Ashley

"Are you sure Shane's going to show up?" I asked for what seemed like the hundredth time in the past half hour.

When Kris had texted me last night, I had fully expected him to bring up the team dinner. One where I had drank my weight in cocktails, then puked it all out, and asked him if we were going to have sex.

I still had no clear memories of that night, but just the thought of me doing all that was mortifying.

After leaving the hockey house yesterday, I'd holed up in my dorm for the rest of the day, nursing my hangover and dreading seeing Kris again. Not only because of the embarrassment, but also because of my confrontation with Dylan.

I was yet to figure out a way to tell him about Dylan. Or decide if I should tell him at all.

Needless to say, I was awfully reluctant to face Kris and have either of those conversations. So when I saw that his text had nothing to do with my drunken shenanigans or Dylan's doubts about us, I was more than relieved.

However, my relief didn't last long. As soon as I read that Shane had agreed to work with us on the presentation for Psychology 101, my mind swirled with doubts. And rightly so, because it was very unlikely of Shane to agree to something he had already refused. What was very on brand for Shane was to lie and say he'd do something and then not do it.

The longer we waited for Shane, the more I worried that he wasn't going to show up. That he had just agreed to placate Kris and had no intention of following through.

Kris glanced at his watch, his brows creased. "Let's just wait some more. If he still doesn't show up, we should get started without him."

"How did you even get him to say yes in the first place?" I asked. A faint blush spread across Kris's face at that and he averted my gaze. I raised a brow at him, mildly amused by the reaction. "What did you do?"

Kris gave me a sheepish smile, his hand involuntarily going to rub his nape. I'd noticed he did that a lot when he was nervous about something. "Kris?" I pressed on. "What did you do?"

"I uh... I may or may not have used you to get under Shane's skin and made him agree to work with us," he said in one breath. If I wasn't so used to April's excited chatter where she barely paused to breathe, I wouldn't have understood a word.

"You did what?" I asked, my voice louder than appropriate for the library. A few heads turned in our direction and I gave them an apologetic smile before leaning closer to Kris so I could whisper. "How did you even do that?"

He shrugged. "I told him that he must still have feelings for you and that's why he didn't want to work with us."

"That's it?" It was a little hard to believe that Shane changed his mind over something so trivial. There must be more to it.

"I pushed his buttons by saying that you didn't care about him and his presence didn't bother you, but that didn't seem to be the case with him. He got a little riled up and uh..." he paused suddenly, his green eyes worried. "You might not like what he said next."

"I want to know. I can take it," I replied. "Like you said, I don't care about him nor what he thinks of me."

"He said that you will leave me for any guy that gave you attention. That you would even get back with him if he pursued you."

I scoffed. "That's never going to happen. Typical of Shane to think he was such a catch," I said, rolling my eyes.

He pursed his lips. "I'm sorry. In hindsight, I shouldn't have dragged you into it in the first place. But I couldn't think of anything else to get him to cooperate with us. I was wrong. I shouldn't have—"

"Kris," I interrupted, placing a hand on his arm to stop him from rambling. "It's okay. I won't be mad. To deal with people like Shane sometimes we needed to say stuff that we don't mean. Just tell me whatever went down so I can prepare myself to face him."

"Okay," he said, sighing. "I may have manipulated him into a challenge to prove me wrong about you. He said he would show me your true colors. And for that, he needed to work with us on the project."

I blinked at him as my brain processed his words. Manipulation? Kris? Again, hard to believe.

I cupped his face with both hands, squeezing in his cheeks until his lips formed a pout. "Who are you? What did you do with my sweet, innocent Kris?"

Kris scoffed and swatted my hands away. "Trust me, I'm not as innocent as you think."

"Yeah, right. That's why you got tricked into wearing a crown and a sash for your birthday. King Kris is not at all innocent," I teased, snickering.

"I thought it was some kind of theme, okay?" he said, poking my cheek with his finger.

"See? Innocent," I said.

Kris shook his head but there was an unmistakable smile on his face. "That was ridiculous," he said, laughing.

"Who would have known we would end up being—"

The sentence died in my mouth when I saw Shane walk toward us. As if him showing up wasn't surprising enough, he smiled at me when our eyes locked.

Shane Nelson, my ex-boyfriend who hated me until a few days ago was smiling at me. Huh? Was I hallucinating?

"Sorry, I'm late," Shane said as he plopped on the chair across from me, placing the coffee cup holder in his hand on the table. "There was a rush at the café."

He then removed one cup from the cup holder and placed it in front of me. "I got you lemon tea. I hope you still like that," he said, still smiling.

I bet my face resembled something straight out of comics with my eyes as wide as saucers and mouth hung open. This 180 degrees change in Shane was freaking me out.

Was he high? Maybe he hit his head and lost his memories. Why else would he be nice to me?

"I got you plain coffee since I didn't know what you liked," Shane said and pushed the other cup toward Kris while keeping one to himself. "So... What are we going to do for the project?"

Kris and I shared a bewildered look. He hadn't expected such a big change in Shane's attitude either. We then simultaneously turned to stare at Shane.

