Hani and Ishu's Guide to Fake Dating(39)

“Ammu is just not very good with young people. You should be glad she didn’t start asking about your results and your future.”

“Thanks for saving me from that.” Hani flops down onto the bed once more. Like this is something she has done a thousand times. Like we’re friends, and she’s already used to all this.

I sit down beside her, pulling my legs onto the bed and crossing them over each other.

“So. Tell me all of these things I need to know about your best friends.”

“You don’t have to say best friends like that.” Hani looks a bit put off.

“Like what?”

“Like the concept of best friends isn’t real.”

I shrug. “That’s not why I said it like that. I said it like that because they’re awful friends.”

“They offered to hear you out and give you a chance,” Hani says. Her obliviousness to her best friends’ assholery creates a throb of anger inside me, and I have to push it down. “Because they know I like you and you’re my girlfriend.”

“They know you like me?” I don’t know why my stomach drops at that sentence.

“I mean, you know. Because we’re pretending.” There’s a blush on Hani’s cheeks and I have to look away.

“Right. I guess you’ve gotten pretty good at that …” I shake my head, because I definitely can’t be doing this, or feeling this. I have a goal here and I have to focus. We both do. “So, tell me. What do I need to do, who do I need to be, for them to be on board with me being Head Girl?”

“Well …” Hani tosses her head up and strokes her chin like she’s having to really think about all of this. “Dee really likes … fashion.”

I don’t know what I expected Hani to say but it wasn’t that. I raise an eyebrow.

“So I need to be more fashionable?”

She smiles and elbows me. It shouldn’t make butterflies flutter in my stomach but it does. If I could tell my brain to shut up and stop functioning right now, I would. Though are crushes even the territory of the brain?

“No, you don’t need to be more fashionable. I like the way you dress.”

“In t-shirts and jeans,” I say hesitantly. Maybe she hasn’t really seen my clothes properly.

“Yeah.” Hani shrugs. “There’s a kind of casual, I-don’t-give-a-crap attitude to it. People gravitate toward that, you know.” She nods, like this is a fact of life.

“Right. This is why I can’t get people to stop gravitating toward me.”

Her smile broadens, like I’ve said something really amusing. “I’m just telling you their likes and dislikes so we can figure out how you can bond with them.”

I groan and lie back in bed. The idea of bonding with Aisling and Deirdre, of all people, truly disgusts me. I can’t say that to Hani, though she already knows to some extent. She definitely knows. I still can’t say it, can I?

“Go on then,” I grumble, staring up at the ceiling. The bed squeaks, and I can feel Hani shifting around, until she’s right beside me, with her legs pulled up to her chest.

“So … Dee loves fashion, and she wants to be a hairdresser. She’s really into like … doing hair and makeup and stuff. She’s obsessed with the Kardashians …”

I didn’t think anybody in real life was obsessed with the Kardashians, but if it’s going to be anybody, it’s definitely going to be Deirdre.

“And Aisling—”

“Let me guess.” I interrupt. “She wants to be a makeup artist and she watches Love Island religiously.”

When I look up at Hani, she’s rolling her eyes. “Well, who doesn’t watch Love Island religiously?” she mumbles under her breath, before quickly adding, “You’re being very dismissive and judgmental, you know. I’m trying to keep our deal intact.”

“Right. Our deal.” I sit up and take a deep breath. “So … Aisling …”

“She loves … royals.”

“What?”

“She just loves … monarchies and royals. Like she talked about the royal wedding for, like, months, sometimes she still does. And she had theories about Prince Harry’s baby before journalists even started reporting on it. She’s obsessed. You can’t get her to shut up about it.”

“Has anybody told Aisling that she’s Irish?” Somehow her interests are worse than I could have imagined them to be. Way, way worse.

Hani elbows me again. “Just because she’s Irish doesn’t mean she can’t be obsessed with the monarchy.”

“Yeah, but the British monarchy? The people who colonized Ireland and basically all of the world? Seven hundred years of oppression? The famine?”

“You definitely shouldn’t say any of that to Aisling,” Hani says.

“Can I at least talk about the racist British media attacking Meghan Markle?” I ask.

“I would keep it to lighthearted topics only,” Hani advises. “I don’t want you to get into a fight.”

“Good call, I guess,” I mumble. I can imagine getting into an argument with Aisling far too easily. Actually, it’s going to be a real struggle to not get into an argument with her. “Anything else?”