Kiss and Tell will be published as a paperback and e-book from W by Wattpad Books under the new name "As Long As You Love Me". The book is available for pre-order now: https://a.co/d/bV1ARdt

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Saturday morning, a week since the terrible party, I sat in bed scrolling through my phone. I was on a mission and it was to find a reliable mailing service to get some essentials to my family. A Facebook group made recommendations and as I read through the reviews, I jotted down on a piece of paper what the pros and cons were for each. Some could do the shopping for the customer and take it directly to the recipient's door, but those tended to be higher priced than the services where I would have to do the shopping. Of those there were some that picked up the parcel at the sender's home and others that I would have to drive considerably for, in order to consign the shipment.

I tapped on my phone's calculator, estimating how much I'd be able to spend on the entire operation, when a phone call appeared. Unable to stop my finger in time, I pressed on the green button and the call went through.

I screamed, for the caller was none other than Not My Babe.

"Good morning, Kitty Cat," his tinny voice said after I'd flung my phone away.

After picking it up I answered, "What?"

Nonplussed he asked, "What are you doing?"

"This had better not be a booty call, if that's how you start all of those."

He laughed. The gall.

"Definitely not, I don't want to die." He cleared his throat, which indicated that a nefarious purpose was still afoot anyway. "The question still stands, though. Got plans today?"

"Of course I do." The lie was blatant but I pushed it through. "Who do you think you are?"

"Great, I'll pick you up in half an hour."

"What?" I shouted once more. "Didn't you hear what I just said-"

"Yeah," he drawled out. "I could practically hear you crossing your fingers, too. You have nothing interesting going on today and we both know it."

I spluttered but I couldn't come up with a defense. Yes, there was something very important I had to do and I'd been working on it when he rudely called me, but it wasn't the kind of thing that would take me all day. Even so I wasn't just going to say yes and when I recovered from the initial shock I confirmed as much. I shifted my phone to my other ear and said, "Regardless I'm not going to agree just like that without knowing what I'm getting into."

"Our first appearance as a couple is tomorrow. My family's making a cookout to celebrate Chris's engagement with Ellen, which means we have one day to turn you into a convincing girlfriend of mine."

I let the silence speak for itself for a long moment until finally I couldn't hold back the laughter anymore. "Impossible."

"What? Don't tell me you have plans tomorrow." Again his voice came with a nonchalance that was grating.

"No but-"

"Cool, I'm on my way."

And he hung up.

I blinked as my phone's calculator came back to view, before I reacted by texting him that I was busy. He didn't respond to any of them but a couple of minutes later Maya strolled in, looking like a million dollars even in her pajamas, and said, "Why is Gabe calling me this early and asking me to make sure you're ready?"

"Bastard," I spat out, tossing aside my bedsheets and running to the bathroom to get ready. I called out to her just before shutting the door, "And how the hell does he have your number?"

Her voice drifted from the kitchen. "I'm not a recluse, you know."

Unlike me. The only reason I even had his phone number was because of our internship. I'd survived with only faraway encounters with him for three years up until the point Jeff pitted us together and still expected us to collaborate.

I managed to make myself presentable with a quick shower and brushing my teeth but I didn't want him to think I made much of an effort, so I let my hair air dry and put on a simple t-shirt and my most comfortable pair of jeans that looked like I'd stolen them from papi. He waited for me downstairs with a similar ensemble, except with aviator sunglasses and his long hair free. He leaned against his red Jeep like he was posing for a magazine and I was on the other side of the lens, looking at the magic happening on camera from a different world.

I wasn't about to let him free rein of the day, though. When I approached I said, "Change of plans, we're doing this my way."

Gabe tilted his face forward to glance at me over the rim of his glasses. "Oh?"

"We're going to Walmart, I have to buy some things and you can brainwash me in the meantime."

His lips arched into a frown but he shrugged. "Why not, hop in."

The words were somewhat misleading as he opened the passenger's door for me and even offered his hand to help me. I tossed him a glare, not because I didn't appreciate the mindfulness but because no doubt this was one of his favorite techniques with the ladies. Smooth like butter, he let the look slide down his back and hopped into the driver's seat.

"So, why Walmart?" he asked, turning his car on. It had working air conditioning and his phone could connect to the radio system. I bet I wasn't hiding my jealousy well. But he didn't noticed it and added, "Do you want to go to a public place because you're afraid of me?"

"I'm sure that's what your Tinder dates say to you but no," I said, glancing at my nails for emphasis. "You're not much taller than I am, it won't be hard to knee you in the cojones."

I had never heard him laugh as hard as he did then. He was still going even as we parked in the East Colonial Walmart.