"What?" he asked, taking a sip of his drink.

"Are you drunk? High?" I asked, keeping the cup a little away from me. There was no telling what could be inside that.

Shane chuckled. "It's 10:30 in the morning." When I simply stared at him in return, he heaved a sigh. "No, I'm neither drunk nor high. Satisfied?"

"Then why are you acting like this?"

"Like what?" he asked.

I narrowed my eyes at him. "Oh, please. Drop the act. I know very well—"

"She just means that it's a little strange that you changed your behavior so drastically all of a sudden," Kris said, cutting me off. "Can you really fault us for thinking it's weird? You didn't want to work with us at all."

Shane heaved an exaggerated sigh as if we were being a nuisance to him. "I hear you and I know it feels weird, but I'm just trying to make amends."

"So you suddenly had this epiphany that you needed to stop being a jerk?" I asked, crossing my arms.

This had to be an act. Maybe this had something to do with him proving Kris wrong about me, whatever that meant. I wasn't falling for his tricks. If there was anything I had learned in the past year, it was that Shane Nelson couldn't be trusted. He might say one thing and do something totally different. Usually whatever benefited him the most.

"I know I have acted like an asshole and I apologize for that. I just want to start over," he said, showing me his puppy dog eyes. It would have worked on old me. The one who could never stay mad at him or say no to him.

But older me had died the day he abandoned me, leaving me to face the consequences alone. New me had a far thicker skin and a much colder heart. There was nothing he could say or do to make me change my mind about him.

When he saw that his strategy wasn't working, he changed tack. "I really mean it. I don't want us—"

"That's not what you told Kris yesterday. I hear you wanted to expose my true nature," I said and rolled my eyes. "What happened to that plan?"

Shane shot a questioning look at Kris. "You told her?"

Kris shrugged. "I don't hide anything from my girlfriend. Especially not when it involves her."

Shane sighed again and met my gaze. "Look, I was angry yesterday. I'd had a bad day and said some stuff I shouldn't have. But I'm really trying to let go of the past and start over. And I understand if you don't believe me. So, let's just focus on the project."

A few tense minutes passed as I let his words sink in. I still didn't believe anything he said. The shift in behavior was too drastic and too sudden for it to be real. But he was right about one thing. We needed to focus on the project. The faster we'd be done with it, the faster I could get away from Shane.

"Okay," I said, breaking the silence. "Let's get to work. I was hoping we could finalize the topic today. Either of you have any ideas?"

For the next hour or so, we went back and forth on different ideas that we could possibly work with. While Kris's suggestions were easy and more generic like MBTI, Type A and Type B personality, Shane's were verging on being inappropriate to discuss in a classroom setting.

Although interesting, I doubted Prof. Moore would approve a topic of why some people preferred having multiple sex partners. And their reactions for whatever I suggested were either 'meh' or 'too difficult'.

"This isn't going anywhere," I said, pressing my palms over my eyes. Kris and Shane stopped their conversation on whether the topic of people's food preferences correlated to their mental health was a viable one and turned to face me.

Shane raised a questioning brow. "So what do you suggest?"

"I think we should go home and make a list of top five topics each one of us would like to work on. And then cross them out by voting until we have one topic," I replied, looking at both of them. "Sounds good?"

"Sounds great." Kris grinned and leaned his head on my shoulder. "I don't think my brain can handle any more of it. I feel like it's going to explode."

I chuckled, reaching my hand up to pat his cheek. "You still have to finish that assignment you were talking about. Isn't it due in a few days?"

"Oh, crap. I totally forgot about it." He lifted his head and pressed a kiss to my cheek. "Thanks for the reminder, sweetheart."

I felt my face heat up despite being used to him kissing my cheek by now. Maybe it was because we were in a public place with so many people around. It was one thing to keep up the act in front of his friends, but acting like a couple in front of strangers made it feel more real. Like all of this wasn't an act and we really were a couple.

Shane cleared his throat, drawing our attention back toward him. I had almost forgotten he was still here.

"We should make a groupchat to discuss everything. Give me your number," he said and handed his phone to Kris. "I already have Ashley's."

"Uh... You have it?" I asked, slightly taken aback. I was under the impression that he had deleted my number or blocked me, considering I never got a response whenever I'd tried to reach out to him after our breakup. Why would he still keep my number if he had no intentions of talking with me?

"Yeah. We were friends once, remember?" he said and for the first time, I saw genuine hurt flash across his features. But it lasted only for a second and then it was masked by indifference. "Before you did what you did."

Hurt flared in my chest at the accusation in his tone as if I was the one who had burned all bridges. As if it wasn't him who had ruined me and ruined everything we had. The hurt quickly turned into rage, burning me from within.

"It wasn't me who..." My gaze flitted to Kris who was watching with a worried expression. I couldn't say it. The moment I said something, Shane would retaliate and then Kris would know. I didn't want Kris to know about it. I didn't want anyone to know about it.

If I had to concede to Shane to keep my current friends with me, I would gladly do it. Winning in a verbal volley with him wasn't more important than the friendships I had formed here at Wellsfield.

