All Chapters of Filling in the Boyfriend spot: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

 “Yes, it’s perfect. Wear your hair down and wavy and pair it with your wedge sandals. Unless he’s short. Is he short?” “No, he’s not short.” He was actually a really good height for me. “So, are you guys going to Logan’s party tonight?” Claire, who had been stirring her straw around her cup, looked up. “Logan’s having a party tonight?” “Yes.” “We hadn’t heard about it,” Laney said. “Oh, sorry. I should’ve told you. I thought he was just inviting everyone. You should go.” “We weren’t invited.” “He probably figured I’d tell you. Sorry.” Claire and Laney met eyes for a brief second and then Claire went back to her drink. “Yeah, that sounds li

“That’s what you’re wearing to the barbecue?” she asked, forcing my attention back to her. She was staring at my shoes.I looked down at my outfit in a panic before I remembered who I was taking fashion advice from. “It got the three-girl vote of approval.”She sighed. “Okay, whatever. My brother will probably love it. You look . . .” She waved her hand at my outfit as if that counted as an adjective. “So anyway, here’s how this is going to work.”“Wait. What do you mean how it’s going to work?”“What I’m going to tell him.”“He doesn’t know?” I practically yelled.“Shh.” She looked back at the door then shook her head twice. Here I’d thought he had been the mastermind behind this plan and that Bec had reluctantly arranged it but he didn’t want this at all. Great, he was going to think I wanted him or something when all he really wanted was his old girl

 “That’s what you’re wearing to the barbecue?” she asked, forcing my attention back to her. She was staring at my shoes. I looked down at my outfit in a panic before I remembered who I was taking fashion advice from. “It got the three-girl vote of approval.” She sighed. “Okay, whatever. My brother will probably love it. You look . . .” She waved her hand at my outfit as if that counted as an adjective. “So anyway, here’s how this is going to work.” “Wait. What do you mean how it’s going to work?” “What I’m going to tell him.” “He doesn’t know?” I practically yelled. “Shh.” She looked back at the door then shook her head twice. Here I’d thought he had been the mastermind behind this plan and that Bec had relucta

I swallowed and stepped out from behind the wall.Fill-in Tom ’s eyes went wide and he took me in from head to toe. “Tia?” His head whipped to his sister. “Tia?”“Yes. Tia,” she said. “You’re welcome.”“You know I had nothing to do with this.” He tugged on the bottom of a T-shirt that said, You can’t take the sky from me. His hair needed my help again, but he was cuter than I remembered.“Yes. Well, I know . . . now.”“You do not have to come with me. You look amazing, really amazing, but I’d actually rather go by myself, no offense.”“None taken.” Technically I hadn’t wanted to go with him to this stupid party where I wouldn’t know anyone either, but his saying he didn’t want me to go was a little jab to the gut. He’d rather go by himself than have to take me? Whatever. It didn’t matter. If I left right now I could go to Logan’s party with my friends. “I should probably just go hom

“What do you mean ‘close to a last name’?”“Like by adding a letter or something. William isn’t necessarily a last name, but Williams is. Phillip to Phillips. Edward to Edwards. You get it.”“I do.”“Then there are the unmodified last names that can also be first names, like Taylor, Scott, Carter, Thomas, Lewis, Harris, Martin, Morris—”“You think my name is Morris?”“Just an example.”“You sure think about names a lot. Wait, don’t tell me, you’re one of those girls who’s already named all her future children.”“No, I’m not.” Well, not all of them.“That’s good. And yes, my name can be a last name.”“A modified one?”“No.”“A common one?”“Not so much.”I pursed my lips to the side, thinking. “Is it a name that can also double as a word?”“Explain.”

“Really? How did that happen?”“My mom entered some paintings into an art show put on by the church my dad attended. Twenty years later and they’re still together.”“Cool.”“Yes, they are pretty cool.”I stared at the glowing numbers of the radio station. It wasn’t a station I ever listened to, so I didn’t recognize the quietly playing song at all. “You know what we’ve succeeded in doing with this game?”“What’s that?”“Increasing the anticipation.”He laughed. “I know, right? Can I just be fill-in Tom forever?”“No.” I turned toward him in my seat. “I really want to know your name.”He gripped the wheel and stared at the road. The sun had set and the sky had turned gray and was darkening more with each passing minute. He licked his lips and his voice went husky and soft. “‘The seen, the known, dissolve in iridescence, become illusi

 “Are you nervous?” I asked, a little surprised.“Maybe. Thanks for coming with me.”“Of course.”“Okay, here we go.”“Hayden?”“Yes, Tia?”“Nothing. I just wanted to say your name.”He smiled, which was what I was hoping for. He just needed to relax. I knew Bec wanted me here to keep him away from Eve, but who was I to stop him if that’s what he really wanted? He led me up the walk and around the side of the house to a gate that was propped open.“Oh. Look at that. Your ex-girlfriend’s house backs up to the ocean.” I had known we were close to the beach—I could hear the waves and smell the ocean breeze—but I hadn’t realized we were this close.“Pretty cool, right?”The secluded beach was full of people eating, talking, dancing. Hayden scanned the area and I could tell when

His gaze was on the ocean in the distance, his jaw tight. It seemed as though he hadn’t heard my question at all.I put my hand on his back. “You okay?” I didn’t know why I asked him that; it was obvious he wasn’t. He had come here tonight thinking his ex-girlfriend had invited him because she wanted to get back together with him and he had just found out she hadn’t.“Hayden?”“What? Yes, food. Let’s eat. Are you hungry?”“We can leave. We don’t have to stay.”“We’re staying.” He said it like I had dared him not to and he was rising to the challenge.“Okay. We’re staying. You have other friends here, right?”He nodded.“Then let’s have fun.”“Deal.”We each filled a plate with food and then found two empty seats at a round table. He greeted several people then scooted his chair extra cl

He leaned down and I thought he was going to whisper something sweet in my ear when he said, “You’re a better actor than you give yourself credit for.”Those words jolted my thoughts back into the right place. “I am, aren’t I?”“So, what’s the story? Who’s Ryan?” I nodded back toward the table where he and Eve still sat, her head on his shoulder.“He’s my best friend . . . well, was my best friend since the fifth grade.” A line formed between his eyes with this admission.“Ouch. I’m sorry.”“It happens.”“That doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck when it does.”“We exchanged a few black eyes. We’re good now.”“Really? You’re still friends?”“No, not at all, but I don’t want to beat him senseless every time I see him now, so that’s a step forward, I think.”His still-tense jaw made me wonder if that statement was

 “It’s only, like, eight o’clock.” He lifted one side of his mouth in a half smile. “And shouldn’t the little high school student be going to bed soon?” I laughed. “First of all, there is no school tomorrow. Second, you’re in high school too and we graduate in four weeks. Speaking of, why is your girlfriend throwing such an early graduation party?” “I’m sure everyone is planning their parties for the end of the month and she wanted to be the first and the best. Plus she’s probably going somewhere foreign and exotic the second she graduates.” “Right.” “And she’s not my girlfriend.” He leaned forward and took off his shoes. “They’re full of sand,” he explained as he dumped them and set them off to the side. A print of