Fake Girlfriend

He laughed.

When we finished telling Lex the story about our relationship, he laughed hard enough to bring tears to his eyes. The other people in the small bakery on the town’s shopping strip that we had taken refuge in were looking at him strangely. He had been eating a cookie, and in his fit of laughs, he was trying not to spit it out. Cole and I just looked at him, then at each other.

“Seriously?” Lex asked when he was done laughing and had swallowed his cookie.

“Uh, yeah,” Cole said.

“Maaan!” Lex leaned back in his chair, tipping it backwards slightly. “You guys sure got me. Well, not really. Your relationship did seem a little weird at first, but I would have never guessed that you would have to blackmail someone to be your girlfriend. Desperate much?” He laughed again.

“Lex, he blackmailed me into being his girlfriend ‘cos he was trying to get Caroline back, remember?” I said, without a bit of angriness. I was over that, but that didn’t stop Cole from looking a bit guilty.

Lex stopped laughing. “Oh, right. Which is why you were super angry when I told you I was dating her behind your back.” He made a gagging motion. “Worst mistake ever, by the way.” He put his chair back on the ground, looking at Cole. “So, let’s see if I got this right… You blackmail Thisbe into being your girlfriend with some picture that has since been erased. You were planning on using her to get Ms. Bitch back. But at the Halloween Dance, when you got Ms. Bitch back, you still didn’t break it off with Thisbe…?”

I looked at Cole. I had forgotten about that. “Yeah. Why didn’t you break up with me then. I mean, you got Caroline, right?”

The guilt on Cole’s face worsened. “I don’t know…” he said. “I just couldn’t…”

I rolled my eyes, but a smile crept on my face. I couldn’t complain, because I was glad he didn’t break up with me back then.

“Alright,” Lex continued, looking at me now. “Much later, you got angry at Cole again—“ I got angry at him, a lot, I thought to myself. “—for not telling you about De being pregnant, right?”

“Right. And then again when he yelled at me after I found out and got angry at De,” I said, again without any hard feelings towards Cole.

Lex nodded. “Then, you ‘broke up’ with him,” he said, making little air quotes with his fingers, “and we found out about… Well, you know.” He looked at Cole. “Your situation. And after I left you two…?”

We both turned a little red.

Lex laughed. “Never mind,” he said, obviously figuring it out. “Anyways, now, here we are. And you two are actually dating now, right?”

We turned redder. “N-no,” I said.

He frowned and cocked his pierced eyebrow. “No?” he repeated. “You sure seem like you are.”

“We’re not,” Cole answered.

Lex shrugged. “Whatever you say, man. It’s just the two of you seem pretty lovey dovey…”

“Lex,” Cole growled.

Lex laughed, throwing his hands up in defense. “Just saying!”

“Yeah, well, shut up.”

I couldn’t do anything but laugh, trying to hide my red cheeks.

Suddenly, Cole’s phone rang in his pocket. He pulled it out and checked who was calling before answering. “Hey Ross,” he said into the phone. Now, sitting next to him in the booth table we were sitting in, I could pick up pieces of what the guy on the other line, Ross, said. He said something about “Christmas” and “can’t come”. The more he said, the more Cole’s face dropped and became paler. “Oh no, that’s fine,” Cole said, trying to sound happy despite his expression. The guy on the other line, I heard say something like “try to have fun without me” and “be around after the holiday”. With a quick, “bye,” Cole hung up with phone.

I frowned. “Something wrong?” I asked.

Cole shook his head slightly, sipping his hot chocolate (my treat after having him and Lex stand in the cold shirtless). “Nope,” he said in a voice that would have convinced me if I didn’t know him so well.

I gave him a look, and he matched it with a look that he didn’t want to talk about it here and now. Strange. Since when could we communicate silently? I took a bite of my Danish (Cole’s treat because he felt obligated to get me something after I got the hot chocolate), still staring at him with an inquiring look. But I let it go.

