Faking Hate, Falling Hard

Everyone thinks Adrian Cross and I are mortal enemies.

Only one of us knows that's a lie.

Thirteen years. That's how long he'd been in love with me. Buried under every insult, every stupid competition, every time he pretended he couldn't stand the sight of me.

I didn't know any of that yet.

All I knew was that we'd just walked out of our last exam, and a reporter was blocking the doors with a microphone.

"Big plans now that it's all over?"

"Boba," I said. "Gonna go shake bubble tea for a living."

Adrian didn't blink. "Factory. Screwing bolts."

The reporter's whole face went warm. "Already thinking about work. Helping out your families. What good kids."

We looked at each other. Neither of us said a word.

Three minutes later, I climbed into a Rolls-Royce Phantom.

He got into a stretch limo.

The reporter just stood there, mic drooping, like something in him had quietly given out.

By midnight the clip had a million views.

Commenters: [dumb and dumber, soulmate edition]

Commenters: [is someone going to check on the reporter?? that man aged forty years in real time]

Chapter 1

The clip that broke the internet cut the best part.

Here's what actually happened.

The reporter caught us the second we cleared the doors. Me first. Adrian half a step back, close enough to be annoying.

"You two look confident. Good feeling about the results?"

I didn't do modest. "Yeah. Harvard's basically a formality."

Adrian's brow lifted a fraction. "It was fine. Stanford, if I have to slum it."

The reporter blinked. "You're that sure?"

"Oh." I let it land. "Early admission. Already in."

He turned to Adrian with half a question on his face.

"Same," Adrian said, polite as a knife.

Three full seconds. The man just buffered.

"Two of you. Out of one school." He pulled himself together. "Crestview's got range."

Then came the part you already saw. The boba. The bolts. The two hardworking kids folding themselves into a Rolls and a limo.

But before the cars, he asked the question that started all of this.

"You two talk like you've got a rhythm. Do you know each other?"

Adrian's mouth curved. "Three years. Same desk."

"But not close," I said.

Three years of war over the number-one spot. Two people who couldn't stand each other. That's what I thought it was.

He'd let me think that for a long time.

Then the internet got hold of us.

Some genius slapped a red-eye filter on my face, slowed "Harvard's basically a formality" to a bass-drop crawl, and scored my walk to the Rolls like a hero shot.

Adrian didn't get off easy either. The mutt, I'd called him since we were about seven. It stuck.

Commenters: [early admission to Harvard AND Stanford, said back to back like it's nothing. ma'am I am DECEASED. logging off now]

Commenters: [it's not just that she's rich and hot and a genius. it's that the genius comes with a stupidly hot desk-mate to match. some of us have zero of the four. she will never know this life]

Commenters: [your own failure is one thing. watching someone else win like this is the part that actually finishes you]

By the time I got home and checked my phone, my notifications had blown up. Ninety-nine plus and still climbing.

I opened them.

Every single comment had landed on the same verdict.

That Adrian Cross and I were secretly, hopelessly in love.

Cute theory.

They had no idea how wrong they were.

Neither did I.

Chapter 2

By morning the shippers had found my page.

All of it. Three years of posts, dug up to the fossil layer.

Here's what they were reading.

Me, four months ago: [the mutt beat me by three points on the calc quiz. unacceptable. plotting his death.]

Commenters: [SEE. I called it. my eyes never miss. you two are so together it hurts]

Commenters: [don't kill him just kiss him once and call it even]

Me, in spring: [the mutt slept through class so I raised his hand for him. teacher called on him. he answered in his sleep. showed off AGAIN. so when I fell asleep that afternoon he raised MY hand. joke's on him, I was faking.]

Commenters: [the enemies-to-lovers of it all. I am UNWELL]

Me, last fall: [some girl left a love letter and a bag of snacks on MY desk for the mutt. pretty face, questionable aim. I gave the goods back. may have kept one cookie. turns out he gets weirdly territorial about his snacks. hasn't spoken to me since.]

Commenters: [that is NOT food-guarding bestie. that is a man being JEALOUS. stake your claim, you're about to make our bolt-boy cry]

I kept scrolling. Somewhere in there, I'd been livetweeting a relationship I never agreed to be in.

And then I hit the one from years back.

Me: [broke the mutt's favorite mug today. he didn't even look up. weak. when we were little I knocked over his Lego tower and he cried for two whole days. now, nothing. where's the fun. need to find a way to make him cry again.]

I'd typed it laughing.

Back then it was just a funny story. The day I made Adrian Cross cry.

I didn't think about it twice.

I should have.

The comment section reached its final verdict.

Commenters: [real couples are just sweeter. post more, we're eating]

Me, face-down on my bed at noon, one (1) restful summer slipping through my fingers: ?

The internet needed to lie down.

That was when something bounced off my window.

A balled-up scrap of paper, threaded clean through the gap.

I smoothed it open.

Adrian's handwriting:

[My mom wants you over for dinner.]

Chapter 3

I leaned out the window.

