Henley's car horn honked for the fifth time and Lissette cursed to herself, slinging her backpack over her shoulder as she left her house and shut the front door behind her. Henley honked again and Lissette flipped him the bird. She practically stomped over to him, swinging open the sleek white door of the Jeep Wrangler and plopping into the passenger seat. "What the hell, Henley? Do you have zero patience?"

"I said 7:00 AM sharp. It's 7:05," Henley said blankly, putting the car into drive.

"You're unbelievable."

"And you're late."

Lissette scoffed.

Henley turned to Lissette. "You never replied to my text. Texts."

"Yeah, because the question was ridiculous."

"No? It's not? We're obviously going to have to go to homecoming together. Better to accept that sooner than later, Thompson," Henley shrugged.

"How are you not bothered by that?"

Henley laughed. "Are you serious? I'm extremely bothered. Disgusted, really. I'm just better at hiding it than you. Might want to work on that. So? What color dress?"

Lissette scowled at Henley saying he was better at something than her, even if he was technically correct. "I don't know. I haven't gotten it yet."

Henley looked surprised. "Homecoming is in two weeks and you still haven't gotten a dress?"

"I suppose all the girls you've taken in the past were better prepared," Lissette said knowingly.

Henley just shrugged, not denying it.

"I wasn't really planning on going," Lissette added awkwardly.

"Not even with your friends?"

"I know. I'm pathetic."

Henley frowned. "That's not what I said."

Lissette raised her eyebrows, admittedly surprised at him actually denying an opportunity to insult her.

"Well," Henley began, "there's a perfect idea for our first 'date' of the week. After our practices today we can go to the mall to get you a dress. There's totally going to be kids from school that see us. We could post something too."

Wrinkling her nose, Lissette said, "That sounds like hell for you. And me too."

"It is," Henley said with a smirk, "but this is what we signed up for."

Henley pulled into the school lot, parking. Turning off the engine and stuffing the keys in his pocket, he faced Lissette. "Ready to go public?"

Lissette scoffed. "Hell no."

Henley's smirk just curled more.

"Well?" Lissette waved her hand in the air. "Aren't you supposed to open the door for me?"

"Cute," Henley said dryly. Nevertheless, he swung his door open, walked around to the passenger side, and opened Lissette's door for her, bowing mockingly. Lissette swung her legs around and began to get out, but faltered when Henley suddenly held his hand out.

"What are you doing?" she said.

Henley's eyes narrowed. "Dating you," he said slowly, like it was obvious.

Mentally gagging, Lissette relented and placed her hand in his, getting out of the car. He laced his fingers through hers, squeezing gently, and she was surprised to find how soft his hand was. Closing Lissette's door with his foot, he nodded once, and then began to walk towards the school. Basically attached to him, Lissette had no choice but to walk at his side.

As they entered the school, Henley asked, "What's your first class? I'll walk you there."

"Journalism."

"Oh? You're a journalist?"

"Do you care?" Lissette said honestly. The answer was yes, she was a journalist. In fact, that's how she planned to spend the rest of her life, starting with majoring in journalism at Boston University. Journalism was Lissette's thing, her passion.

"I'm making conversation."

"You don't have to pretend to like me when it's just us," Lissette said pointedly.

"Noted."

As the two made their way down the hallway, Lissette could feel dozens upon dozens of pairs of shocked eyes boring into her, attempting to decipher the image before them. There was popular, genius, hot, star quarterback, Henley Rhodes, holding hands with some total rando. The notoriously gossip-loving student body of Oak Hills High were going to have a field day with this.

As more and more people began to whisper, ogle, stare, gawk, and not-so-discreetly point, Lissette's chest tightened, her throat closing up. She had never had this many eyes on her, this many people so clearly judging her. Then a new thought occurred to her. What if people got mad at her? So many girls had been in relationships with and been involved with Henley, and even more girls had quite obsessive crushes on him. Lissette could totally see people starting to turn on her for "stealing Henley from them."

