Chapter 7- Cool Out

The next morning, Coach sends a group text reminding us of early morning training.

Peter was grateful that his brother generally woke up early to watch tv and it generally woke him up.

He got into a shower quickly, ate breakfast and greeted his mom with time to spare. As he got into his car he quickly checked his phone to find a text from Gen.

Thank you for the chat last night.

Peter thought about the conversation and sighed. It wasn't long. In fact all she did was subtly ask if he was seeing anyone and all Peter did was subtly deny it.

He didn't want to say anything until Lara Jean confirmed it and he highly doubted that she actually would. It was a genius idea but Lara Jean was sweet and innocent and did not like the idea of being used, even though she kind of used him first.

When Peter got onto the field, most of the team was already there. And since Peter is the captain for the junior team, it was his duty to get people warmed up.

As the team started doing laps Greg ran to him.

He was always late for practice.

"Dude I'm sorry I'm late," He laughs, "But it was legit worth it. Where is Trevor?"

"Already running ass," Peter snaps at his best friend, "Talk and run, come on."

Greg tried to argue but couldn't because Peter started to jog and Greg just followed in suit.

"How many of these laps do we have to." Greg groans, "My mom gave me a big breakfast."

"Nevermind," Peter said, "What did you need to tell me."

"Oh yeah," Greg smiles as he runs, "Emily texted me and told me that the ski trip sign up are opening today and that she would sign us up."

Ah the ski trip.

Peter couldn't help but smile for a second but then think about Gen. Last year he ended up having a fight with her which then led to him getting drunk with Greg and Trevor. Both ended up hooking up with girl (Trevor was dating someone at the time). And Peter ended up sleeping alone. But he woke up the next morning with Gen texting him telling him that she is over what she was angry about and that she forgave him.

He didn't even remember what the fight was about.

"Why do you have that look on your face?" Greg asks, "You should be amped."

"Since when do you and Emily talk so much." Peter changes the subject.

"I see what you are doing," Greg sighs, "Forget Gen dude."

His best friend could be an idiot but he wasn't oblivious but Peter also noted how quickly Greg was trying to change the subject.

"I see what you are doing." Peter says slowing his jog slightly to not lose too much energy, "tit for tat bro."

Greg and Peter had this thing where if they both had something on their mind that they wanted to keep but the one wanted to know, someone would pull the tit for tat card whereby they both had to now share regardless of what the information was.

"Fine," Greg sighs, "I'll go first. Emily and I have been chating you know. Text, calls and shit."

"How long?"

"Since the middle of summer when I was at the pool and she was there in this bikini and-" Greg had this smirk on his face.

"Yeah I got it dude," Peter laughs, "So have you guys…"

"That's the thing," Greg sighs, "We hooked up once over the summer and I didn't know that I broke her virginity until I heard her and Gen speaking about it."

"Wait what?" Peter stops running and looks at his friend.

"Exactly." Greg pulls his friend to get him to start running again, "If I knew I wouldn't have done it."

"Why?"

"Dude you never take that from a girl especially if she isn't that special to you." Greg says, "It wasn't even meant to go down like that. We were legit just at my house, the new one, and she was having a good time. Then I ordered some dinner and then she started kissing me and then boom next thing I knew, we were smashing."

"Interesting." Peter says now bearing in mind that he didn't know about the whole virginity thing mostly because Gen had broken his and he had broken hers. And she was the only person he had ever had sex with. Admittedly he had made out with other girls on their off times when she broke up with him but he never took it further than kissing, "So have you smashed since."

"Well since I found out she has been embarrassed for not telling me and I felt weird for only finding out either." Greg says.

"Hold up," Peter says, "If you broke her v-card shouldn't hurt. I mean wouldn't you have seen her."

"Audery says that's not always the case with chicks dude," Greg says, "Apparently some girls are good their first time. I mean it's not like she was pushing me away or telling me to stop. Naturally in the beginning she asked to take it slow."

"And that didn't clue you in?" Peter frowns at his friend.

"I'm sorry but it's not like I have hooked up with many virgins," Peter shrugs at his friends comment, "Anyway now I think she kind of wants to be more than just the weird situation that we had."

"And what do you want?"

Greg keeps quiet for a moment then says, "We are not having that chat. Anyway now onto you."

"Me?"

"Why aren't you keen for the ski trip." Greg asks, "And please don't tell me it has something to do with Gen."