Sure enough, there he was in my yard, one hand on the leash of a dog the size of a small horse.

Moose. Adrian's Alaskan Malamute. Ninety pounds of drool and enthusiasm.

Adrian looked up, caught my eye, and raised an eyebrow. Mouthed one word.

Come down.

That good mood on his face. The little curve at the corner of his mouth.

I saw red.

I threw the paper ball back at his head.

The mutt had spent years scaring off anyone who came near me. Now he wanted to keep doing it through college.

Over my dead body.

The next night was the class graduation party.

Low lights, loud room, everyone sweating and happy. Adrian and I claimed opposite ends of the same couch and ignored each other on principle.

Someone pulled out Truth or Dare.

I slapped the table. "We're playing. And we're playing big. Anyone who can't take it is a coward."

Three minutes later I was staring at my card in silence.

Kiss the shortest person of the opposite sex here. Three seconds.

Beside me, Adrian had been lounging like the whole night bored him. That stopped. He plucked the card out of my hand, voice low.

"Try it for real and I'll tell your mom who shattered her perfume."

I narrowed my eyes. "How do you even know about that?"

"You snuck out to bury the evidence. Moose smelled it and dug it back up."

I opened my mouth. Closed it. (Who, exactly, was sneaking around here.)

Adrian had already filled a glass and knocked the whole thing back.

"Jasmine folds," he told the table. "I drank for her."

I turned to stare at him.

He did it again on the next dare. And the one after. Gaze into someone's eyes for thirty seconds, he drank it. Split a cookie with the guy on the right, he drank it. Duet a love song with the guy two seats down, gone, glass empty.

By the time he reached for his fifth, I cracked.

"Left-four is a girl. That one's off-limits too? Great. Now the whole room thinks I can't hack it. Adrian. Are you doing this on purpose?"

He finished the drink without hurrying and slid me a look.

"Have you heard yourself sing? Let's leave each other some dignity on the way out."

"Also, someone here has the tolerance of a damp napkin, and when she's drunk she tries to throw hands with the sky. Somebody has to keep this civil, or none of us get home."

I had no comeback.

Honestly, the game had stopped being fun anyway.

Adrian seemed to agree. He winced and pressed two fingers to his temple.

"Sorry. I overdid it. I'm done for tonight." A pause. "Jasmine. Walk me home."

I was over it too, so I said fine without thinking.

Nobody at school pretended not to know we lived next door. So under a whole room of very interested looks, I hauled Adrian out without changing my expression.

The moment we were in the car, I rolled my eyes.

"Drop the act. We're miles away."

His brow creased. Eyes shut, faking sleep.

"I'm not. I actually feel like garbage."

I looked at the wine-flush blooming under his eyes and swallowed the next jab.

He really had put it away tonight. Five glasses. For me.

I didn't think about the "for me" part. Not then.

The car pulled off. It went quiet.

"Hey," I said.

"What now."

"Fine, you giant baby. Lean on my shoulder if you feel that bad."

He set his head on my shoulder. For someone who'd supposedly drunk himself stupid, he held very, very still.

Mrs. Cross was waiting in the doorway when we pulled up. She looked Adrian over where he slumped against my shoulder, and something in her face went amused.

"Drunk?"

I nodded. "I'll get him upstairs, Mrs. Cross."

She waved us through. "Go, go."

I steered the disaster up the stairs. Somewhere behind me, I half-heard her murmur to herself.

"That little idiot... has he finally figured it out?"

Chapter 4

I finally wrestled Adrian into his room, turned to leave, and ninety pounds of dog launched at me.

Moose.

He slobbered a full handprint onto my arm, then pivoted toward the bed and his passed-out owner. I caught him by one ear.

"No. Your dad's sleeping. When he wakes up cranky and drunk, he's all yours. Not my problem."

Like father, like son. Moose was never going to listen.

So I, Jasmine, Kindest Soul in the Universe, dragged him back out by the head one more time.

By the time I'd handled the dog and got back, the bed was empty.

Water running in the bathroom.

Of course. Adrian and his neat-freak thing. Blackout drunk and still won't skip a shower.

"I'm heading out," I called. "Don't drown in there."

A heavy thud hit the tile.

I was through the door before I thought about it. "You absolute idiot, who showers this wasted"

I stopped.

Adrian. On the floor. Nothing on.

My brain blue-screened.

My eyes started sliding down a very lean stomach, kept going, and then

I yanked a towel off the rack and threw it over him, slamming my eyes shut.

"Cover. Cover the crown jewels. Now."

"I didn't see anything, I swear, I was only checking you weren't dead."

Nothing.

Knocked out?

I cracked one eye, confirmed the towel had landed where it needed to, and exhaled.

He lay there with his lashes down, casting little shadows, water misting his skin. Objectively, setting everything else aside, the boy was kind of unfairly put together.

I snapped out of it. Losing my whole mind, apparently.

I patted his cheek. "Wake up, pig."

Nothing.

I put some muscle into it, one side then the other. "Wake up. You're built like a boulder and I am not carrying you."