"Hey," Henley suddenly said in a low voice, leaning down. His lips brushed against Lissette's ear, causing a shiver to course through her. "What the hell? We're supposed to be dating, but you look like I'm taking you hostage and holding you at gunpoint. Just take a deep breath. Relax. Loosen up. Everything is fine." Henley pulled his head away, standing up straight and returning to towering over Lissette again. God, he was tall.

For a moment, Lissette was confused on why Henley would be attempting to look out for her. Then she remembered that he obviously had selfish intent behind it and all made sense in the world once again. Her looking bad made him look bad and he couldn't have that. Nevertheless, Lissette rolled her shoulders back and forced a smile on her face... hopefully it looked at least semi-real.

"Um, what the fuck is this? Lissette?"

Lissette stiffened, turning around to face the source of the voice. Talulla. She looked outraged as she gaped, with a bewildered Kirsten on her left and an amused Greta on her right.

"Talulla... hi," Lissette said awkwardly. She still had a huge, fake smile on her face, and something told her it definitely did not look real.

Talulla's gaze was focused on Lissette's and Henley's interlocked hands. "Please tell me you're not dating him."

"I... can't. We're, uh, dating," Lissette cringed.

"You're kidding."

"I'm not."

"Literally this Friday you went on a long rant to me about how pissed you were because you got a 98% on some AP Chem test and Henley got a 99%. You called him a 'smug prick.'"

Lissette was still pissed about that test.

From the corner of her eye, Lissette could see Henley's lip curl in an ever-so-slight-smirk. Smug. He then swung his and Lissette's connected hands into Lissette's side, something that would have seemed flirty and playful from an outside perspective looking at them as boyfriend and girlfriend, but was really just Henley's gloating.

"Oh, Lissy, you don't really think I'm a smug prick, do you?" Henley raised his eyebrows. His expression feigned hurt, but Lissette could see the amusement dancing in his eyes.

It took everything in Lissette's power not to buckle over and throw up at Henley's disgusting new nickname for her. Lissy? Absolutely not.

Gritting her teeth, Lissette forced out the words, "Of course not, Henny-poo. I was just frustrated about marks getting taken off is all."

Henley's grip on Lissette's hand tightened so much, she nearly winced.

Henley leaned down slowly, his jaw shifting, and whispered in her ear, "You know I can't help that I'm better than you." Then, to Lissette's horror, Henley's mouth moved from her ear to her jawline, his lips sliding across her cheekbone smoothly, before softly pressing a kiss against her skin, playing the harsh whispering off as a tender moment to Talulla and Kirsten.

It took everything in Lissette's power to not recoil, and she forced a smile onto her face.

Henley was also smiling, a smug one of course.

"This is sick and twisted," Talulla shook her head.

"They're cute," Kirsten said hesitantly. Her confused expression contrasted the statement.

"Why is it 'sick and twisted?'" Henley said, clearly biting back a grin.

"No offense, Henley, but I only ever thought you and Lissette could be a couple in, like, an alternate universe. This should not be real. Not to mention that Lissette didn't even tell any of us. Not even Greta?"

Lissette frowned. "I— nope. Sorry for not telling you, Greta. All of you."

Everyone turned to look at Greta, who had been staring blankly at Lissette and Henley. Her eyes widened and her mouth parted into a slight O shape when she realized all of the attention was suddenly on her. She swallowed, clearly thinking for a moment before saying, "Yeah, shame on you, Ettie. Really, really, how dare you. I will never forgive you for keeping this from me... ever?" Her voice was so flat, dry, and emotionless, that it left Lissette astonished at how it was possible for Greta to be an even worse liar than her.

"Whoa, 'never' is a really long time, Greta!" Kirsten gasped.

A pang of guilt shot through Lissette at the panicked look Kirsten wore, clearly over the idea of her friends fighting... even though there was no real fight.

"Yeah, well maybe Greta has a point," Talulla said as she crossed her arms over chest. Lissette's eyes widened, suddenly hurt filling her. Obviously Greta hadn't been genuine, but Talulla was. Talulla couldn't actually hold a grudge against Lissette though, right? "I mean, how long did you keep this from us? You really just let us go on thinking you were still sad and hung up over you-know-who? We're your best friends, Liss!"