"It's just that going on that trip without a game plan and thinking that everyone will have someone to you know…" Peter could not find the words because he never wants to be that person but he was so used to doing school trips with Gen he now realised that there was a possibility that he would have to go alone.

"Dude how many times do I have to tell you Kavinsky," Greg growls, "Chicks love you. The trip is three months from now. And I am pretty sure that chicks are already interested now that they now that you not chained to a psychopath...but wait," Greg thinks as they get to the post where everyone is stretching, "What about Covey?"

Peter looked at his best friend and wondered if he should present his fake relationship plan to him but then thinks for a moment that Greg has become close to Emily. At some point or another he could sense that they would end up in bed again, he did not want to be a source of pillow talk entertainment.

"Dude I told you she kissed me," Peter says simply, "So there's nothing more to tell. There is nothing going on."

And before Greg can ask more questions Peter calls out everyone, "Ok, pair up."

Trevor and Greg pair up so that Greg can go around assessing their warm ups. Everyone places their head gear on and starts paired warm up. Peter too puts on his head gear. As he walks to the goal post to ensure that it is lined up right he does not see that someone is walking towards him.

"Hey, Kavinsky!" Peter turned to find Lara Jean walking slowly towards him.

Peter ogs slightly towards her taking of his head gear.

"What?" He says to her.

"Let's do this."

Lara Jean had already done a lot to surprise Peter at this stage but he was almost confident that she would never agree to be in a fake relationship until she say three little words that continue to allow Peter to believe that there is more to Lara Jean Covey than anyone thinks.

Peter looks around him as everyone on the field are still busying themselves with warm ups or laughing and talking to each other. However he knew his teammates, all of them knew girls that gossip and word would quickly get to Gen.

So he grabs Lara Jean by the waist and kisses her hard. He tries not to appear to rough but to rather adopt the same style she adopted yesterday when she kissed him. Lara Jean seems shocks but does not push him away, rather she just keeps still as he did.

When he pushes him away slightly, Peter looks around him to find that everyone had now turned their attention to Peter and Lara Jean.

"I'm going to trig." Lara Jean says and begins walks away, "Have a nice day."

"Yeah." Peter beams.

"Carry on." Lara Jean says to the rest of the team as she passes him to go to class.

"As you were." Peter says smiling and continuing to straighten the goal post. He turns back around to find that his team is still looking at him but some are acting as though they are not surprised.

"Ok, huddle up," Peter says, "Let's play one round before class."

Greg and Trevor come up to him as the rest of the team get in position.

"Yeah there was definitely nothing more to tell." Greg laughs and walks to his position. Trevor high fives Greg as he walks away.

During lunch. Peter walks out of his class into the hallway looking for Lara Jean and actively avoiding Gen. But still answering questions by anyone and everyone.

"Dude is it true you dating Lara Jean Covey?"

"Wow you moved on fast but then again so did she?"

"Dude way'd a score Covey, she is hot. Wait it is Margot Covey right?"

"Who is Lara Jean Covey?" He heard a bunch of cheerleaders say.

"Isn't that Margot Covey's little sister?" the one cheerleader says.

"I know Margot, she's really pretty." another said.

"Do you think Gen knows?" another cheerleader asked.

"No but I think I am gonna text her now."

That is when Peter made is way to where he could only assume her locker is and saw her taking her books out.

"Her," He said smiling because he knew everyone around them would be looking at them, "Wanna go outside and eat lunch?"

"Sure." Lara Jean grabs her bag and follows him outside where there is an empty bench and table and no prying eyes.

Peter sits down next to Lara Jean as she takes out a notepad and pen. This confused Peter as he thought they would talk but it look like she was preparing to do homework.

"So, first things first," She announces, "we need to have a contract so we're on the same page about the rules." She clears up a page and writes 'contract' on the top in her sweet cursive hand.

"You got rules?" Peter frowns after taking a sip of his drink, "Come on, you really know how to zap the fun out of a situation."

"It's important to know where you stand on certain issues." Lara Jean said simply like it was meant to explain everything.

"Okay, like what?" Peter shrugged. He didn't see what was so hard about pretending to be in a relationship. In public the held hands, occasionally kiss and Lara Jean looks at him like he was the best thing that could ever happen to him.

"For example," Lara Jean explains, "I don't want you to kiss me anymore."

WHAT?

"You crazy?" Peter says perhaps a little too compassionately, "Who's gonna believe we're in a relationship if I'm not allowed to kiss you?"

"You may be the James Dean of this kind of stuff but I've never had a boyfriend." She says like it's meant to explain everything.

