Jolie

“We need to talk.”

Reluctantly, I crack one eye open, while still rolled between my white cotton sheets, the TV playing the same channel I fell asleep to the night before. After Chelsea left, I watched When Harry Met Sally. Then I opened a bottle of wine, downed three glasses, and waited for the alcohol to run through my bloodstream before I willed myself to answer my male BFF’s texts.

My bed dips under the weight of my quarterback guy friend and I bury my face into my pillow, inhaling the vanilla, lilac, and lavender of my body creams and shampoo. His warm hand sneaks under the covers, cupping one of my feet and tugging me away from the pillow and toward him. With my ankle on his lap, he massages my foot. And I should really get a gold medal, or maybe a simple acknowledgement, for not spreading my legs for him right here and now and giving him exactly what he has been begging for.

Because. Sage. Poirier. Is. A. God.

That’s why he’s a manwhore in the first place. There is no denying his masculine appeal, raw beauty, dirty mouth, and cocky confidence.

“What do we need to talk about?” I murmur into my arm, which I’ve thrown over my face to block the sun seeping through the thin curtains of my window. He elevates my foot and kisses just below my kneecap. Shivers run down my spine, racing down to my tummy and making it roll with delicious anticipation.

“I need a fake girlfriend,” he announces, his voice grave.

“Then go get one. Literally, you can step out of the building and every single woman with a pulse and no ring on her ring finger would gladly fill out an application,” I say, hyper-aware to my morning breath. He plucks my arm from my face and throws it on the bed, leaning into me so we are nose-to-nose.

Great. Just great. Now he can smell my dead hyena breath.

“I’m serious,” comes his dark whisper, and he no longer sounds like my Sage. I mean, Sage. Just Sage. He is not mine. I know that. Duh.

“So am I. Why do you need a fake girlfriend?” I speak into my cupped hand, my eyebrows crinkling.

“Want the truth?”

“No, please lie to me. But make it a spectacular lie. Something with unicorns.” I widen my blurry eyes, and he chuckles, grabbing one of the pillows I kicked in my sleep and throwing it in my face.

“Rascal,” he says.

“Wifebeater,” I groan. He stands still, stares at me. What? It was a figure of speech. I didn’t mean it like I was literally his wife.

“I can’t tell you why, but I can tell you that you’re the only girl for the job. I have a Christmas fundraising thing happening in New York next month and I need someone on my arm. You’re the only girl, other than my mama, I’d like to take with me. The only one I trust not to let me down. And my mama can’t get time off work, so that leaves me with you. Say yes.”

I swallow, not really sure how this is different from all the other times I accompanied Sage to his football events. There’s something desperate and utterly determined in the way he looks at me. Like there are so many words on the tip of his tongue that he’s biting down, afraid to use.

“I don’t need to be your fake girlfriend for that.”

“You do. It’s important. Everyone at school needs to know that we’re a thing.”

“But why?”

“I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you. Now, I’m pretty sure I’d be a top in jail, not a bottom, but still—not really into dudes. So, yes?”

Ugh with this man. “Ugh with you. What do I get out of this?”

Before you throw rotten tomatoes at me (understandable), accompanied by a collective ‘boo’ (reasonable)—let me explain why I ask: there’s definitely something Sage is gaining from this, no doubt at all, and I’m trying to figure out whether it’s a bet, or if he’s gotten himself into some kind of woman trouble—a stage five clinger or something. Sage scans me through his signature droopy, ink blue eyes, and I swear my ovaries are singing a cappella at the sight of his jaw of steel. He should come with a book-long warning label. I’m half-tempted to Google a question about getting pregnant just by looking at him. Sage grabs the tip of my blanket, unplasters it from my body, and yanks me by the pajamas to straddle him. It happens so fast the oxygen leaves my lungs in a short whoosh. I’m panting now, on top of him, and his hands are on my ass, and I’m not stopping him. Why am I not stopping him? I know I should. He will break my heart and I’ll have no one to blame but myself. I’ve seen it happen countless times before. By the time we finished high school, eighty percent of the girls broke out in hives just from hearing his name.

“You’ll still get free rent, but for as long as you’re my fake girlfriend, I’ll also pay the bills. You’ll get free access to my truck—anytime you want. Last but not least: you’ll get me. All of me. No other women. No distractions. No games. Just you and me, JoJo. Because it’s always been the two of us, and it’s time we act this way, even if only for a little while.”

He smells of wood and mint and a real Christmas tree. Like a sweet memory I want to cling onto. My limbs are lax and I know I’m making a huge mistake, but I’m done resisting. Believe me, I’ve tried. It brought me nowhere but to square one, salivating over my best friend.

I nod slowly. “Okay. What’s the deadline?”

“End of May,” he shoots, letting out a long sigh and placing his forehead to mine. It’s intimate. So much more intimate than anything I’d ever done with the Brandons of the world, and I never stopped and debated whether I should date them. May is graduation month. Sage is offering me a free ride till the end of school. And let’s not kid ourselves—I could use my waiting money for other things. Paying my student loan debt, saving up for life after college. That kind of stuff.

We sit like this for a long minute before he cups my ass again and squeezes. It’s so playful and friendly, I don’t bark at him to stop.

“Welcome to couplehood, bae. We’ve got this.”