofficially a couples trip.

"Um, that's like three months away from now, Joey. Do you really think we're still going to be doing this by then?" she asked, unable to comprehend still being in a fake relationship with Joey three months down the line.

He shrugged. "Well, consider it a contingency plan. I just really want to go skiing Lauren," he said, and she laughed with him.

"Okay, deal," she said, and he slid the sheet of paper towards him so he could scrawl 'ski trip' on it. 

They both signed at the bottom and shook hands. Joey laughed at her, and Lauren couldn't help but laugh a little too at how ridiculously formal they were being.

She folded the paper up and put it in her coat pocket, and gave Joey a hug goodbye. She may have been the one putting boundaries on their physical contact, but she allowed herself to acknowledge that it was nice to be in Joey's arms.