Kris

Were flowers a little too much?

As I made my way inside Ashley's dormitory, I kept getting glances from the other women residing there. I'd bought the bouquet of pink tulips thinking that red roses would be too much for a first date. First fake date.

Honestly, I was still trying to wrap my head around the idea of fake dating, but Ashley was confident that it'd work and I was desperate to try anything. After she'd proposed this scheme to me that day in the café, I was more than bewildered.

Because let's be honest, it sounded ridiculous. Who in their right mind would agree for something like that? It made no sense whatsoever.

But then on Wednesday, Bethany had showed up to my morning practice. Inside the facility where she wasn't supposed to be.

The moment I saw her, I got so distracted that I ended up having an accident. Thankfully, no one was hurt but it could have been worse. With the team aiming for the championship this season, we couldn't afford having accidents and injuries.

I wouldn't have been able to live with myself if someone had gotten injured because of me. The worry etched on Coach and my teammates' faces as they hauled me and the junior I'd bumped into up on our feet cemented my resolve. If the only way to get Bethany to back off was putting up this fake dating act, I was willing to do it.

My grip tightened on the bouquet as I knocked on Ashley's door and waited. I hadn't been on a date in forever. Since Bethany and I were already friends, our dates never really seemed like dates.

We usually just hung out together like we always did. And after our breakup, I'd sworn off women. Forget about fake dates, I had no clue what someone did on real dates with someone they didn't already know.

Because I was so clueless about this whole thing, Ashley had taken it upon herself to plan everything and had asked me to just show up at her door. Going empty handed felt wrong, hence the flowers. But now, I was questioning that as well.

The door swung open and I was greeted by April's coy smile. "Someone's really excited for the date huh? You're like twenty minutes early to pick up our girl."

My eyes widened and I immediately lifted my hand to check time. Crap, I really was. I overestimated the time I'd require to go to the florist and drive back here.

What did someone fake dating do in this situation? Pretend that my watch was broken? Act smitten and say something cheesy? I was so unprepared for this.

April let out a bubbly laugh, waving me in. "Come on in. Lucky for you, Ash is an obsessive planner and perpetually paranoid of being late. She's been ready since half an hour ago." She then glanced at the tulips in my hand and took a step back. "While tulips don't usually trigger my pollen allergy, can you please hold them a little away from me?"

"Sorry," I said, immediately holding them behind my back.

What if Ashley was allergic to flowers too? I hadn't even thought of that before buying them. This wasn't going to work. I was already messing things up.

I let April walk ahead of me before following in after her and closing the door shut behind me. As soon as I stepped in, I was hit by the scent of tea. In the middle of the living room, Ashley's other roommate, Nicole, was doing a yoga pose that looked like it'd snap me in two if I tried it.

She met my gaze while her face was upside down. "Oh, hey," she said, smiling.

"Hi," I replied, returning her smile.

Not wanting to make her uncomfortable, I quickly averted my gaze and glanced around the room. The suite style dorm room was bigger than I'd expected. The large window on the right wall let in enough natural light to brighten the living room and the open plan kitchen.

A flat screen was set up on a low table against one wall while a tiny sofa was placed opposite it, the back facing the kitchen. There were four other doors, three on the left side and one on right of the room, leading to the bedrooms. It was compact but cozy. The hockey house—although bigger—looked like a pig sty in front of their room.

"Ash!" April yelled. "Kris is here!"

On cue, the door on the right opened and my breath stuck in my throat.

Ashley stepped out of her room wearing a knee length, cream colored dress with tiny red and pink flowers printed across the fabric. The material hugged her upper body, cinching at the waist before flaring out. Her hair fell down her shoulders like fluffy, golden clouds that shone in the sunlight cascading from the window. The mole near her mouth rose higher as her lips curved up in a bright smile, her blue eyes sparkling when they met mine.

"Hey," she said as she smoothed down the skirt of her dress with her hands.

I opened my mouth but nothing came out causing April and Nicole to giggle. Heat crept up my face and I cleared my throat. "H-Hi. You look beautiful."

Ashley's smile widened. "Thank you."

April nudged me with her elbow, whispering, "Give her the flowers."

"Oh. Yes, of course," I said and stepped forward, extending the bouquet of tulips towards her. "I got these for you. I should have checked with you before if you were allergic to flowers. I hope you are not. You can throw them out if it causes problems—"

"They are beautiful," Ashley said, stopping me from rambling further. She accepted the bouquet and held it close to her chest. "I'm gonna go keep them in my room. Give me a sec."

She rushed to the kitchen and filled a pitcher with water before going back to her room. While she was gone, Nicole who was now done with her yoga shot me a thumbs up.

"Solid start. I'm rooting for you," she said, grinning.

"Yeah, we have high hopes from you, Kris. Sweep her off her feet," April chimed in. "Make us proud."

I rubbed the back of my nape, not knowing what to say to that. "Uh... thanks? I'll try my best."

It caused them to giggle some more and I felt even more nervous than before. Thankfully, Ashley joined us soon, saving me from further embarrassment.

She narrowed her eyes on her friends while adjusting the strap of her sling bag on her shoulder, ceasing their giggles before turning to face me. "Shall we go?"

