Best Served Fake

bonus // kai's pov

If you asked me a few months ago what I thought of Valerie Williams, I would probably have said that I didn't think about her at all.

I didn't know anything about her, really, except that she was hot, and generally had poor taste in friends and boyfriend, with the exception of Cora. She was a semi-silent shadow at Sydney Collins' side, or, even worse, at Tommy Aster's. Despite Cora vouching for her, those two facts had almost sealed my opinion of her. That was as much as I'd bothered to find out—or particularly cared to know—about her.

It was almost laughable, in retrospect. There were very few things I thought about now that weren't related to her. It didn't matter what I was doing—looking after Mum, helping Isabelle with homework, working with Will at the garage—Valerie Williams was always a niggling thought at the back of my mind. She was the kind of person who grew on you, because all of the best things about her were subtle, traits she held back with a sort of reserve, as if the best sides of her had to be earned.

Like this side; nervous and rambling, anxiety prompting a ceaseless tirade of words, each more endearing than the last. "I was talking to Seb yesterday," she said. "And he said that Lucy Combs is going around telling people she saw us doing it in the back row of the cinemas on Wednesday night. I mean, god, if we're trying to convince people that we—" she didn't take her eyes off the road as she wiggled a finger between us "—are an item, or whatever, then I suppose it helps, but I don't love the information getting out without my express permission and direction. I am the director, producer and screenwriter of this movie, and I refuse to relinquish any control over the production whatsoever."

She was fucking cute when she rambled. Her eyes went a little wide—though I still wasn't sure if it was from the force of all those words, or just a symptom of the anxiety that prompted them—and her nose scrunched just slightly, and I was mildly obsessed with the whole thing.

In a suave and casual way, of course.

"Gotta love Lucy Combs," I said. "Ever the optimist. I love her version of events, if you wanted to work it into the itinerary."

Valerie laughed. It was probably my favourite thing about her; no matter how shamelessly I flirted with her, even though we were strictly friends, she was always amused by it. And threw it back tenfold.

It was maybe the sexiest thing about her, as well. Although, there were many other factors with an equally competitive edge.

"Anytime you like, darling," she said, breezily, and I really hoped she was only half joking. "Though, to listen to Lucy, we were hooking up through the ending of Bridge to Terabithia, so we really just come across as psychopaths."

I frowned. "Why would Bridge to Terabithia be on at the cinema? It came out years ago."

"There are some major flaws to her story."

I shook my head. "A damn shame. It ruins the whole visualisation process for me."

Valerie shrugged. "We can just pretend it was a different movie? That's what I did."

"You what?"

Valerie shot me a furtive grin. "Lucy came and asked me about it. I told her we were actually watching Ratatouille."

I burst out laughing. "Why didn't you just tell her we didn't actually hook up at the movies? And why Ratatouille?"

The smile Valerie wore was a little bit smug. She did that now; it was like she was suddenly confident in her ability to make me laugh, and now she took some secret pride in eliciting such a reaction from me. At first, she had almost seemed surprised even time I barked out an involuntary laugh. I could never help it; she was so unexpectedly funny, even when she wasn't trying to be, and I spent all of our time together lingering somewhere between amused and outright uproarious, with the occasional sidelong detour into turned on that I valiantly attempted to ignore (it was not working).