? The Deal ?
Written by Idara Kingsley
? Chapter 6 ?
? Charlotte ?
The last drop of milkshake landed on my tongue. I swallowed and turned to, Jack and Zoey. They were feeding each other some marshmallows and biscuit. Great way to rub it in my face that I’m single. Oh, I got, Brian. But it was fake! Everything was just to get our exes jealous so they could come crawling back to us, with tears running down their cheeks.
My phone beeped in my pocket. I peeled my eyes off, Zoey and Jack and pulled out my phone from my hip pocket. It was a text from, Brian. I rolled my eyes and tapped on the message.
BRIAN: would you love to hangout?
I groa-ned loudly and shoved my phone back into my pocket. I looked over to the two love birds. They were both staring at me. I cleared my throat and shot them a tight smile. “I have to leave.”
“Why? We just got here few minutes ago.” Zoey complained.
“I know. It’s urgent.” I hated that I couldn’t come clean to, Zoey. She would know anyways. It was so sad that she would have no idea it was all fake. She would definitely talk me out of the deal.
“Your mum? Dad? Anyone? Come on, we’re supposed to be hanging out.”
Maybe I should open up to her. Lying to her would be the hardest thing I had ever done in my entire life.
I took my seat and faced her. “I have a boyfriend now.”
She chocked on her saliva immediately I said those words. She began coughing. Jack, handed her a bottled water. She took a sip from it. When she got done with the water, she faced me, with a pale, questionable, face.
“Who is it?” She asked casually.
“Brian Nicholas.”
She chocked again, but this time she didn’t go for her water. “What the fu-ck!” Her voice was so loud that it attra-cted other people to look over at our table. I stuck out my tongue and made a funny face at them. “When did this happen?”
“Yesterday.”
“Isn’t it too soon?”
“I know, but we love each other.” I cringed just by saying those words. I don’t love him, I was only doing it to get, Noah to regret dumping me. And of course, the cash, Brian had offered to pay me.
“Come on, you’re too smart for this, Charlotte. How come I didn’t know before now?” She folded her arms und-er her bre-ast .
I titled my head to the side and looked at her. “You wanna talk about that?”
“Definitely. What’s the point of being your best friend, if you don’t tell me stuffs.”
Now, my temper was rising. How dare she talk about telling each other stuffs, when I didn’t know she had been dating, Jack for almost two years!
“Since you wanna talk about this, then let’s do it. I’m your best friend, but you fu-cking hid your relationship with, Jack from me.”
“I told you I was sorry.” She said in a teary voice.
“You’re always sorry. I’m always the wrong person, why you’re the perfect one. Don’t f.ucking talk about trust or telling each other things when you’ve hidden something special from me for so long!” I might act unbothered to some issues, but trust me, I always got hurt and I use my high shoulder and fake smile to cover it up every f.ucking time.
I braced myself up and began walking towards my car. She can’t blackmail me emotionally. She getting mad over me not telling her about, Brian, while she hid her relationship from me for a year and eight months. I was always the one wrong, but that time, I wasn’t wrong.
I got into my car and slammed the door shut. I could see, Zoey and Jack, looking at my car. The look on, Zoey’s face was begging me to go comfort her, but I did not. Instead, I drove off.
I texted, Brian when I was stuck in traffic.
CHARLOTTE: The clubhouse or somewhere else?
I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel as I awaited his response. He texted back.
BRIAN: Make your choice.
CHARLOTTE: I’m okay at anywhere. But I’d prefer the clubhouse.
His message came in. I wanted to pick up, but the traffic light turned to green. I drove off to his clubhouse.
A young, petite girl, led me upstairs to the VIP room. The place she led me to, was different from the one, Brian and I signed the deal we had. It was more luxurious and eye catching. A slow music was playing in the background.
Brian, was backing me. He was having a conversation with a brown skinned girl that kept on twirling her hair around her slender finger. She gave him a seductive smile, and would occasionally bite her li-ps.
He pulled her closer to his ch-est and they locked li-ps. I watched them smooched. Gross.
I was starting to get irritated by everything they were doing. I hated the jealousy that was starting to rise in the pit of my stomach. Ugh, it was just fake dating, why did I have to care about what he did with other ladies!
I took a seat by the bar and ordered for some liquor. I took my first shot before looking over at, Brian, my fake lover. He still haven’t noticed my presence yet. Ouch!
