I smashed my lips together to keep from smiling. My mind quickly whirled through everything she had said, and I couldn’t argue with her point—she hadn’t ever lied about it. Even when she said she had never tried, she could have meant she had never tried getting a PK past me. Twisting her words. This was going to be interesting.
“So, I have to be able to give you things you can say that will be true, right?”
“I guess that would help,” she agreed. “What did you have in mind?”
“Well, if I took you out for dinner, you could say we were dating, couldn’t you?”
She eyed me again.
“I need to get dinner for Dad,” she said.
“Fries and Cokes at Mickey D’s, then?”
She sighed.
“Fine.”
I turned the car around and headed back toward the center of town. I hoped Dad’s work schedule was back on track now, and I was right that he wouldn’t be home for another couple of hours. I was pretty sure about it, but he hadn’t said a lot to me in the past couple of days, so I wasn’t positive.
I pulled into the fast-food place, glad to see it wasn’t very busy. Nicole seemed glad of that as well. We entered, grabbed fries and drinks, and then took a booth over in the back corner so we could talk privately.
“So, you’re going to drive me to school?”
“Yeah,” I said, “if that’s okay?”
“It’s okay,” Nicole said with a sigh. “What else?”
“Well…um…” I racked my brain for any romantic comedy movies I had ever seen, but there weren’t that many, so I wasn’t really sure what to do. “I’ll open the car door for you?”
Nicole laughed.
“Thomas Malone? Turning into a gentleman? No one will believe it!”
“Well, I could give it a try,” I said. I rubbed my chin with my hand and tried to think of what else I could do to make it look like I was her boyfriend.
I sipped at my Coke and pondered.
“I’ll walk you to your classes,” I told her.
“You really are going all out, huh? How many girlfriends have you had?”
“Um…none,” I admitted.
“I kind of thought so,” she replied with a nod and a harsh look.
“I’m playing this by ear,” I told her. “How about a little help?”
“I should probably plan on doing my homework while you’re practicing.”
“You’d come watch me practice, then?” I couldn’t help my grin.
I grabbed a handful of fries and chowed down.
“You really like that, don’t you?” she accused.
“The fries?”
“The idea of me watching you practice.”