Hani and Ishu's Guide to Fake Dating(23)

“Okay.” I nod my head, mostly because I can tell Hani and I are about to veer off into another one of our arguments and I definitely don’t want to make a scene here. “Are you … going to apply to be prefect?” I try instead.

“Oh, um. I don’t think so,” Hani says, taking another bite of her kofta. “I don’t think it’s really for me.”

“You should apply,” I tell her.

She glances up to meet my gaze with her lips in a thin line. “Yeah?”

“Yeah … I mean, it’ll look weird if you don’t.”

She blinks slowly. “How will it look weird?”

“Like we’re setting this up, you know. It’ll look better if you want to be prefect and I want to be Head Girl. Like we’re … supporting each other. Plus, everyone loves you and if you apply to be prefect they’ll want to support you and by extension you can also ask them to support me.”

“Yeah.” She nods. “I guess you’re right. I hadn’t really thought of it like that. Aisling and Dee suggested that I apply to be the international prefect.”

“Yeah?” I have to restrain myself from rolling my eyes. Of course Aisling and Dee would think a person of color is only capable of being prefect for other people of color … nothing else. They probably don’t even care that Hani was born here and probably doesn’t know a lot about the things that immigrant kids might have questions about. “I think you could be prefect of anything you want to be.” I slip out the prefect application I picked up from the office earlier and slide it across the table toward her. “I got one for you, and a Head Girl application for myself.”

Hani considers the application for a long moment before quickly slipping it into her bag.

“I’ll think about it,” she says.

After we’ve eaten, and ordered baklava and coffee for dessert, I slide over to Hani’s side again so we can decide which pictures to put on Instagram and with what captions. This is going to be our declaration to the school: Hani and Ishu are a couple. So it has to be good.

We actually do sort of look like a couple in the photos. We both look happy, and we’re sitting close enough to be a couple, but …

“We need to be more obvious,” Hani says, as she clicks through the pictures. “We just look like good friends.”

“Well, that’s a step above enemies, at least,” I mumble.

Hani turns to me with a smile. “You think we’re enemies?”

“No …” I trail off, avoiding her gaze. “I just mean … we’re not exactly friends, so—”

“So we must be enemies?” She actually looks more amused than annoyed. Like she’s taking the piss out of me.

I give her shoulder a bump so she leans to the edge of our seat. “Shut up. Can we just take a picture?”

“I don’t know. Can you look like you aren’t my enemy?” she asks, positioning her camera up again.

“Shut up, Hani.” I roll my eyes, but I can’t help the smile that slips on. Hani huddles so close to me that I can hear her breathing, and strands of her long, black hair brush against my face.

“Hani.” I push some of the hair out of my face, trying not to choke on the strands.

“Sorry.” She brushes it back to one side, away from me, sending a whiff of her shampoo my way. I try to ignore the strong coconut smell. So Bengali.

She looks back at me and bites her lip.

“What?”

“Can I, um, hold your hand?” she says. “For the picture,” she rushes to add. Like I would have imagined it was for any other reason.

I reach up my hand and link our fingers together. “There.”

She shoots me a smile and takes the picture, ensuring our linked hands are front and center.

“Much better!” She taps filters onto the picture. “Okay … caption time.” She looks up at me expectantly, like captions are my specialty or something.

“Uh … with bae?”

She tilts her head to the side, taking me in like this is the first time she’s seen me. “Are you sure you’re seventeen?”

“I’m not,” I say. “I don’t turn seventeen until August, actually.”

“How are you younger than me, and think using the word ‘bae’ is still appropriate?” She shakes her head and taps her phone a few more times. Then, she edges closer to me on the seat—almost uncomfortably close—and shows me the picture. “See?”

We do look like a couple in this picture. Hani has even added a couple of hearts all around the photo just to be safe. It’s cheesy, but it gets the message across. The caption just has lyrics from a song I don’t know but that sound corny enough to work, and multiple kissy faces.

“Are you sure people will know?” I ask. “I mean—”

“They’ll know,” Hani assures me. “Trust me.”

I know that I had already told Hani we would be paying for our own meals, but all things considered it seems a little unfair to make her pay when she’s the one handling all the Instagram stuff. I mean, it’s not like I could considering I have three followers, and one of them is Hani.

When we get the bill, I’m quick to hand over my debit card. Hani settles me with a glare, though I can tell that it’s harmless. It has more humor in it than anything else.