"Yes." Please. I didn't say that aloud though.

I let Ashley walk ahead of me, following her out in the hallway. Behind us, April yelled, "Enjoy your date! But not too much."

"Yeah. No glove, no love," Nicole added.

A few heads turned in our direction, the women grinning and whispering amongst themselves. One of them snorted. Oh, God.

If anyone wanted to know whether you could die of embarrassment, today would be the day they'd find out. Because I was definitely going to die of embarrassment. Maybe my head would explode from how warm my face had become.

Ashley whirled around and glared at her friends. "Quit it, you guys."

She grabbed my hand and pulled me towards the elevator. It wasn't until we had exited the building and walked a little away from the entrance that she let go of my hand.

She turned toward me, looking apologetic. "I'm so sorry for that. They usually aren't... like that."

I cleared my throat and mustered a smile. "It's okay. They were just joking."

She bit her lip and scuffed the pavement with her sneakers, averting her gaze. "I had to tell them about what happened at your birthday party so that our date wouldn't come off as a shock. They just assumed things on their own and I let them. I'm sorry. I should have cleared that up instead of—"

"Hey." I tipped her chin up with my finger so she was meeting my gaze again. "It's okay. And it's necessary that they think like that if we want our plan to succeed. You did the right thing," I said.

She didn't look like she believed me, so I added, "If it wasn't for that, they would have seen right through me. Didn't you see how much of a nervous wreck I was upstairs?"

The first hint of a smile appeared on her face and my chest warmed. I hated seeing people close to me sad.

"You did great," she said. "You even brought me flowers. I wasn't expecting that."

I'd looked up online for hours about what one was supposed to do while fake dating, but apart from a couple of romance books, nothing helpful had popped up. So, I'd gone the traditional way and got her flowers.

"So I did well as a newbie fake boyfriend then?" I asked. "How would you grade me on a scale of 10?"

This time, I got a full blown smile. "You were alright. You'll get your grades after our date."

I hummed. "Fair enough. What do we do now? What's your plan for the date?"

"Now we walk around campus and talk like a real couple would on their first date. And then we go here." She showed me the screen of her phone displaying the page of a restaurant nearby. "We'll have lunch here and then come back."

My brows furrowed. "Are you sure you want to walk all the way there? It's on the other side of campus. We can just take my car."

Ashley shook her head. "No. We want as many people to see us together as possible. Because you are one of the hockey Gods, the news will spread faster. And because others would have seen us together, Bethany and Shane can't disregard it as a rumor."

I snorted. "I'm not a hockey God. Who said that?"

"Oh, but you are. At Wellsfield at least where everyone is crazy about hockey and their hockey players. I'll elaborate on the way. Let's go."

Ashley linked our arms and we began walking in the direction of the restaurant. Along the way, she gave me a breakdown of the campus grapevine and educated me on all the 'hot topics' that the students at Wellsfield were currently interested in.

The top two were hockey and the media project on hockey. I had to concede that Wellsfield really was crazy over hockey.

A trio of women passed by us and I noticed them staring at Ashley, while whispering to each other.

"The grapevine you talked about, I think it's working," I said, discreetly jutting my chin towards those women.

Ashley smirked when she noticed them too and leaned her head on my shoulder, whispering, "I told you. I bet by the time our date's over, Bethany will hear about this."

I didn't respond because I didn't know how to feel about that. On one hand, everything was going as Ashley had planned which was great, but on the other hand, I was worried about how Bethany would react to all of this.

Ashley patted my arm, snapping me out of my thoughts. "We should take pictures. Couples do that. Hold on."

My shoulders tensed as she whipped her phone out and snapped a selfie of us. Then she took a picture of our entwined hands.

I didn't even realize when we'd held hands. Like it was natural of us to do so and something we always did. Before I could overthink about it, Ashley handed her phone to me and asked me to snap a few pictures of us from my angle.

That trio kept stealing glances at us throughout the whole thing and only stopped when our routes changed.

"Now, coming back to our deal," she said, looking up at me. "We need to set some rules."

"Rules?" I asked.

"Yeah. So we know what we can do and what we cannot or should not," she explained. "For example, we need to discuss how far you want to take this?"

I tilted my head to the side, confused. "Uh...until our exes leave us alone? Wasn't that the plan?"

"Yes, but like who else do you want to think that we are dating?" she asked. "Pretending in front of our friends is inevitable. Unless they truly believe that we are dating, no one else would. But would you want your family to think that we're dating? In case I come to babysit Jake and Dawn again, I need to know what to do in that scenario."

I was momentarily stumped because I hadn't really thought that far. She was right about pretending in front of our friends. For me it wasn't just to make other people believe, but to actually ease my friends' worries. Dylan's relieved face when I'd told him that I was going on a date flashed before my eyes and I knew I wanted to keep this act up in front of him.

As for my family... I wasn't sure about that yet. Bethany being close to my family complicated things.

"I... I need time to think about that."

She squeezed my hand in reassurance. "Of course."

"Will you be posting those pictures on social media?" I asked.

