“Are you insinuating my arms are short?”

“There’s no insinuating,” he says, a smile on his face. “You have short arms.”

“You’re lucky we’re friends now, or I might take that as an insult.”

“Whatever, Kearney.” We stand beside each other, and he snaps a few selfies. “We need to act more like boyfriends if these are going on your Instagram.”

“Right, what should we do?”

Wyatt wraps his arm around me, pulling me in close. With his hand around my waist, I feel that skip in my heart. There’s an odd sense of comfort, and then I realize that I’m literally pressed right up against his body.

Holy shit.

“Lean your head on my shoulder,” he tells me.

I do it without a second thought.

I hate how perfectly my head fits in the crook of his shoulder. I give my best lovey-dovey eyes to the camera as he takes a few more pictures. Then, without warning, he leans down, kissing my forehead and snapping more pictures.

I feel like my brain is short-circuiting.

“I— Why’d you do that?”

“For the picture. Gotta sell the boyfriend lie, right?” Wyatt hands me my phone, the pictures we just took pulled up. If someone from the outside saw these, I think it’d be easy for them to imagine we’re two teenagers in love, having a nice day out together. Then I scroll to the last one, where he’s kissing me on the forehead, and there’s no doubting the shock on my face.

I hover over that picture, almost deleting it.

I want to delete it.

And at the same time, I want to keep looking at it.

“Right,” I say.

Got to sell the boyfriend lie.

*  *  *

“Wow … how did you get so red?” Wyatt asks as I apply aloe-vera-infused skin cream to my cheeks.

“I’ve been out of the LA sun for too long,” I tell him. “And I forgot to apply my sunscreen this morning.”

And unfortunately, I don’t tan. I burn.

“Can you get my shoulders?” I ask, turning around.

We only walked around for an hour after we had our little heart-to-heart, but that was enough for the sun to get to my cheeks and my arms below the elbow. I didn’t even realize it had gotten bad until Wyatt looked at me, shock on his face. It’s not nearly as bad as it could be; it looks like I maybe got a little too excited over some blush. Well, that and the sting when I blink or when I brush my arms against something.

Wyatt’s hands feel nice as he massages in the cream, the cooling sensation giving me goose bumps. I feel him trying to pick at something, his nails scratching into my skin, threatening to force me to fall asleep right here, right now.

“What are you doing?” I finally ask him.

“You’ve got a weird mark here. I thought I could rub it away or something, but it’s not coming off. It looks like ink or something.”