I cleared my throat, deciding to change the topic. "I changed my number months ago. You don't have that."

"Oh," was all Shane said.

When an awkward silence stretched between us, Kris decided to step in. "How about I make the group chat? I have both your numbers," he said.

I smiled at him. "Perfect."

Shane shrugged. "Works for me." He then glanced at the time on his phone and began packing his stuff. "Sorry, I have to leave now. See you guys later."

Kris and I watched him walk away until he turned the corner and disappeared from our sight. I still couldn't believe Shane was working with us and acting civil. He almost reminded me of the Shane he once was. The Shane I knew before we'd started dating.

Sadly, I also knew the Shane he became after we started dating. The one who made me cry countless times and nearly ruined my life.

"Well, that was weird," Kris commented, saying out loud what had been going through my mind ever since Shane had showed up at the library.

"Very weird," I agreed. Glancing at him from the corner of my eyes, I realized Kris had already started packing his things as well. He wasn't going to bring up that night, was he?

Sighing, I decided I had to do it myself then. I couldn't live another day without knowing what exactly I'd done and sorting it out. Otherwise my brain would just keep imagining worse and worse scenarios in my head.

"Uh... Kris?" I started, gaining his attention. "W-We need to talk about that night. When I got drunk and..." I cleared my throat. "I'm really sorry for whatever I did. I um... I don't really remember what I did, but I know I said some weird things."

"What do you remember?" he asked.

"April recorded my phone call with her. The one where I asked you about sex," I said, cringing at the memory. "Please tell me that's all I did to embarrass myself."

Kris offered me a gentle smile. "You're good. Apart from singing and doing a little dance, you didn't do anything much at home. Oh, but you did wink at the waiter to get more cocktails and enthusiastically waved everyone goodnight at Joana's."

I covered my face with my hands. "God, end me now." I met his gaze, my face flaming and lips pressed in a thin line. "Why didn't you stop me?"

"I did. You're just very stubborn when drunk," he said, chuckling.

I sighed. "Anything else I need to know?"

He pursed his lips, looking a little conflicted. "There is, isn't there?" I said. "Tell me."

"You announced in front of everyone that I wasn't your boyfriend," he said and I gasped, my hands going to cover my mouth.

This was bad. This was so, so bad. No wonder Dylan was so skeptical. I blew up our cover all by myself.

Kris raised his hands in a placating motion. "But I handled it. I don't think anyone suspected anything."

Dylan did.

"My friends also know about your relationship with Shane and Juliette," he said, his expression troubled. "It's my fault. Shane was talking shit about you and I lost it. In my attempt to shut him up, I ended up revealing everything. I'm sorry."

Dylan confronting me made so much sense now. Anyone would come to similar conclusions in these circumstances.

"It's okay," I said, mustering a smile. "It's good that it's out. I won't have to worry about it anymore."

"Are you sure?" Kris asked, still worried.

I nodded, smiling. "I'm sure."

"Okay," Kris said as he stood up. He extended his hand toward me, grinning. "Let's get out of here."

I placed my hand in his larger one and let him pull me to my feet. Like always, I looped my hand around his and we began making our way to the exit.

"Do you wanna grab lunch?" he asked as we walked down the steps of the library. "I'm starving. Also, the coffee Shane brought for me was super bland. I think it was his way of taking revenge."

I hummed. "Wouldn't put it past him honestly."

While Kris looked up the nearest place to get food on his phone, I got lost in my thoughts about the events from the past few days. The encounter with Dylan was something that I hadn't been able to forget yet. It was slowly becoming another reason for my insomnia. To make matters worse, I didn't know what to do about it.

From what little I heard about Kris's past, I knew Bethany had caused a fight between Kris and one of his friends. Seeing the way Dylan had reacted the other day, I assumed it was him. While their relationship didn't seem strained anymore, I had no idea how things would turn out if I told Kris about what Dylan had said.

I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I ended up causing tension between Kris and Dylan again. And for what? For a relationship that wasn't even real?

Although Dylan was a little harsh with his approach, he was only looking out for his friend. I probably would have done the same thing if I was in his position. The more I thought about it, the more my decision to not tell Kris about it started to seem right. Kris could live without knowing that one of his best friends was concerned about his fake girlfriend hurting him.

But I still needed to find a way to make Dylan believe that I wasn't playing Kris. No matter the fake dating deal, I would never do anything to hurt Kris.

"This place looks good," Kris said once we were seated in his car. "What do you think?"

"Looks great," I said, not really knowing what place he was talking about.

Kris turned the key into ignition and the engine roared to life. Just as he was about to pull out of the parking spot, his phone began to ring. The name Mrs. Martin flashed on the display screen, causing Kris's brows to furrow.

"That's Bethany's mom," he said and accepted the call.

A woman's frantic voice blasted through the speakers. "Kris? Oh, thank God at least you picked up. I'm so sorry to trouble you, but I need your help."

"Is everything okay? You sound stressed," Kris replied.

"It's Bethany. She's...she's sick," the woman cried. "She's not picking my calls. I-I'm worried that she might have fainted in her apartment."