Lissette briefly glanced up at Henley, who still looked cool and confident as always. They had discussed this, their backstory. "He asked me out. At the party this weekend."

Talulla's mouth dropped open. "So if we hadn't forced you to go to that party, you wouldn't be... dating him?" Talulla said the words "dating him" like it was some big top secret, voice lowering.

More like if you hadn't forced me to go to the party, I wouldn't be fake dating him, Lissette thought. She wasn't bitter towards her friends over the situation, just a little perplexed at how one thing could lead to an entirely different thing. Not to say she wasn't bitter in general.

Lissette was about to answer with a simple confirmation of Talulla's statement, when Henley began to speak. "Trust me," he said, releasing Lissette's hand from his grasp, to instead wrap his arm around her waist, pulling her into his warm body, "I would have found some way to ask her out, whether or not she attended that party. I couldn't have gone on much longer." Lissette stiffened, inwardly cringing at Henley's mini profession.

"Aww," Kirsten cooed. She turned to Greta and Talulla, all puppy eyed. "Forgive Lissette, please, guys! She and Henley are, like, actually... cute together?" She said it like she was surprised herself. Lissette had to majorly disagree either way.

"I forgive you, Ettie," Greta practically jumped to say.

Talulla took longer to answer. Her eyes drifted to Henley's hand around Lissette's waist, then to Lissette's face, and then to Henley's. "How do I know you're not keeping any more secrets from me?" she said, eyes narrowing.

"I'm not. I promise," Lissette said. Besides the fact that Henley isn't even my real boyfriend and it's all fake and I'm a dirty liar and a terrible friend, Lissette thought. The guilt was weighing down on her much heavier now, becoming more consuming with every lie she told.

"Okay. Fine. Whatever. I forgive you too. I guess. What do I care?" Talulla grumbled.

Lissette smiled, but it was half hearted. She couldn't bring herself to feel happy when she knew she didn't even deserve anyone's forgiveness, guilt weighing down on her. She was still lying to Talulla and Kirsten.

"I should get to class," Lissette said. Finally, something coming out of her mouth that wasn't a lie.

"See you at lunch," Kirsten said, with a warm, slightly apologetic smile.

Lissette nodded simply. "Bye."

She and Henley turned back around to carry on their way, and Henley's hand moved from Lissette's waist back to being interlocked with her hand. Lissette shuddered.

"I'm never going to get used to you touching me," Lissette said when they had gotten a far enough distance away from her friends, eyeing up her and Henley's connected hands and wrinkling her nose.

"You like it," Henley said with a cheesy wink and conspiratorial grin. Dimples.

Lissette mimed throwing up.

"This is the journalism classroom, right?" Henley said as he and Lissette came to a stop in front of said classroom.

"Yeah," Lissette nodded. She turned and looked up at Henley, not really sure what was supposed to happen next. Shockingly, Henley looked awkward too, possibly the first time she had ever seen him drop his cool demeanor.

"Uh, well," Henley said, clearing his throat, "you should probably sit by me at lunch. Your friends can too, if they want."

"How gracious of you to invite humble peasants such as ourselves," Lissette said mockingly. It was a well known fact that the lunch table Henley sat at was about as exclusive as a high school lunch table could be. The grouping of tables by the corner window were unspokenly reserved for the popular crowd, especially types like Henley. It was basically invite-only over there.

Henley rolled his eyes. "This whole arrangement would be a lot easier if you just cooperated and didn't always have something to say about everything, Lissette."

"And I would want to decapitate you a whole lot less if you didn't talk to me like I'm four-years-old, Henley," Lissette shot back.

"Maybe you should stop acting like one then," he hissed.

"Maybe you shouldn't be such a dickhead!" Lissette said, a little louder than she intended. It was a pretty lazy and blunt dig, as she had just blurted the first thing that came to mind, but she was angry, and who said every insult had to be witty? She briefly glanced around the hallway to make sure no one had heard her, but luckily, no one else was in view.