Ashley's smile dropped and color drained from her face. "I-I don't use social media anymore. I'm trying to do a social media detox," she said, forcing out a laugh that wasn't her usual bubbly laugh. "Do you want to post?"

I shook my head. "No. My family follows me so I can't without also telling them that I have a girlfriend."

The relief she felt after hearing that was instantly visible on her face and in her body language. However, before I could ask anything further, she quickly changed the topic.

"Okay. I also wanted to ask about what all is acceptable when it comes to being physical?" she asked, looking up at me. "It'd be weird if we announce that we are dating and never show any sort of physical affection."

My gut told me there was something more behind her not using social media than just the social media detox thing. But seeing how tense she'd become when that topic came up and how quickly she moved on to the next thing, I didn't want to bring it up again. After all, it was her personal issue. Just because we were pretending to date, it didn't mean I had the right to know everything about her.

I shrugged. "I'm okay with hand holding, hugging, leaning on the shoulder. Arm around the shoulder or waist is fine too."

"What about cheek kisses?"

I raised a brow, suppressing the smile threatening to break free. "You want to kiss me?"

Her cheeks immediately tinted pink and she smacked my arm. "No. I just... Like I said before, I'm asking about the innocent show of affection."

This time I didn't hold back my laughter. "I know. I was just kidding," I said as I ruffled her hair. "Cheek kisses are fine too. What about you?"

"I'm fine with all of the above too," she said. "As long as we don't kiss kiss and...do anything beyond that, I'm okay."

"What do you mean by kiss kiss and beyond?" I asked even though I knew what she meant. "What about forehead kisses? Will those be considered innocent or in the beyond?"

I was rewarded with an even brighter blush and a harder thwack on the arm. "You know what I mean. And forehead kisses are fine," she said.

I'm not sure what exactly took over me, but I leaned in and pressed a kiss to her forehead. Ashley's blue eyes bulged out as they looked up at me in shock and her face reddened further. She looked like a doll when she blushed.

Taken aback by my own actions, I stepped a little away from her and averted my gaze. Shoving my hands in my pockets, I cleared my throat. "Well, you'll need to work on your reaction if you want our plan to succeed."

"I...I was just shocked this time," she mumbled, not meeting my gaze.

We walked in silence for a while after that, neither of us daring to speak or meeting each others' gazes. If we really wanted our dating deal to succeed, we couldn't be this awkward.

When the restaurant was only ten minutes away, I decided to break the silence. "So... what else does fake dating entail apart from what we already discussed?"

"It's pretty much like normal dating except only the couple knows their true intentions," she said. "At least that's how it's in the books."

"What's your favorite color?" I asked and she looked at me bewildered. "What? You said it's pretty much normal dating. Then shouldn't we know about each others' likes and dislikes?"

She nodded. "Makes sense."

That's how we ended up talking at length about each others' interests. She told me how she liked pastel colors, stationary and romcoms, and how she hated scrambled eggs, everything bitter and math. She also told me that she was an only child, her dad was a dentist, and she had a cat named Ophelia.

I told her how my wardrobe was all solid colors, I liked math and sports, and how I hated spicy food, horror movies and road trips. I also told her about my three siblings and that my mom was half Mexican so I had a quarter of mexican genes, but I couldn't speak Spanish to save my life.

"So you like reading books. Is that truly your hobby or is it an occupational hazard of being an English major?" I asked as we were walking back from the restaurant, hand in hand.

Ashley chuckled. "It really is my hobby. I have an entire collection of books." She then turned to me. "What about you? What else do you like to do other than playing hockey?"

"I like to bake," I said without a second thought. Baking was something I considered as therapy. Not having to think and just following the recipe was soothing to me. The baked delicacies you ended up having later were just an added bonus.

Ashley looked at me like she didn't believe me. "You and baking? That's a little hard to digest."

I shrugged. "I made a batch of muffins the other day. You can taste and see for yourself."

She looked excited for about a second before a frown formed on her face. "Are you sure it's okay if I come to the hockey house with you? Have you already told your friends?'

I'd told Dylan about seeing Ashley that day at the gym and today I told Atlas, Ethan, and Holden that I was going on a date. Atlas and Ethan looked skeptical as if I was bluffing again. It'd be amusing to see their reactions on seeing Ashley with me.

"They'd be ecstatic to meet you," I said, grinning. "Besides, since your friends already know, it's only fair to tell mine as well. If we could convince them that we're dating, best believe the whole university will know about it within days. They'll never admit it, but they're a bunch of gossip mongers."

Ashley looked hesitant at first but agreed. When we reached the hockey house, the guys' reactions were priceless. Holden rubbed his eyes as if he couldn't believe that the same woman they'd locked me in with was dating me now. Atlas looked equal parts surprised and amused. As I'd expected, most of them were gushing over Ashley while thumping my back as if I'd won some kind of lottery.

As we sat in the living room, surrounded by the guys who had a lot of questions for Ashley, my gaze drifted toward Dylan who had been surprisingly quiet the whole time. A pit formed in my stomach when my eyes locked with his.

He wasn't buying it.

The one person I desperately needed to believe didn't look like he was fully convinced. And that worried me the most.