Best Served Fake

thirty-four // eat shit

"Confident, Little Valerie?"

My confidence, which had mostly been competitiveness and bravado, had basically deserted me as soon as Kai had pulled his shirt off to enter the pool. Lizard brain had overridden all rational thought, and the prehistorical and natural urge to pull the rest of his clothes off had reared its traitorous head. Sueing biology itself seemed to be the only solution to my predicament, because dear lord was I attracted to Kai Delaney. Embarrassingly attracted.

There were a lot of games I really wanted to play with them, and none of them involved water dodgeball in a kiddie ball that was most likely ridden with baby pee.

"Girl, get it the fuck together," Aurora said from next to me. She was looking cute in cut-off shorts, a preppy visor and a turquoise bikini top, but despite the casual chic attire, I knew that Aurora was an athletic beast. "I get that your man looks cute or whatever, but I didn't pick you for my team so that you could ogle his abs."

I really wanted to ogle his abs.

"Since when were you competitive?" I asked. Aurora was the kind of lazy-productive that meant she signed up for everything when asked, because she was so good at everything that people begged her to sign up, but seemed so apathetic towards the whole thing that you wanted to punch her a little for being so talented.

"Since Cam told me to share it around," she said, bouncing on the balls of her feet, dodgeball in hand. Cameron Davenport, her best friend, was on Kai's team, and was making faces at Aurora that were probably meant to be intimidating, but were not successfully so. "I want to crush his spirit."

"Atta girl," I said.

Cameron and Aurora were running the novelties, but half the class basically cried at the thought of Cam and Aurora not participating in the novelties, so they'd been (for the first time in their lives, probably) split amongst the two teams and nominated captains.
When Kai and I signed up, Cameron had asked us whether Kai and I wanted to be on the same team, or compete against each other.

"I dunno," Kai had said. "Little V, do you want me to throw dodgeball at you so that you can admire my sexy manly sporting prowess, or do you want me to heroically dive in front of you as someone from the other team piffs it at you so you can admire my sexy manly sacrifice?"

Aurora snorted. "Wow, two great choices. Which font of sexy manliness do you want today, Valerie?"

I picked up the pen and scribbled my name onto one side, and Kai's onto the other. "Sexy manliness my ass, I'm going to crush him."

"If you insist," said Kai, with a sigh. "I'll have you know; I won't be holding back."

I hummed in agreement as I finished the final flourish of the y in Kai's surname. "Good. Then maybe you won't lose by quite so embarrassing a margin."

Aurora grinned. "I want you on my team, Val. I love a little competitive spirit."

"Deal."

Unfortunately, in the face of bare chest and bare abs and the lizard brain successfully assuming a hostile takeover of all my faculties, my competitive spirit was more of a little kitten pitifully meowing with wide hug-me eyes. And like the kitten, I wanted to scratch down Kai's back. You know, in the way that you do with fake boyfriends who have a rockin' bod.

Aurora snapped her fingers in front of my face. "C'mon, Val. Let's go. Kai Delaney's mystical voodoo is not worth your dignity." She looked over to the other end of the pool, where Cameron was deciding which teammates should start with the three dodgeballs based on their general aim and athletic ability. We'd already given two of ours to Aurora, and I was holding the third to pass straight to her once she'd taken their teammates out with her first two. "I mean, not that I don't get it. He's hot shit. And I've seen the intense sexual chemistry y'all got going. But let's focus up."