“Here’s your liquor, ma’am.” The bar man said, pushing two more shots of liquor towards me.
I was still mad at, Zoey and now I have to watch my fake lover, make out right in front of me. Why does the universe hate me so much?
Maybe I should do something to make, Brian know I was already seated beside him. Maybe a text would do.
CHARLOTTE: Turn around.
I took out my phone and texted him. I waited for him to move. Fortunately, he did. He read the message and turned around. His eyes grew wide when he saw me. He excused himself from the girl and walked over to me.
“How long were you here for?”
“So long that I saw everything.” I said with a malicious grin. I picked up my liquor and down it. I dumped the cup on the counter. “You wanted to hang out.”
“Yeah, we should get to know each other better.”
“It’s fake.” I groa-ned. “We should just get going without all these shits.”
“We might go for an interview, be considerate. If you keep acting this way, you gonna end up blowing our cover. My ex is so smart, she’ll figure it out.”
“Okay, go on, tell me about you.”
He relaxed on his chair. “We gonna take it slowly. We would hang out more often, share our experiences about out past lives.”
I couldn’t argue with him, he was right. We might get called up for an interview, considering our status and people might find out we were faking it. I wouldn’t want to risk it.
“When are we gonna start?”
“Whenever. But we should really take a picture and post it on our social media. That’s a good start, right?”
“Sure.”
He got his phone out and we both posed for the camera. He wrapped his arms around me and brou-ght his face close to mine. He took a quick shot.
“Maybe we should get a little int-imate in the picture. That would make them believe it.” I said, taking off my jacket. I called the bar man to come take a picture of us.
I made us look like we were actually ki-ssing each other. Our second picture was us smiling and staring de-eply at each other, and the third one looked like, Brian was suc-king my ne-ck. Perfect, now they would believe.
I logged into Instagram and posted the picture with a caption — love is a beautiful thing with the right person ?❤️.
Brian eyes and mine met. He gave me a small smile, which I returned. The sound of our notifications going off made us peel our eyes off each other.
I really hoped we were making the right decision. I prayed it worked out for us like we planned for it to. We had an aim, and I wished it worked without anything going wrong.
? The Deal ?
Written by Idara Kingsley
? Chapter 7 ?
? Brian ?
“Brian and Charlotte? Nahhh, I hate them together.”
“Ugh, my chances of having Brian, just got ruined.”
“They look cute together.”
“Y’all get a room. Between, you have to be the best couple. Been shipping you guys.”
“I love you, Charlotte. Fierce and beautiful lady. I’m her biggest fan.”
“You hooking up with the wrong person. She’ll ruin you.”
I kept on reading the comments. Both good and bad comments about us. Yeah, some people will always be cowards.
I loved the fact that people actually thought we were dating. Our plan was slowly working.
Something might have pushed me to check out, Charlotte’s Instagram page. Lots of comments were in her comment section. She never replied to anyone. A lot of angry and happy girls were all there, ranting, admiring and wishing they got me instead.
Out of 1M likes, one attra-cted me. It’s was my exes like. It was showing, since I was still following her on Instagram. I had to find out if she commented. I was discouraged at first because of the large number of comments, but I still did it anyways.
After much searching, I gave up. She never commented. It meant, she saw the post. I was sure she’d be regretting now. Our plan was slowly working.
I wanted to give, Charlotte a call, but I remembered her rules in the papers. Calls irritated her. Maybe I should text her instead. I turned my mind against it, after thinking of the possibility that she might be irritated by it.
She was my fake girlfriend after all, so, I did give her a call, on FaceTime. She picked up after five rings.
Her face showed on the screen. She looked a bit sleepy. Her hair was in a messy bun, smudges of make-up was on her face, her eyes looked tired. She looked so pretty, even without her usual make-up.
“Wow.” I murmured und-er my breath.
She laid back on her bed, making her half opened bo-obs come in view. My mouth dropped a bit. She looked unbothered. Maybe it was because she had no idea her bo-obs were in the open for me to gawk on it.
“What do you want, Brian? I was half asleep already.” She yawned just in time.
I cleared my throat and sat up from my bed. “I just wanted to tell you about the comments on our pictures.”
She looked at the camera and her eyes grew wide. She rose the camera up that it was showing just her face. She twisted her li-ps and shot me a Stern look. I coughed awkwardly.
