Best Served Fake

eleven // the big phallus

It was 10:30PM and I was standing outside of Kai Delaney's house.

It was small; a single-storey bungalow, with a tired garden and peeling paint. Sydney and I had found enough reasons to walk past over the years that the location was familiar to me. I could see two lights on in the house, in Kai's room and his sister's.

My hands shook slightly, though I didn't know why. I wasn't going to knock on the door. Was I?

Cole and Madeleine's plan still remained undeniably shit; preposterous, ridiculous, foolish and futile. It was the worst plan I'd ever heard. It didn't make sense, and no one would believe it was true. Because why would they? Kai Delaney was a gorgeous player, and I was Sydney Collins' shadow.

There were a million reasons to hate this plan.

Except that I thought I might kind of like it.

I thought about texting Cora. She would talk me out of it. Tell me that I was acting crazy, and revenge was not the answer. But when I thought about Tommy's face—the anger that would override his features at the sight of me with Kai—I smiled.

I considered throwing rocks at his window, but that just reminded me of Tommy's ill-fated attempt to win me back—immediately and irrevocably ruining the romance of the move forever. Instead, I crept through the garden, cursing at my idiocy.

This is a terrible idea, Valerie.

I wasn't the kind of girl to embark on reckless adventures, with no concern for consequences. That was Sydney; always Sydney. I had enough guts to go along with her schemes, but never the will to create one on my own. This was nuts. The Valerie of a week ago would never have dreamed of this scenario. Valerie-of-Before was a follower. Valerie-of-Now? She was absolutely insane.

The garden was dark, large, bedraggled trees blocking the light from the streetlamps. I tried to step carefully, to avoid stepping on dried leaves that would crunch beneath my feet.

Suddenly, my ankle rolled beneath me, and I was cursing for a whole different reason than just my insanity. A hard gum nut beneath my foot. Fuck. Pain shot up from my ankle like fire, burning intensely, and my leg buckled beneath me. The ground fell away as I collapsed gracelessly to ground, sprawled amidst grass and branches and more evil bloody gum nuts. "Fuck," I swore ardently, grabbing my injury and applying pressure to manage the pain. "Shit. Ow."

Kai Delaney's bedroom window opened, the sheaf of light from inside illuminating my sorry state. Pain still radiated through my like I was its conductor, and, oh, shit, it hurt. Tears pricked at my eyes, but I was hardly going to seduce Kai Delaney into fake dating me if I was a sobbing mess.

I gave him a pained smile. "Heyyyy," I greeted awkwardly, waving nonchalantly.

He was back-lit by the glow from his bedroom, and the softness of it brought out shades of brown in his inky black hair. His face was cast in shadow, but I could still make out his features; the strong jawline, the arch of his dark eyebrows, the straight nose and tanned skin. Kai was too pretty for his own good; he didn't deserve to also have this kind of lighting. It was unfair to humanity. I couldn't see his eyes, but I imagined he thought I was a complete nutjob.

"Stargazing, Little Valerie?" he said, nodding at my prone form resting on my back.

"Something like that," I replied. "Just appreciating the, uh, astronomy. The stars look... totally different at my house."

"I'm sure," he said, with thinly veiled amusement. "Found anything good?"

I shrugged, looking towards the sky with an exaggerated squint. "There's a constellation up there that looks vaguely like a penis, so that's... um, positive?"