James Dean?

Peter was sure his grandma had a picture up of James Dean in her garage.

"You have the references of an 80-year-old woman." Peter said in a way to insult her, "What does that matter?"

And the question was valid. True that Peter would never pressure or make a girl do anything she did not want to do but he needed to understand because at this stage he had gotten more action with Lara Jean in the past two days than he had with Gen in the last month of their relationship.

"It matters because I don't want all my firsts to be fake." She said in a small voice but still with certernity in her voice, "If I'm making out with someone, I'm gonna do it for real."

"But you kissed me first." Peter said simply.

"This is non-negotiable."

"Fine." Peter sighs. He was true to his word always he would never pressure anyone into anything they didn't feel comfortable with. And since he had most of the first she was referring to already, he knew how much these sort of things meant to girls. In fact it could to guys because after the way he and Gen broke their virginity he had wished he had made it more special for her...and him.

We need to figure something out," Peter says standing up, "because people are gonna get suspicious if I'm not allowed to touch you." He stands across her as she looks intensely at him.

Okay, you have a point." Lara Jean says this like it's a difficult maths question which she has been challenged with, "How about this? You can put your hand in my back pocket."

Peter frowns at her because he really can't help it.

"Hand in your back pocket?" Peter asks and she nods like she solved the problem, "What the hell is that?"

"Sixteen Candles?"

Sixteen Candles? Peter thought. He was sure that he wore his confusion like thick based makeup.

"It's the opening image."

Peter continued to look at her like she had lost her mind.

"It's a couples thing."

"Yeah, maybe in the '70s."

No wonder she hasn't dated anyone, Peter thought. She watched too many old movies.

"Sixteen Candles was the '80s." Lara Jean smirks a little at his lack of knowledge, "John Hughes? Nothing?"

She now laughs a little when the dumbfounded look didn't disappear on his face.

"Mm."

"Okay…"Lara Jean says and starts writing, "Two more rules. You have to watch Sixteen Candles with me because it's a classic," Peter groans at this, "and we can never tell anyone this relationship is fake, because it would be too humiliating for both of us."

Peter had thought that was pretty obvious.

"Duh, first rule of Fight Club." Peter said.

"What?" Lara Jean said now the one wearing a dumbfounded look.

"Are you serious?" Peter says shocked, "You've never seen Fight Club?" Peter now sits down across from her, "Oh, my God! Okay, write it down. Double feature.

After we watch the Candles movie,we are watching Fight Club."

As Lara Jean writes she repeats all the caption, "Fight Club…Sixteen Candles...No snitching. Anything else?" She looks at Peter.

Peter thinks of the last sweet conversation he had with Gen where she asked him to write her love notes. Something about watching some Dear John movie and yeah Peter couldn't remember the rest of her reasoning or the whole conversation. He just remembered that she kind of used sex to get him to promise he would write notes.

"I could…" Peter struggled to find the words but then just said it, "I could write you notes,every day."

Lara Jean seemed touched and seemed to find notion to be nothing but sweet.

"You'd do that?"

Oh god, Peter thought, this letter shit was a girl thing. Well considering how this whole plan came to be between him and Lara Jean, he couldn't be surprised.

"Sure." Peter shrugged and then smirked thinking about Gens angry face, "Gen was always on me to write her them. I never did, so if I start sending them to you, she'll be pissed, it'll be good."

"How romantic." Lara Jean says sarcastically but writes it down.

"Also, you have to come with me to my lacrosse games and parties." Peter was making sure that if they were not going to be physical atleast their relationship could be present.

"Okay then you have to pick up my sister and I and drive us to school." Lara Jean negotiated well. But since Peter had seen her drive he had no problem agreeing to this.

Then he suddenly thought.

"Okay," He takes the notepad and pen from her and she fights a little until he says, "But you're coming on the ski trip."

She is quiet as Peter writes in big bold letters SKI TRIP.

"Um…" Lara Jean starts looking a little flushed, "That's three months away. Do you think we're still gonna be doing this?"

Peter looked at her and didn't think about it like that, all he was thinking about that he wouldn't appear to be along at the ski trip and since Gen was definitely going it would gain a lot of points in the mission.

"Let's call it a contingency." Peter shrugged handing the note book back, "No one in their right mind is gonna let their boyfriend go without them," he explains to her, "so if we are still doing this by the time it comes around, you have to go with me."

She doesn't seem to phased by this particular plan, in actaul fact she almost seems convinced that it won't happen.

"Okay. Deal."