“What about the comments?”
“Don’t you want to read people’s opinions about us?”
She chuckled softly, showing her perfect teeth. “I don’t care what people think of me. People’s opinion about me doesn’t matter. They can keep their fu-cking thoughts to themselves.”
Charlotte, sounded so pained. She looked like she was hurting inside of her. The lady had so much bugging her. She looked like she needed someone to talk to. I really wished I could have her trust me to the extent that she talks about her problems to me.
“Who hurt you, Charlotte?”
No matter how she tried to act tough, a person who gets closer to her would notice she wasn’t okay, like the way she was bracing herself up.
Charlotte, like every human had a soft sp-ot, but she was trying so ha-rd to toughen herself. She was weaker than she thought she was.
“No de-ep conversations. Besides, no one hurt me.” She answered sharply. I could hear the dismissing tone in her voice, that was when I noticed she wasn’t ready to have a conversation with me.
“Okay. Would you love to hang out with me, tomorrow evening.”
She paused. “Like a date? I mean, fake date?”
I chuckled softly. “Yeah, fake date. It’s just getting to know you more.”
“Okay. See you tomorrow then. Goodnight.”
She hung up just before I was about to say goodnight too. Ugh, such a rude girl.
Truthfully, I was fascinated by, Charlotte. One of the things that drew me to her that day at the mall was her toughness. When our eyes met, I stopped breathing. Technically, she took my breath away. I loved how she carried herself, with so much confidence and pride. She never gave a flying f.uck about what the world thought about her.
While I was at France for a game, I watched the news about her marriage disaster. I felt for her immediately. She didn’t deserve to be treated that way. It was a slap on her face after such humiliation given to her.
Charlotte, and I had met a long time ago at a gala. We had little talks and became friends. Our friendship drifted apart as we grew. Soon, we became strangers.
I never thought she would accept the offer. She looked like she would have embarra-ssed me in front of everyone or called me a fool for trying to hurt her ego, but she didn’t. She did the complete opposite of what I thought she would do.
A knock on my door brou-ght me out of my trance. I groa-ned and walked to my door. One of my chefs, was standing there, still covered in her apron and bonnet.
“Your dinner is served.” She bowed down a little.
I chuckled at what she did. She wasn’t a slave. I took every of my household staffs as my family. For doing what they did to satisfy me, I appreciated them. Even if they were doing it for the money, I still appreciated their efforts.
“Are you new here?” I asked the chef as we walked to the dinning room.
She looked so uncomfortable. She’s definitely new. As expected, she nodded shyly.
“Okay. Be free around me. We’re family here.”
“B..but, we’re your workers. We should be scared of you.”
I stopped and looked at her. “I’m not that kind of person my dear.” I patted her back and began walking ahead of her.
I settled down on the dinning table that was filled with different delicacy. My good friend, Ashton was already devouring his food. I stretched my hand and picked out a strawberry from the fruits bowl.
“Brian?” Ashton called, wiping his mouth with the tissue. I turned to him.
“What?”
“What’s your deal with, Charlotte?”
Deal? Who the hell told him I had a deal with her? Ashton was always observant, so him knowing about the deal didn’t really shake me up. Still, I acted dumb.
“What you mean by deal?” I filled my glas-swith wine and gulped half of it.
“I meant what’s up with you dating her all of a sudden. Ain’t we still consoling you over, Gianna?”
Gianna. Her name alone sent blood rushing to my head.
“I’m done with, Gianna. She moved on already, so why can’t I move on like she did.”
He turned to me with a half smile. “Something tells me you and, Charlotte are playing a game.”
I almost choked on my drink. Why did, Ashton have to know everything about my life!!!
“What do you mean?”
“The love ain’t genuine. The, Charlotte I’ve known for years wouldn’t say yes to anything except it’s for her own benefit as well. I know y’all are playing a game, I don’t know what type of game, but I don’t see it working for y’all.”
His words had sent my heart pumping so ha-rd and fast. His words had hit the right sp-ot in me. Why did he have to say all these!
I cleared my throat and looked away from him. Charlotte and I needed to top up our game. I did not want the fact that we would be busted. I wanted us to make it look real that even, Ashton would believe us.
I turned to, Ashton with so much confidence. “We ain’t playing no game.”
He smir-ked and faced his food.
Ugh, having a best friend like, Ashton was a big stress.