"Bitch," Henley grumbled, averting his dark eyed gaze to the ground. Lissette's face twisted into a scowl at his remark. Hm, his insult was pretty lazy too.

Lissette's conversation with her friends came rushing back to her just then. "And don't call me Lissy either. Ew."

Henley looked back up, grinning now. "Oh, but I always give girls nicknames, Lissy," he said, and somehow Lissette doubted that. "No one will buy that we're dating if I don't give you one too! Lissy."

Every time he said "Lissy," Lissette's blood boiled more. She wished she was capable of being unbothered by Henley. Afterall, the only reason he did anything was because he was aware of how bothered he could make Lissette. Alas, she would always be annoyed with him and there wasn't much she could do about that.

Lissette attempted to neutralize her expression. "Fine. But I guess that means I have to call you Henny-poo."

Fully expecting a viscerally disgusted reaction to spring from Henley, Lissette was surprised to see him smirk. "Gladly," he said.

Lissette was enraged.

Henley looked over his shoulder at a clock, then back at Lissette. The hallway was becoming more crowded now. "I need to get to class," he said. "I'll see you at lunch."

Lissette was scowling again and put her arms up to push him away from her, but was stopped when Henley's arm suddenly flew out, wrapping around her waist and pulling her in. Their chests were pressed against each other now, Lissette's hands trapped between her and Henley's admittedly rock hard abs.

Henley began to lean down, and Lissette's breathing quickened. "People are watching," he whispered. "Are you... are you fine if I kiss you?"

Kiss?

Lissette looked over Henley's shoulder, and sure enough, more than a few students weren't attempting to hide their staring. Lissette had two options: a) kiss Henley, which she really did not want to do, or b) step out of his embrace now and make them look like a super awkward couple.

Swallowing, Lissette nodded. She barely even had time to react as Henley's face swooped forward and — oh God — his lips pressed against hers. Never in her wildest nightmares did Lissette think this would ever happen, did she ever imagine it. It was a passionless, quick, stiff kiss (thank the Lord), merely a peck, and it seemed as though his lips were gone as quickly as they had first made contact.

Lissette blinked as Henley took a step backwards, resisting the urge to wipe her mouth. "Um. Okay. Well... bye," she said, cringing. She thought kissing would be the most non-awkward option but that did not appear to be the case.

Shockingly, Henley, who always maintained the same "I don't give a shit because I'm too cool for you" demeanor, looked uncomfortable as well, which was an upside to Lissette. Well, he looked uncomfortable for about two seconds before his familiar smirk had returned. "See you later, Lissy," he said, tipping his chin and then walking off.

No way in hell was she actually going to start calling him Henny-poo.

~

"So this is my bro's new obsession!" an Adonis of a man shouted, flashing a movie star grin and spreading his arms as if preparing for a hug. He was muscular and tall, maybe even taller than Henley, though it was hard to judge since he was sitting down, his skin a bronzed tan, golden curls framing his face.

Lissette tensed. The blond seemed friendly enough, certainly a golden retriever type, but she had completely failed to consider how many kids of the popular crowd she was going to be forced to be introduced to. Not really sure how or if she should respond, Lissette was actually thankful when Henley rose to his feet and joined her side, slinging an arm over her shoulders.

"This is my girlfriend, Lissette," Henley said. "Lissette, this is Cory," he said, gesturing to the blond. Cory beamed, tilting his chin in greeting.

Henley nodded for Lissette to take a seat, and after a moment's hesitation, she did, sitting across from Cory. Henley sat on her left at the end of the table.

"So how come I haven't seen you around?" Cory inquired, stabbing the mac and cheese on his lunch tray. "Are you new?"
Lissette frowned, a bit offended that Cory had no recollection of ever even seeing her. Sure, she knew she laid pretty low, but she and Cory had been attending the same school since sixth grade. "Nope. Not new. Why?"

Cory's icy blue eyes met Lissette's, and he smirked. "I just can't believe I haven't noticed a pretty girl like you around here."

