Marlowe

Jonah stops short while I continue walking down the stairs. I glance over my shoulder to find him staring at Devon with an expression I've never seen on him before. He looks pissed off as if he's infuriated that Devon would announce to the party that we hooked up. It'd be kind of sweet if we weren't trying to convince everyone that we had done exactly that.

"Puck," I call out his name to get his attention before Devon notices the cold glare following him across the room. Jonah moves his eyes back to me, and I hold out my hand toward him.

"Let it go," I warn him under my breath once he's continued to walk down the stairs and taken my hand in his.

"What is wrong with that guy?" he grumbles in reply and I almost laugh. It's like he's just figuring out now that teenage boys are pervy assholes—well, most of them.

"Don't worry about it. He kind of did us a favour, right?" I remind him.

Jonah sighs and gives a small nod of his head. "Sure. That's what we'll call it."

We step off the staircase, and I spot some of the girls I came with watching us with interested eyes. I step closer to Jonah to keep up appearances, but when I look back at him he's not paying attention to me. I follow his line of sight to find Devon once again in the crosshairs of his scowl.

"Jonah," I tug on his hand to bring his eyes back to me. "I mean it, let it go."

He frowns at me and releases my hand to run his fingers through his hair. He takes a sip of his beer can of water. "As your boyfriend, I should be defending your virtue. No one talks about my girl like that."

I roll my eyes at his macho-man act. "Settle down. You're not my boyfriend until after school starts. Right now, you're just the guy that Puck'd me at a party."

He frowns again at my choice of words. "Puck'd... Who comes up with that crap?"

I smirk at him and pat his arm—Damn, that's a solid bicep. "Do you need me to defend your virtue, Puck? You're the only one getting riled up about this."

He sighs and takes another sip of his drink. "No. Fine, I'll leave it alone. But let me tell you, once everyone thinks you're my girlfriend, no one's going to want to get caught saying shit like that."

"Aww. What are you going to do? Fight off all the loud mouths?"

"If I have to."

I roll my eyes at him again. "Guys and their testosterone. I really hope you don't use our fake relationship to start any fights. I don't want to have to break up with you before I can even use our arrangement for my benefit."

"You'd break up with me for fighting someone for you?"

"I'd break up with you for using me as an excuse to fuel your dick comparison contest, yes."

I expect him to be disgruntled by my statement but instead, he grins at me and chuckles. "The girlfriend doesn't like fights. Noted."

"You learn quickly, Puck. I think I'll keep you."

He grins at me and then reaches up to tuck some of my hair behind my ear. "I'm not yours until after school starts, remember?"

----------

Puck

Stop touching her, dipshit.

I'm two seconds away from calling this whole thing off.

I like Marlowe. She's beautiful, she's funny, she's smart and she's not afraid to tell me how it is. She's damn well perfect, and if I'm not careful I'm going to completely forget myself in this arrangement and I'm going to throw away everything I've worked for in the process.

I was ready to punch Dev in the face. And I don't fight. Not when I'm off the ice and definitely not the guys on my own team. But one rude comment from Dev that might embarrass Marlowe and I'm ready to throw hands.

I need to pull myself together, and allowing myself to tuck her hair behind her ear is not going to help with that.

What's also not going to help is the Dev himself walking up to us.

"Oh boy, here we go," Marlowe mumbles under her breath, "Don't do anything stupid."

"Hey, hey," Devon greets us with a grin. "Seems like you enjoyed your welcome gift, eh, Puck?" He thumps me on the arm and turns his gaze to Marlowe. "This one can't get enough of the new recruits each year. It's too bad Chris got to her before I did when I first joined the team. Bet we would have had fun, Lowe."

I feel the hairs rising on the back of my neck and the joints in my hand ache to curl into a fist.

Marlowe lets out an unamused laugh and leans into my side. Her hand presses into my back, against my rib cage, as if she's reminding me to take a breath. "Not as much fun as Puck and I, I'm sure," she replies snidely.

Devon laughs and thumps my chest this time. If he hits me again, I'm going to strike back. Only my friendly thump won't be so friendly.

"You'll have to fill me in some time on how it all went down, Puck." He laughs again after and winks at me, and he's lucky it takes me a minute to realize what the hell he's saying because, by the time I do, he's already changed the subject. "Are you still nursing that same beer from earlier? Gross, man. It probably tastes like horse piss now."