Adrian's eyes opened.

Two red handprints on his face. And his gaze was clear. Wide awake. Cold in a way I couldn't place.

Weird. Two slaps and the drunk just evaporated.

I blinked and went for cute. "Soooo sorry, Adrian-kun, I didn't mean it."

Then I hurried to explain. "Here's the thing. You insisted on the shower, you fell, I came to check you weren't dead, and I did not see one single"

"Jasmine." He looked away. Voice flat. "Get out."

"Huh? Oh. Sure."

At the door I turned back, one more time, for the record. "Relax. I saw nothing. I have zero designs on your body. Genuinely."

Adrian was angry.

Wouldn't answer my texts. Wouldn't come to the door.

I couldn't crack the reason, so I filed a working theory: the man felt violated. Pure, virtuous body, assaulted by my eyeballs.

Which was rich, because I was a victim here too. Got home and had the same nightmare two nights running:

Pull back the blanket, and it's Adrian.

Naked, obviously.

Second morning I woke up with five, six, seven Adrians crowding my head, every one of them demanding I confirm whether his heart was racing.

Ten-plus years of being enemies. I wasn't going to let one bathroom be the thing that ended us.

I figured he was sulking about his dignity.

Here's what I didn't know.

He hadn't slipped. The fall was a plan, a bad one, borrowed from a friend who should have known better. He'd gone down on that cold tile on purpose and lain there with his heart slamming against his ribs, waiting to find out what I'd do when I found him.

And I'd thrown a towel over him, slapped him awake, and told him I had zero interest in his body.

That was the part he couldn't forgive.

Not the looking.

The not wanting.

Chapter 5

For days, Moose hadn't left a single deposit in my yard. I couldn't manufacture a reason to fight with Adrian if I tried.

I was weighing whether to kidnap the dog and hold him hostage until Adrian agreed to make up with me, when Adrian texted first.

Him: [Don't even think about going.]

I stared at the message. Then at the one that had landed a few minutes earlier, from a guy in my grade asking me out. I typed back a slow question mark.

Him: [The idiot made a whole production of it. Hard to miss.]

Him: [He and I have history. You're not going.]

I blinked at my phone.

Asking me out? A production? When did this happen?

Not that it mattered. I barely knew the guy. I'd never planned to go.

Before I could say so, Adrian called.

"Come downstairs."

"Huh?"

One minute later I was in the yard and he had my face in one hand, squishing my cheeks.

"I said you're not going. You didn't answer me."

I swatted at his wrist. "Wasn't going anyway. Let go. Let GO."

He released me, satisfied. So I reached up and clamped a hand around his throat.

"Ohh, look at you. Lord Cross, too important to answer a text? Too busy to open his door? Say it. Will you do it again?"

His pale skin flushed faintly under the pressure. His eyes fell shut. His throat worked against my palm as he gave in. "No."

I beamed. "That's what I thought. You don't have the guts."

Honestly, bringing Adrian to heel was about as hard as getting Moose to poop three times a day.

Which was exactly when Moose made his grand entrance and launched himself at us like a small furry missile.

I lost my footing and took Adrian down with me.

Adrian, now functioning as a human mattress, grunted.

"Jasmine. Move your hand."

At the same moment the front door opened and my mom stepped out, scanning the yard. "What in the hell is all that racket?"

My hand, still planted square on Adrian's chest, went rigid.

Oh no. This was the specific horror of two strays caught mid-tryst by the queen mother herself.

Wait.

My hand. Still on his chest.

Mom had already followed the noise over. "...?"

"You... you two..."

Her expression was complicated. Complicated to the point of art.

Shock, cut with a thread of I-knew-it. Relief, garnished with pure awe.

Me: "..."

Adrian: "..."

Grades posted.

I checked mine and let out a breath.

"YES."

Three points higher than the mutt. Delicious.

Adrian took it with the serenity of an old dog. "Yep. Jasmine. Best in the world. Truly."

I accepted the flattery graciously. "Hmph. You didn't do too bad yourself."

He almost smiled. "Bags packed?"

Two days earlier, our moms had put their heads together, reached some silent agreement, and announced they were taking Adrian and me up the coast to Santa Barbara for the week. A graduation trip, they called it.

When both dads offered to come along, they were vetoed on the spot. No appeal. Practically escorted out.

I didn't think about why.

"Obviously they're packed," I said, rolling my eyes. "Ages ago."

Adrian raised a brow, unhurried. "You're sure? Sunscreen, hat, sunglasses, swim"

He stopped. Cleared his throat.

"We'll be at the beach. You'll want those."

He couldn't even say the word.

Chapter 6

"Beach?" My eyes lit up. "That's a whole buffet of shirtless boys with cute little swimmers' butts. Hang on, let me go prepare."

The smile froze on Adrian's face.

"Jasmine." Quiet. Level. "Keep one eye front and one over your shoulder the entire trip. Because if you go hunting for pretty boys on that beach, you'll meet the afterlife before you meet a single one."

He said it like a joke. Like a threat.

It was neither.

Me