"Dude," Henley snapped, so quickly Lissette didn't even have time to be surprised at Cory hitting on his friend's alleged girlfriend right in front of him. Henley looked irritated, possibly something even more than that. "What the fuck?"

Cory laughed. "Bro, chill. I was just complimenting her. Fucking loosen up, man."

"Yeah, whatever," Henley rolled his eyes.

Lissette cringed, awkwardly beginning to eat her food, as other students began to flood into the table. Henley introduced her to each one. Charlie, Everett, Inez, Oliver, Nevaeh, Silas, Alex (his supposed best friend that was in love with Adalyn), Piper, and Sadie. Lissette couldn't imagine having such a huge circle of friends. She couldn't get a good read on any of them, but at first meeting they seemed nice enough. Well, except for Piper, who made it clear she was disgusted with Lissette's presence, and Everett and Oliver, who were kind of just dicks.

It was about fifteen minutes into lunch, and Lissette was growing more and more confused as to where her friends could be. She hadn't seen them when she first entered the cafeteria. Where were they now?

She began looking around, and that's when she saw all three of them, Kirsten, Talulla, and Greta, sitting on the other side of the cafeteria. They were sitting by Dean, which was obviously normal, but that wasn't it. No, seated next to them were Aaron and Ensley.

"Uh, Thompson? You have that murderous look you always get in your eyes," Henley said cautiously. "For once it's not directed at me though."

"I'll be right back," Lissette seethed through gritted teeth.

She rose to her feet, making her way over to where her friends sat. Along the way, she tried to reassure herself that there had to be an okay explanation for whatever this was. They probably just didn't see Lissette and chose to sit by Kirsten's boyfriend. Aaron was just there because he's Dean's best friend.

Greta was the first to see Lissette, and her face immediately warped into one of sympathetic apology.

Lissette took a deep breath before she spoke, promising herself not to overreact and flip, then said tightly, "How come you guys didn't sit by me?" Lissette refused to even look at Aaron.

"We're sorry," Greta said quickly.

"It's fine," Lissette grumbled. That was a blatant lie. Lissette was livid. Even if they simply hadn't realized the invitation to the popular table extended to them, and the seats around Lissette were eventually taken, they still chose to sit by Lissette's ex. They all talked such a big game about how much they hated Aaron and how evil he was, especially Greta, but the second Lissette turned her back, they were chumming it up and engaging with him.

"We figured you were content enough with your new best friends," Talulla deadpanned.

Okay, not what Lissette was expecting.

Lissette's face twisted. "They're not my friends. Henley just asked me to sit by him," she said. She frowned, then added, "I was waiting for you three."

"Were you?" Talulla tilted her head. "Because it looked like every single seat around you was taken."

"Jeez, Talulla, chill," Greta muttered.

"We'll sit with you tomorrow!" Kirsten piped up. "We didn't want to intrude, is all."

"Alright..." Lissette said slowly. It felt like her cue to leave. "I'll save a seat for you guys, I guess."

"Does that include me?" A chill went through Lissette at the sound of Aaron's smug voice finally speaking up.

How dare he.

Lissette's eyes darted over to him. He looked relaxed, proud of himself, with one hand on Ensley's thigh and one hand holding a sandwich.

He's always been a fucking instigator, Lissette thought bitterly to herself.

Just as she was about to reply that obviously not, a new voice spoke up from her side, an arm snaking around her waist. Henley. "I'm afraid there's not enough room for you. Bro."

Lissette had never heard the word "bro" spoken so coldly.

Aaron looked just as shocked as Lissette felt.

Turning to look Henley in the face, Lissette was surprised to find him glaring daggers at Aaron. After a few more moments of this unspoken staring contest, Henley perked up, his usual charming, laidback smile appearing on his face, and he shifted his attention to Talulla, Kirsten, Greta, and Dean. "There's plenty of room for you four, on the other hand," Henley said.

Aaron's eyes darkened, Henley's smile curving into a grin.

What just happened?