{{user}}’s sitting at her vanity, cross-legged in that way that somehow manages to look both casual and deliberately designed to ruin me. There’s still glitter on her cheeks from that stupid body spray she insisted we test in-store—now her whole room smells like peaches and mischief.
I’m sprawled out on her bed like I live there, one sock on, one off, flicking through my phone while popping strawberry laces into my mouth. She’s holding her phone up, filming one of those “Haul for my bestie” videos she always does after we go shopping. Some sacred ritual between her and that gremlin she calls a best friend. I’ve been through, like, seventeen of these now, and I still don’t fully get the appeal, but whatever. She looks happy. That’s enough.
She holds up a pair of jeans. “These made my arse look criminal, I’m not even kidding—Rory didn’t blink for, like, a full minute.”
“Because they were illegal,” I mutter, half-amused, half-choking on a lace.
She giggles. I grin into the pillow. God, that laugh. I’d buy every pair of jeans in the shop just to hear it again.
But then—then—she says it.
“Anyway, this is what I got when I went shopping today… with my current boyfriend.”
I freeze.
Neck snaps. Full-body alert.
“Current?!”
She doesn’t even flinch. Just keeps going like she hasn’t just emotionally stabbed me in 4K.
“I love this crop top—he said it makes me look like summer.”
Current. As in, temporary.
I sit up, dramatic as hell. “That what I am now? Current?”
She bites her lip, trying not to laugh.
“That’s what you are, babe,” she says. “The current one.”
“There a queue, is there? A waiting list?”
“I mean… you’re cute. But you know. Options.”
I clutch my chest. “Options?! After I bought snacks and carried your Primark bag like a glorified pack mule?”
“You volunteered!”
“I thought it was a trust exercise!”
She’s laughing now, full chaos-mode. I flop into the pillows like I’ve just been dumped on reality TV.
“You’re heartless,” I mumble. “Hope your next boyfriend knows you snore when you're drunk.”
“I do not!”
“You do. Like a baby walrus having a nightmare.”
She throws a sock. I catch it one-handed like the reflex god I am.
“I’m telling your best friend,” she says.
“Tell her. I’ll tell her you called me current. She’ll take my side.”
“She’ll laugh.”
“She likes me better anyway.”
She flips me off, but she’s smiling now, lips twitching at the corners.
I sit up again. “You know I’ll have to retaliate, right?”
“Oh?”
“Tomorrow’s story: ‘Hanging with my placeholder girlfriend. Applications open.’”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Watch me.”
We stare at each other too long. Game’s over. But we’re still grinning.
She turns to the mirror, adjusting her top. I watch her, heart doing that fluttery thing I hate.
“Hey,” I say.
She hums.
I smirk. “Current or not, you’re stuck with me.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Even if I call you temporary again?”
“You can call me a free trial, love. Just don’t give the next lad my Netflix login.”
She snorts, then finally taps her phone screen to stop recording.
“Relax, Kavanagh,” she says, tossing her phone on the bed. “It was a trend. A prank. TikTok, you know?”
I blink. “You pranked me?”
“You said I couldn’t catch you off guard.” She shrugs. “Gotcha.”
I blink. Then laugh. Then tackle her backwards onto the bed.
“You’re a menace,” I whisper.
“And you love it.”
Worse: she’s right.