Fake Skating(53)

So the man who winced today was a walking miracle.

He was also a walking reminder that Dani had disappeared during the time I’d needed her the most. When my world fell apart.

It was a sobering thought when I was still so fucking drunk on her damn smile.





CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE Dani




Fake dating Alec quickly became the easiest thing in the world.

My favorite part? The way he kept showing up for my library lunches.

Because the truth was that I didn’t necessarily like being alone for that hour, yet I was too scared of the cafeteria to do anything about it.

So seeing him walk in made me feel… like, some kind of way.

Safe.

Happier…?

Not alone.

“Is that a new book?” he asked one day when he showed up at my table looking ten feet tall, towering above me.

“It is,” I said, taking my foot and pushing out the chair across from me. “Where’s yourbook?”

He gave me a little half smile as he looked down at the chair; then he sat down and unzipped his backpack. “In here, but my book is much fatter than yours, so I’m still working on it.”

“You don’t have to make excuses for being a slow reader,” I teased. “It’s fine.”

“Please, I could totally kick your ass in a speed-reading competition,” he said, pulling out Billy Summers. “Not that something that nerdy has ever been an actual competitive event.”

“Here.” I pulled the sandwich out of my bag and set it on the table in front of him.

“What the hell is this?” he asked, his eyebrows all squished together as he looked down at it.

“What does it look like? It’s a sandwich,” I said, rolling my eyes.

“First of all, what kind of sandwich, because it looks weird,” he said with a smirk. “Second of all, why did you bring me a sandwich?”

“Because an oversized man-child like you is going to starve to death and probably pass out if he doesn’t eat lunch.”

“Are you concerned about me, Collins?” he asked, his voice dropping into a lower octave that made my stomach flip.

“Not at all, but if you pass out like a little old lady and bash your face on the ground, it’ll make Sarah sad, and I would hate that,” I said with an eye roll. “And it’s ham and cheese.”

“It doesn’t look like ham and cheese,” he said with a scowl, holding up the baggie.

“That’s probably because I couldn’t find sandwich fixings in Grandpa Mick’s kitchen, so it’s queso with Spam. And pickles.”

“Are you serious?” He stared harder at the baggie. “You brought me a Spamwich?”

“It was a last-minute idea, and that was all I could find in his fridge,” I said, laughing at his ridiculous word.

I went back to my book, but I could see in my peripheral vision when he took out the sandwich and cautiously raised it to his mouth.

“This is… interesting,” he said in a weird voice as he chewed.

“I’m so happy you think it’s delicious,” I replied, my eyes on the pages of my book.

“I don’t think that’s the word I used,” he said.

He opened his book and started reading, and I couldn’t help but notice he finished the entire sandwich as he read. The fact that he’d wolfed it down made me think he was either more polite than I’d given him credit for, or absolutely starving.

We read in silence for the rest of lunch, but when the bell rang and I looked up from my book, he was watching me with his arms crossed over his chest, a smirk on his mouth.

“What?” I said, closing the book and pushing up my glasses. It was impossible not to smile when he looked at me that way.

“The rest of the world just disappears for you when you’re reading, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, thank God,” I said, nodding and unzipping my bag. “It’s like magic.”

“I bet it is,” he said, and I noticed his book was already put away, his backpack on his back.

“Oh, so you’re already packed up,” I said, a little embarrassed that I’d been thatout of it. I quickly shoved my paperback and my water bottle into my bag, zipped it, and stood. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he said, and then he came around the table to slide those fingers between mine yet again.

The familiarity of the move, the way it was beginning to feel natural even though our game was still new, made me look up at his face.

I wanted to see what he was thinking.

“It’s weird, right?” he said quietly, his eyes all I could see as he read my mind the way he always had when we were kids.

I just nodded, too sucked into his gaze to think of words.

The moment held, and the rest of the world just disappeared like magic for a split second.

I watched his Adam’s apple bob around a swallow, and then he said, “We should go.”

“What?” I blinked and realized there was movement everywhere around us. The librarian was carrying a stack of books, students were filing through the hallways, and my heart was pounding in my chest.

“Yes,” I said a little too loudly, clearing my throat and nodding. “We should go.”