I rolled my eyes as I got out of the car and into the bright sun of the late morning. "It wasn't that funny."

"You're right," he agreed, which was a bad sign. "I should feel threatened right now."

The flashback of Liz's raised hand made me cringe. "Sorry."

A corner of his lips tilted. "But I'm not, you're all snarl but no scratch, Kitty Cat."

To prove him wrong I punched him in the shoulder. This only made him giggle. I probably should apologize but this time I didn't.

We grabbed a cart and as he cleaned it with wipes it was hard not to feel like there was something very domestic about the scene. Like this was a tradition rather than an exception. It was also difficult not to notice the glances we attracted, as if the other patrons of the store weren't used to seeing someone like Gabe walk among them.

"Where to?" he asked and I pointed ahead.

He followed me to the pharmacy section, where I pulled out the list I'd been making in the morning. I grabbed gauzes, antiseptic, bandaids, rubbing alcohol and everything that was typically found in a first aid kit. I motioned him to follow me deeper into the section to find some other basic items when he stopped, picked a box of condoms and tossed it into the cart.

"Those are for me," he clarified as though I'd asked.

"I don't care."

"What else?" Gabe asked, smiling as though he imagined I did care.

I turned my back on him and headed for the toothpaste section and picked some of it, three toothbrushes and floss. He eyed the items in the cart but had the decency not to comment on them. Instead he brought the main topic back up.

"So, my whole family and some friends are getting together tomorrow, mi abuela, tíos, primos, mis hermanos y mi mamá." His Puerto Rican accent seamlessly returned when he used Spanish words, despite the fact that it couldn't be traced when he spoke in English.

Meanwhile I sounded very Venezuelan even as I responded with, "And what do you want me to do?"

"First of all, you have to be there. I already told everybody that I have a new girlfriend and that you're the one."

It was so strange to hear those words from Gabriel Cabrera directed at me that my heart got confused and skipped a beat. I ordered it to settle back down as we strolled through the expanse of the store, closer to the groceries area.

"And they believed it?" I lifted an eyebrow to show him how little I would.

He smiled. "Para nada, which is why you have to act convincing."

I skimmed through the list and looked up at the signs hanging over the aisles to make my way around most efficiently. Focusing more on that I asked, "What does a convincing girlfriend do?"

"Oh, you know. You have to look at me like you can't believe you're so lucky." From the corner of my eyes I saw him tick the items with his fingers. "We'll have to hold hands, call each other by cute but very dumb names, occasionally kiss-"

"Whoa whoa," I said, stopping in the middle of the way.

He kept going, though, both his mouth and his feet. "And we should probably make a story up about how we fell in love and get to know a few obscure details about each other. What's your favorite color and what is your biggest fear?"

He had to be insane.

"I am not kissing you again," I said.

Twisting his upper body to give me a mocking look, he said, "Did you forget? It's in the contract. There isn't a couple in this world that doesn't do PDA."

I folded my arms, dismissing the fact that yes, we'd put discreet PDA into the second contract. "I'm sure that's not true. There are plenty of conservative couples out there who don't place the weight of their relationships on the physical aspect."

"Sure, but I'm not like that and neither are most people our age." At my dubious look, Gabe literally pushed the cart into the hallway with the canned food where a teenage couple shopped for cat food while holding hands. "See?"

"They're holding hands, bobo," I said, shrugging. "It's not like they're sucking-"

I didn't even have to finish the sentence because at that exact moment the teens dropped their basket to the floor and grabbed onto each other like a friend had just called them with the FYI that the world was ending. My face scrunched up and unfortunately looking away faced me square with Gabe's smug face. As if he'd just aced a test that I'd flunked.

"Shut up," I said.

"I didn't even have to speak further to prove my point." He kissed his fingers. "Beautiful."

Huffing, I marched past the young couple to the cans of food for humans and grabbed sausages, sardines and tuna, too, if it weren't so damn high up in the shelf. Who put one of the most popular products out of reach of short people? I stretched onto my tippy toes and barely skimmed the bottom of the top shelf.

Suddenly a wall of heat approached from behind and a familiar hand grabbed onto a can. Gabe asked behind me, "How many?"

I wanted to scream at him that I didn't need his help or his body so close to mine, but a peep came out of my mouth saying six, even followed by a please. He kept me trapped between the shelf and him as he took one by one, a clear indication that he was doing this to bother me.

Worse, it was working.

Even after he'd taken everything I needed, he stayed in position and it was all so he could lean closer to my ear and whisper, "You cannot be a convincing girlfriend of mine if we don't touch."