"Uh, yeah," I answer not very smoothly, only to have Devon take it out of my hand.

"Here, I'll dump it out for ya. Get you a new one."

Oh crap! If he dumps my drink, he's bound to realize that it's water.

Thankfully, Marlowe is in on my secret and is a quick thinker. She snatches the beer can from Devon and throws her head back to chug its contents. When she's done, she hands the empty can back to him. "It was fine. No need for alcohol abuse."

Devon grins at her and his approving gaze lingers a little longer than I'm comfortable with. "Damn, Lowe. You put some of the men on our team to shame."

"I'm sure you're one of them," she answers boredly, then nods her head toward the group of girls she had been standing with earlier tonight. "I'm going to check on my squad. You two have fun and don't do anything too reckless." She gives me a look as if she's telling me to play nice with Dev and then walks away, leaving me with the moron.

"Daayumm, she's a feisty one but so effin hot. Did I set you up with a keeper or what?" Devon asks me with a wide smile, no doubt watching Marlowe's cute butt as she walks away—I can't really blame the guy because I am too, but that doesn't mean I like that it's happening.

"You sure did, Dev," I agree honestly. It's just too bad Marlowe and I won't be playing for keeps.

----------

Marlowe

"Well, Puck, it was nice to meet you... again."

He turns to look at me from where he's sitting on a couch and a smile immediately crosses what had been a blank expression on his face. He stands up and offers me his hand. "The pleasure was all mine, MJ."

I knock his hand away and step closer to him to give him a short hug. "Honestly, only my mom calls me that," I explain, resisting the urge to roll my eyes at him.

He's quick to return the embrace, and what I had intended to be a short goodbye turns into a prolonged moment of his big arms wrapped securely around me. "So you don't want me to?"

I shrug my shoulders lightly as I step back from him. "Doesn't matter."

"Okay." He's smiling at me again, and he keeps his hands lightly gripping my elbows to keep me from fully exiting his hug. "I'll see you around then?"

"Yup. School starts on Tuesday."

He nods and seems to reluctantly drop his hands from my arms. "Yeah. I'll see you then."

"Yup." I giggle at the repetition of our conversation and take a step back from him. "Bye, Puck."

"Bye, MJ. Have a good night."

I take another step back and hear my friends snickering and whispering amongst themselves on the other side of the room. "You have a good night too."

"I'll try," he answers with a grimace. He glances over his shoulder at Devon who is currently drinking from a funnel, then looks back to me. "You too. I mean, uh, bye, MJ."

I try to suppress my laugh at his mix-up, but he notices and gives me an embarrassed smile. "Get outta here already!" he exclaims while pointing behind me at the door with a wide grin.

Now my laugh comes out freely and I wave at him before turning around to walk back to the girls I had driven here with.

"Okay, let's go," I say to them as I reach the group, but they're all still looking behind me at Jonah.

"Aww, he looks so lost, Lowe," Veronica says while jutting out her lower lip with a pout.

I take a peek back in Puck's direction to find the same blank expression on his face from before while he watches the next guy chug from the funnel.

"You should have kissed him goodbye! He looked so happy when you approached him. There must have been some magic between you upstairs earlier!" Peyton gushes.

"Why don't you offer him a ride home?" Veronica suggests. "You have a seat left in your car. I wouldn't mind being squished in the back with him." She waggles her eyebrows at Hadley.

"No far," Peyton complains, "I want to sit in the back with him too!"

"Maybe you shouldn't have called shotgun so fast then," Hadley says without sympathy.

"I'm not driving him home," I grumble to the bickering bitches. They're my friends and all but frick, they objectify hockey players as much as the hockey players objectify us. It's embarrassing.

"You're no fun," Veronica pouts.

"I think Puck would say otherwise," Hadley comments with a laugh and a wink. "C'mon, Lowe. If you leave him unattended, you know some other skank is going to try to snatch him up."

"And he's about two minutes away from being so drunk he doesn't remember you," Peyton chimes in.

I give her a quizzical look and she points behind me. When I turn around, I see a slightly swaying Devon, standing in front of Puck with a funnel in one hand and a beer in another while Puck slowly nods along to his rambling.

"You've got to be kidding me," I mutter under my breath while I walk back across the room. I guess I'll be driving Puck home after all.