“Hmph!” I tried to say, mouth stuffed with Danish, remembering something. I swallowed quickly. “Lex, how’s things with Stella?” I asked with a smile. “You ask her out yet?”

Lex turned the slightest bit red. “Not yet,” he said. “Her brother totally is out to get me…”

“And is girlfriend is totally out to get with me…” Cole murmured, snickering.

I couldn’t help but feel a pang of jealousy. “Huh?”

Lex assumed I was talking to him. “Stan is like a crazy, obsessive, over-protective, paranoid, brother. He scares the living hell outta me.”

“What? Are you afraid if you ask her out, he’ll kill you?” Cole asked, not dwelling on his last comment, like it wasn’t a big deal. That made me relax ever so slightly.

“Yes!” Lex said, dead serious.

Cole and I laughed.

“Seriously!”

“I doubt he’d kill you…” I said, still laughing a little.

“You’re right. He’d just seriously maim me.” Lex ate the last bit of his cookie. “No big deal or anything,” he added sarcastically. “You should see the glare he gives me every time I go to see Stella. I never believed someone could pee their pants out of fear until then.”

Cole just about spit out his hot chocolate in a sputter of laughter.

Soon after, we all got up to go. Lex waved us goodbye and jogged to his car. “Ask that girl out already!” Cole called after him. I heard Lex laugh.

When he was gone, I turned to Cole, suddenly serious. “What was that about?” I asked concerned.

His brow furrowed. “Huh?”

“The phone call.”

“Oh, that? It’s nothing,” he answered. The way he said it told me it was something.

I gave him a look to tell him I wasn’t buying it.

He groaned. “It’s fine, okay?” He turned away, walking towards his car.

I frowned. “Cole,” I said, not moving from my spot. “What are you doing for Christmas?”

He froze with tense shoulders. Bingo.

“Cole?” I asked again. I was concerned. I couldn’t think he would have much of a Christmas with just his stepdad. He had to have something else planned, right? He stayed silent; his shoulders suddenly slumping. “Cole?”

“I’m not doing anything,” he said, without turning around and looking at me. “But I hardly care.”

“Well, I do,” I said. He peered over his shoulder at me and stared. “And what about Joy? She’s six, Cole. She’s a kid, and she deserves to have some kind of Christmas.”

He spun on his heel. “Well, what am I supposed to do, Thisbe? My uncle was supposed to come and take us out for Christmas, but now, he’s going to his business Christmas party instead. And God knows hanging around my drunken step dad isn’t going to be much of a Christmas.”

I could see the sadness in his eyes. I paused to think. “What about your neighbor, Mrs. Lovette? She said you and Joy were like her children. I don’t think she’d mind having you over for Christmas, right?”

“Thisbe, she’s got a family of her own. Her parents, the parents of her late husband, and their families do their own thing for Christmas, and I can’t intrude on that. I already pester her with my issues enough.” Cole was looking down at the snowy sidewalk.

I bit my lip.

“Then come with me.”

Cole’s head shot up. “What?”

“You can have Christmas with me and my family,” I said.

“I can’t intrude on you either,” he said, but I could see the hope that he was unable to hide in his eyes.

I shook my head. “No. I can’t let the two of you stay in that house, while everyone else is having a good Christmas. I could hardly enjoy my Christmas knowing you weren’t. Joy deserves a good Christmas, and,” I turned a little red, “so do you.”

Cole looked sad and guilty, but still hopeful. “I can’t say yes…”

I huffed, brows furrowed. “Well then, don’t.” I grabbed his arm and pulled him towards my car. “Come on.”

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“My place.”

“Thisbe, really, I can’t accept your offer…”

I rolled my eyes. “Oh, just shut up. It’s fine. Now, come on. I just got to make sure it’s okay with my family.” I tugged his arm towards my car.

I saw a small smile appear on his face. “At least let me take my own car. I can’t leave it here, after all.”