Chapter 2 Five Minutes

• “You’re late,” I said, arms crossed, standing by the gym doors where half the hallway could still see us.
• “I’m exactly on time,” Damon said, checking a watch he wasn’t even wearing, which made me want to throw something at his head. “Relax, Bennett. Nobody’s watching us.”
• “Everybody’s always watching you,” I said. “That’s kind of your whole thing.”
• He almost smiled at that, and I hated that I noticed.
• The hallway was thinning out fast, kids grabbing bags from lockers, a couple of freshmen sprinting for the late bus. Wren texted me twice already asking where I was, and I’d ignored both because I had no idea how to explain any of this to her.
• “Walk with me,” Damon said, and he didn’t wait to see if I would, he just started moving toward the side exit that led out past the football field, so I either followed or stood there looking stupid.
• I followed.
• “So talk,” I said once we were outside, the afternoon sun doing nothing to warm the cold sitting in my stomach. “You’ve got your five minutes.”
• “I need a girlfriend,” Damon said.
• I stopped walking. “I’m sorry, what?”
• “You heard me.”
• “No, I heard something, but it made zero sense, so say it again slower.”
• Damon turned to face me, and for the first time since the parking lot, he didn’t look smug. He looked tired, actually tired, like whatever this was had been sitting on his shoulders a lot longer than one afternoon.
• “My parents are trying to force me into a mating ceremony,” he said. “With a girl named Ivy Whitlock. Great girl, honestly, nothing wrong with her, except I don’t want to marry someone because two packs decided it’s good business.”
• “Okay,” I said slowly. “And this involves me how?”
• “If I show up with a girlfriend, a real one, my parents will back off. They can’t force a mating ceremony on a guy who’s already taken.”
• “So find a girlfriend. There’s like four hundred girls in this school who’d say yes before you finished asking.”
• “I don’t need a real girlfriend,” Damon said. “I need a fake one. Someone who won’t fall for the whole act, someone who has just as much reason to want this kept quiet as I do.”
• And there it was.
• “You’re blackmailing me,” I said.
• “I’m not blackmailing you.”
• “You literally said in the parking lot that you’d tell everyone what I am if I didn’t show up here.”
• “That was to get you to listen,” Damon said. “I’m not going to expose you, Aria. I don’t even want to. But I do need your help, and you need mine.”
• “I don’t need anything from you.”
• “You need your secret kept,” he said, stepping closer, voice dropping low even though nobody was around to hear. “Female Alphas don’t get to just exist quietly. You know that better than anyone. The second your pack finds out what you are, they’re not going to let you finish senior year in peace. They’re going to marry you off before graduation, probably to someone twice your age with a good bloodline and worse manners.”
• My throat went tight. He wasn’t wrong. I’d spent four years terrified of exactly that.
• “So what,” I said, “we just, what, pretend to date? For how long?”
• “Until my parents give up on the ceremony. A few months, maybe less.”
• “And what do I get out of this?”
• “My silence,” Damon said. “And cover. Nobody looks twice at an Alpha’s girlfriend. You’d have protection you don’t currently have.”
• I laughed, short and humorless. “Protection from an arrogant rich boy who cornered me in a parking lot and threatened to ruin my life.”
• “I didn’t threaten you,” Damon said, and there was something almost hurt in his voice, gone as fast as it came. “I gave you a reason to listen. There’s a difference.”
• “You keep saying that like it makes it true.”
• “Look,” he said, running a hand through his hair, and for a second the perfect, put together Damon Cross that everyone at school worshipped cracked just slightly at the edges. “I know this sounds insane. I know I sound insane. But I am out of options, and you are the only person at this school who understands exactly what it feels like to have your whole future decided by people who’ve never once asked what you actually want.”
• That landed somewhere it shouldn’t have.
• “Rules,” I said before I could stop myself.
• Damon blinked. “What?”
• “If I do this, and I’m not saying I will, there are rules.”
• Something shifted in his face, careful, like he was afraid to hope too fast. “I’m listening.”
• “No kissing,” I said, counting off on my fingers. “No feelings. No mating bond, obviously, since that’s insane and also illegal for two people who aren’t actually mated.”
• “Obviously,” Damon said, and there was a laugh hiding somewhere in his voice.
• “I mean it, Damon. This is business. Nothing else.”
• “Nothing else,” he repeated, and he held out his hand like we were closing an actual deal.
• I stared at his hand for a second too long.
• “This is a terrible idea,” I said.
• “Probably,” he agreed.
• I shook his hand.
• The second our palms touched, something happened that I couldn’t explain, a jolt, sharp and strange, like touching a doorknob after walking across carpet in socks, except ten times stronger and it didn’t fade right away. Damon’s eyes widened just slightly, like he’d felt it too, and for a second neither of us said anything.
• “What was that,” I said, pulling my hand back fast.
• “Static electricity,” Damon said, but his voice didn’t sound as sure as his words.
• “Right,” I said. “Static electricity.”
• Neither of us believed it, but neither of us said so either.
• “So we start on Monday,” Damon said, recovering his easy grin like he’d never lost it. “I’ll pick you up for school. We’ll be seen together at lunch. My mother’s already planning some dinner thing, you’ll probably have to survive that at some point.”
• “Your mother,” I repeated, feeling my stomach drop all over again. “As in Selene Cross. As in the actual Alpha of the Cross pack.”
• “She’s not that bad,” Damon said, which was the least convincing thing he’d said all conversation.
• “You’re a terrible liar.”
• “I’m an excellent liar,” Damon said. “That’s actually the whole point of this arrangement.”
• I let out a breath, shaky, and looked out at the empty football field, trying to process how my Friday afternoon had gone from track and field jokes to fake dating the most popular Alpha in school to keep a secret that could get me sold off like property.
• “One more thing,” I said.
• “What?”
• “If you ever, ever tell anyone what I really am, this deal is over, and I will make your life so difficult you’ll wish you’d never come to this school.”
• Damon’s mouth curved, slow, something almost real underneath the usual charm. “Noted.”
• “I mean it.”
• “I know you do,” he said. “That’s actually the first thing about you I’ve believed all day.”
• We started walking back toward the parking lot, an awkward silence settling between us that felt less like awkwardness and more like something neither of us knew how to name yet.
• That’s when I saw him.
• A man standing near the fence at the edge of the lot, half hidden behind a tree, watching us. Watching me. He wasn’t a student, wasn’t a teacher, wasn’t anyone I recognized, but something about the way he stood, still and patient, like he’d been waiting there a long time, made every hair on my arms stand up straight.
• “Damon,” I said quietly. “Do you know that guy?”
• I turned to point him out, but when I looked back at the fence, the man was gone.
• Like he’d never been there at all.