A shiver travelled through me and finally I found enough spine to elbow him out of the way and take the cans from his hands. I put them in the cart and made a show of going through my list again, even though I had the items committed to heart by now. "Yeah, okay. You've proven your point. What else?"

After a brief pause he continued, following behind me as I pushed the cart to the next aisle. "It's going to be pretty informal but not enough that we can show up in jeans and a t-shirt."

"Fine, I'll wear a dress." I gritted my teeth as a woman twice our age walked by us, gawking at Gabe as though she'd never seen the like. "Doesn't that get tiring?"

"Hmm?"

"Being the apple of every woman's eye," I clarified, glancing back to where the woman was blatantly checking out Gabe's posterior.

"I don't notice anymore." A moment later adding, "And also, not every woman. You've proven very immune to my charm."

I wasn't but I was pleased that he thought so. Even so, there was something strange about the phrase. "What does that even mean? Have you tried your charm on me?"

"Sure," although as he said the word there was no particular emphasis. "It's not like I can turn my charm up and down like a dial. It's just always there."

"Yeah, like your modesty," I said. In truth I was just a little miffed at hearing him admit he'd never made a particular effort on me. But it wasn't like it mattered.

"Which makes you both the best candidate for this con and also the worst, because you'll have to work really hard to make everyone think we're together." He grabbed the cart from me after I'd stopped to pick out some canned veggies. "By the way, are you preparing for the apocalypse or what's all this?"

In a way that was exactly it. "It's for my family who are in the middle of the Venezuelan apocalypse."

"Oh. Shit." Gabe drew to a complete stop and looked at me with wide eyes. "Things are really bad down there, right? Are they okay?"

"As can be, I'm just trying to help a little." Then, without even paying attention to my audience I added, "Which I should've done a long time ago—but back on track. To answer your previous question, I don't have a favorite color and my worst fear already happened."

"And what's that?"

I sighed, realizing I'd turned this entire conversation too somber. I turned to Gabe and caught his attention already on me. "Four years ago I lost my older brother. I guess losing any more of my family is my next biggest fear."

His lips parted but no words came out. It was as though he was at a loss for them.

So I kept dumping items on the cart as I spoke. "Let's just say we met in college but weren't close at all until we got stuck doing our internships together. We had to stay late for a project one evening and one thing led to the other. Any more than that will be hard to keep track of."

Gabe cleared his throat but followed me in silence for long enough that I felt compelled to keep talking, so that we could put more miles between my sob story and the present.

"You should say your favorite part of me is my legs or something and I'll say my favorite of yours is your hair, how about that?"

"Your eyes," he said then. "Those are my favorite part of you."

I nearly dropped the pack of sugar in my hands and the traitorous parts he'd complimented turned to him. He was brushing his hand through my fake-favorite part of him.

"So you like my hair?"

"No," I blurted out, hoping the heat in my face wasn't translating into a blush. It was his eyes, too. The honey wells that darkened when he had bad thoughts in his head and naughty words in his mouth, that shone under the light like twinkling stars. Of course what I said instead was, "I don't have a favorite part of you at all."

"Lies," he smiled wide and suddenly that was a contender to his eyes. That smile. He continued, saying, "Everybody has a favorite part of me. The lady from earlier's was definitely my ass."

I couldn't blame her, he had a really nice one. The kind that was a little bit genetics and a little bit exercise, resulting in a lot of squishable.

No. I had to cut this train of thought off right now.

"Whatever." I waved a hand. "You like my eyes and I like your hair."

"So if I grow bald you won't like me anymore?" He puckered his lips in a little pout. "My family won't like that."

Since I was done with the shopping, I pushed the cart to the nearest cashier and said, "Fine, your smile. Am I the perfect girlfriend now?"

"This will be a work in progress," he said, gently shouldering me out of the way so he could offload the cart onto the empty conveyor belt.

"I can do that-"

The cashier cut me off by asking, "Is it gonna be cash or card?"

"Card," Gabe responded and I clawed at his arm with enough strength that he looked back at me.

With wide eyes I whispered, "Don't you dare."

A slow smile spread across his lips. "You're still learning but here's today's lesson, every time I take a girl out on a date, I pay."

"No," I choked out, shaking my head. "Besides this isn't a date."

And then came the biggest shock of the day. Gabe leaned down and pressed a soft kiss on my forehead before saying, "There, we kissed, therefore it's a date."

He took advantage of my stupefaction to pay for my shopping, like some sort of good samaritan turned fake boyfriend turned the most confusing person in my life.

EEE!! Who here thinks this is their real first kiss?

This is the last free chapter! If you want to find out what happens in the rest of this enemies-to-lovers, to fake-dating college romance with Latinx characters, stick around to find out!

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