Chapter 06: Rule #.5: Breakfast Tacos.

SYDNEY.

I looked at Marcus for a long time and my heart was beating way too fast for what this actually was.

It was not about the request itself.

It was the fact that the last time he asked me for something like this, it ended with me crying into a pillow for a week straight.

Now here he was again, standing there so calm, so sure of himself, and I already knew exactly what he was trying to do.

Out of pure panic, I grabbed Corbin by the arm, pulled him a step aside and whispered, "okay Corbin, I need you to play my fake boyfriend so hard right now, what do I even do??"

Corbin stayed quiet for a second, thinking, then leaned in and whispered something into my ear.

I felt my whole face relax into a smile.

I walked back toward Marcus and looked at him for a long moment, bracing myself, and in my head I was already coaching myself through it.

I muttered to myself, "you can do this Sydney, ignore the arms, ignore the sleeves rolled up like that, ignore the eyes, ignore those stupidly perfect eyebrows, you can do this."

"Marcus," I said finally, "I understand that I loved you very much, and we ended things in a very odd way, but I know my worth, and one of them is that I do not sneak into rooms with men who have no manners, so if you really want me back, you have to earn me, and that is on period!"

I turned to Corbin immediately. "Babe, lead me to the car, now!"

He grabbed my hand without missing a bit and we started walking.

As soon as we were far enough he leaned down and whispered, "I am so fucking impressed, that was not even in the script."

I smiled and asked him quietly if Marcus was still watching us.

"Yeah," he said, "he's watching."

"Oh my god...let's walk faster, my heels are killing me, I am so done walking around like I am someone's first lady when I am literally nobody." I whispered.

He laughed. "You should keep walking like that though, because girllll, you did it."

I chuckled. "I don't want to laugh right now, I don't want to lose my cool, do not make me laugh until we are actually out of here."

We walked fast, almost speed walking, and the second we got to Corbin's car and let go of each other's hands, I broke.

I doubled over laughing, holding my stomach, barely able to breathe.

"Oh my god Corbin I am about to crash out." I yelled in excitement.

"Damn girl," he said, shaking his head, "you really said to him that if you want me then you should earn me..."

He flipped his hair the way I did, except his was nowhere near as long or as smooth, and I lost it even harder.

I burst out, laughing. "Screw you Corbin, oh my god, I am so unwell right now!"

"So who did you imitate such steps from? the whole bitchy walk," he asked, "give me a sample."

"Sabrina Carpenter," I said, "the way she walks, the hips, all of it."

"I don't even know who that is but I'm guessing she's iconic." He said, smiling.

We got into his car still laughing and I actually started dancing a little in my seat.

This was the thing about Corbin, this was always the thing, we could go from a full blown crisis to acting like complete idiots in under five minutes, because that was just us, that was how we had always survived each other.

"We really need to go," I said, catching my breath, "it would be so embarrassing if he saw us acting like this."

"Yeah," Corbin said, still grinning, "let's go."

Just as he turned on the car engine, both our phones buzzed at the same time.

He grabbed his first and we looked at each other slowly.

My heart started pounding again.

"Oh my god, Jamey already posted about it," I said.

We both leaned in to read it together.

#The great Marcus, turned down by his ex, Sydney Sharma over her new man, Corbin Stones, guess real love really does show up when you least expect it.#

We both burst out laughing so hard that Corbin had to hit the roof button, and I stood up through the open top and screamed, "oh my god, play Billie Jean by Micheal Jackson right now, I need it."

He put the music on and started driving and I let my head hang out the top, my hair flying everywhere, dancing badly to the beat while he yelled at me to sit down but I ignored him completely.

"I am such a legend!" I shouted over the wind, "I just took down the great Marcus!"

By the time we pulled up outside Corbin's building we were both still buzzing off the whole thing, laughing about nothing and everything, and we stumbled inside still going at it.

"What time is it," I asked, flopping onto his couch.

He checked his phone. "Oh my god, it's three in the morning."

"You know what that means," I said.

"Rule number five," we both said at the same time, and then together, "always make breakfast tacos after a successful mission!"

We clapped hands and fell onto his bed still laughing, both of us grabbing pillows and hitting each other with them like we were twelve years old again.

"Guess who's the fake girlfriend of the year," I said, smacking him with a pillow.

"No, I'm the one who gave you the confidence, I deserve an award too, best fake boyfriend who knows how to lift his girl up when it matters." He voiced out.

"Well if I hadn't put it into practice none of it would have worked, so hand me my trophy, I performed like an actual model tonight!" I yelled in excitement.

We laughed and then he reached over and grabbed me, lifting me up off the bed like he used to when we were kids, spinning me around and hailing me while I shrieked his name over and over, and I fell forward laughing straight into him.

And then something shifted.

I do not know exactly what happened but the laughing in my chest just stopped, like someone hit pause on it.

He was still laughing, still completely unaware, his head tipped back a little, and I was suddenly very aware of things I had spent years not letting myself be aware of.

The way his jaw moved when he laughed.

The line of his throat.

The way his arms were still around me, steady, warm, like they had always just been there and I had never actually looked at them properly until right now.

I did not know what was happening to me.

I had grown up watching this boy eat sand and cry over a butterfly, and none of that should have added up to this, to the way my whole body suddenly felt too aware of how close we were, to the way I could not stop looking at his lips.

Suddenly, something pulled at me, something I did not ask for and did not understand, and before I could stop myself I felt my body leaning in closer.

I felt my lips inched closer.

I felt my mind lagging behind.

And I didn't realise I was closing the distance between us.