after his romantic pursuit in lily evans had finally fizzled out, jaimes perrow was pined after by a distressing quantity of the schools students. left and right, men and women were throwing themselves at him in a bid for his affections. it was mortifying; he wondered how silas black coped. jaimes relished the attention at first, but it was quickly teetering towards smothering, so much so that he was hiding away in his dormitory or redirecting his suitors towards silas.

your situation was more unpleasant—as a primordial, your parents had expectations for you to choose a suitor. fortunately, they weren’t so brash that they’d force you out of a romantic relationship. this was incentive enough for you to entertain the prospect of a fake relationship, if it meant postponing an arranged marriage.

you and jaimes had little to no history. you’d interact when in the vicinity of each other, though you were better acquainted with silas—he was the one who’d suggested a mutually beneficial agreement between yourself and jaimes. if the pair of you fake dated, it would provide a reasonable respite from the pressures and advances.

of course, everything had obstacles. namely, the obstacle was the sheer size of jaimes perrow's ego. the pair of you had been fake dating for all of two weeks, and he was insufferable. with his stupid dimples that fluttered into existence whenever he scowled, then deepened when he grinned. his boyishly mussed hair that seemed to refuse to be tamed. his tie always done in a slovenly manner.

jaimes perrow was the bane of your existence. and it seemed you were the bane of his, because the fact that you didn’t fluster at his pretty words seemed to infuriate him unbelievably so.

after an evening of pretence, playing loving partners, you’d both retreated to the common room. it was startlingly empty. “did you have to bite my nose? i was trying to peck you. it would’ve made us seem real,” jaimes cavilled, manspreading on the couch. he regarded you with sparkling hazel eyes, miffed.