fake | tratie | EDITING |

| i. back to ill wills |

edited : 8 . 4 . 21 

original word count : 1170

new word count : 1274

. . .

Mondays were the worst.

Mondays meant a cabin check before breakfast, and usually finding a prank from the Stolls just in time for the counselors to inspect. Mondays meant the start of another week's worth of annoying schemes, another week of trying to keep my cool around the sons of Hermes.

Trying to keep my cool around Travis.

It had been two days since the family reunion. We'd spent the rest of our weekend completely ignoring each other, trying to forget about the events that went on. My brain was jumping from "Gods I wish he'd kiss me again" to "No, I hate him," and it tortured me. I hoped seeing him again at breakfast would help me go back to normal.

Unfortunately, a pair of arms wrapped around me from behind while I stood in the doorway of the Demeter cabin, proving it wouldn't be that easy.

"Hey, Kates." Travis' voice resonated in my ear. He chuckled when I started squirming away from him.

I absolutely despised the shivers that raced through my body.

"Get off, Stoll." Even though my subconscious wanted nothing more than to curl up into him, I shook him off.

Miranda, my sister who I was so pleasantly speaking with before Travis showed up, raised an eyebrow. "What do we have here?"

"You didn't tell her?" Travis feigned offense, slapping a hand on his chest. When I elbowed him in the stomach a little harder than necessary, he backpedaled and explained himself. "I played the role of Katie Gardner's Boyfriend at her family reunion last week, and boy did I deliver!"

I wrinkled my nose. "Hardly."

"You know, Katie-kat, you're a terrible lliar."

"Don't call me that."

My half-sister squinted at us. "That was last week? Why didn't you tell me?"

Normally, Miranda was my go-to for comfort when my family affairs hit me. I rolled my eyes. "Don't worry about it. I had a brief lapse in judgment involving Travis, but nothing bad happened at the reunion this year."

He grinned, and I eyed him sternly, making sure to get my point across.

"And I can safely say we're done with pretend dating."

"Exactly what I'm saying." Travis nodded, quirking his eyebrows. "We got the pretend dating out of the way, let's get started on the real stuff now."

"Uh, no." I crossed my arms. "We're back to a strict hating basis. Got it?"

He winked at me. "Whatever you say, honey bunches."

"Ew," Miranda and I said at the same time.

She shouldered past me, mumbling, "I've heard enough of that crap. Catch you at breakfast."

When she was out of earshot, I spun to glare at Travis. "You've gotta stop that."

"Stop what?" His mischievous smile infuriated me. When I didn't give him a response other than tapping my foot, he shrugged. "Connor saw me getting out of your car Saturday and I had to explain myself."

"Connor knows?"

Oh, no. If Connor knew, so would the whole camp, given enough time.

"Well, since I explained everything, he can't jump to conclusions. But it's not gonna be much of a secret now."

It was way too early in the morning for my anxiety to start playing games with me, but it relentlessly wracked me through multiple scenarios of people taking it wrong, of people thinking there was more to it than there was.

"I told him not to tell a soul or he'd be dead meat." Travis' face morphed from snarky to serious. "People wouldn't believe it was fake if they found out."

I shook my head, but the truth was, he was right. People would totally buy that we fell madly in love over a week's time. The entire camp had been wanting us together for as long as I could remember, and I was sure they thought all it would take was one of us to admit it.

"Alright, back to normal then." I talked more to myself than to him.

"Okay. Enemies?" Sticking out his hand, Travis awaited my reply.

I grabbed his hand and shook it firmly. "Enemies."

Was it my imagination, or did he hold my hand a little longer than he should have?

At breakfast, I made my usual offer to Demeter before sitting with the rest of my siblings. They were in the middle of intense conversations about farming techniques, and I gladly joined in. Anything to distract myself from the urge to slide my eyes over to the Hermes table.

Miranda elbowed me. "You look stressed."

I laughed. "What gave that away?"

"If you need me to talk to Travis-"

Wrinkling my nose, I made a showy glare towards the Stoll. To my surprise, he was already staring back, his eyes taunting and annoyingly brilliant in the sunlight. I looked away. "We're back on a strictly-enemies basis."

"Okay, if you say so." Miranda shrugged. "I thought you'd finally gotten together. You'd be a cute couple."

Finishing breakfast was a much more difficult task after that. I had to choke down my blueberry muffin and strawberries, wishing I could just sink into the ground. Maybe I could go work for Hades in the Underworld. (Nico did always complain that they were short-staffed down there.) My own sister, thinking Travis and me dating wasn't nauseating? I couldn't wrap my head around it. The very idea of him was supposed to curdle milk.

Not that he was an absolutely villainous guy. He was irritating to no end, sure, but he wasn't the type to harm people for fun. His pranks made me want to pull my hair out, of course, but they never hurt me.

I just couldn't stand how lackadaisical and careless he was. If he took things more seriously, he'd have been one heck of a demigod. He wasn't ugly, either, to say the least. Girls swooned over him all around camp - they only adored him for his height and his humor (that was what I told myself, anyway). I would've been stupid to think he wasn't cute. But I wasn't blind to his ability to flirt with anyone, and that was a sign of being a player. I wasn't going to let myself be one of the girls vying to be with him. I preferred not to be a fangirl over a guy who pranked me every chance he got.

Ugh, why is he such a good kisser?

"Hey, Katie-kat!" As we walked from breakfast, Travis caught up to Miranda and me.

"Don't. Call. Me. That."

"Aww, why be a stick in the mud? I was just trying to warn you not to open your door too wide when you go back in your cabin." The way he giggled was reminiscent of a five year old who just did something he knew he shouldn't have.

My head was screaming at me to ignore him, not to give him the reaction he wanted, but I couldn't help myself. I reeled towards him and got on my toes to see him eye-to-eye. "What did you do?"

A few campers nearby stopped to watch, knowing all too well what was about to happen.

Travis lifted a shoulder. "Guess you'll just have to wait and see."

"I hate you." I was still debating whether that was honest or not, but I wouldn't let him in on that. The last thing I needed was for him to have something against me.

"I know, Katie dearest."

Before I could come up with a retort, he turned and walked to his cabin like he hadn't a care in the world. Within that second, I heard a scream of surprise from our cabin. I rushed to the porch, where one of my half-siblings stood with slime oozing down her body and a bucket over her head.

"Stoll!"

Travis called, "Enjoy cleaning that up, Katie-kat!"

Yeah, I definitely hated him.