“He knows?!” Misty hissed, yanking Ash into the room and slamming the door behind him. “How?!”
“I don’t know!” Ash cried. “He noticed I knew your coffee order or something!”
Misty frowned. “My coffee order? Seriously? I know Brock’s coffee order too, does that mean we’re dating as well?”
Misty sighed and plopped herself back into the desk chair, rubbing her temples. “Maybe we should come clean,” she said after a while. “It was fun while it lasted, but we knew going into this it wasn’t going to last forever.”
“Aw, Mist, no,” Ash said softly. He kneeled down on the floor next to her and took her hand in his, rubbing his thumb gently over her knuckles. “If you’re not ready to go public, we shouldn’t have to.”
When they had first hooked up a few months before, a very heat of the moment thing, where they were splashing around in the Cerulean Gym pool, fighting over who was the better swimmer one minute, and fervently making out the second, Ash had been ready to scream it from the rooftops. Misty, however, had a few reservations.
“As soon as the League knows we’re together, the relationship isn’t going to be just ours anymore, not really,” she had sighed, absentmindedly brushing her fingers through Ash’s hair as they cuddled in Misty’s bed. “Champion Ash Ketchum and Misty of the Elite Four. Ugh. It’ll be nothing but a big PR nightmare.” She frowned. “I’ve waited too long for this to only be with you according to someone else’s rules. I want it to just be us, like when we were kids and no one knew or cared who we were.”
“We can do that,” Ash told her with an easy shrug. “We’ll just keep things between us for now. Like our little secret.”
Misty eyed him skeptically.
“Ash, you are about as subtle as an exploud playing bagpipes,” she said with a smirk. Ash pouted.
“I am not! I can totally keep this a secret!”
“Yeah, I’ll believe that when I see it.”
And by some miracle, they had. Somehow, they managed to keep their relationship hidden, meeting up under guise of League meetings or simple errands, sneaking gentle touches and soft glances when no one else was looking, and texting or calling late at night when they were forced to keep their distance. They thought they had been doing a decent job.
But apparently not, if even Brock noticed something was up.
“Well, it doesn’t sound like he knows knows,” Ash rationalized, “only suspects. Maybe we can just be really careful and fool him a little longer.”
Misty raised an eyebrow. “You sure you can handle that?” she teased. “With how handsy you are?”
Ash smirked, tilting his head up from his spot kneeling on the floor. “You’re one to talk. You practically jumped me as soon as I got home yesterday.”
“You’re so in love with me, Brock figured it out from the way you ordered my coffee.”
“You’ve been in love with me since you were eleven.”
“Yeah and I managed to keep it secret that whole time,” she pointed out, grinning haughtily. “Suddenly you get involved, and Brock figures it out within a day.”
Ash’s eyes narrowed, but he managed to bite back the grin fighting to make its way across his lips. Even while dating, they couldn’t help but push each other’s buttons. “Oh, you think you’re better at keeping our relationship a secret than me, huh?”
“Oh sweet, naive Ash,” she purred back. “I know I am.”
“Okay,” he declared, the absolute picture of overconfidence, “what do ya say we bet on it?
Misty met his grin with one of her own. “Go on?”
“By the end of the week, if Brock doesn’t figure out we’re dating, we both win,” Ash explained. “But, if he figures it out based on something you did, I win.”
“And when he figures it out based on something you did, I win,” she agreed. Ash snorted.
“In the incredibly unlikely event that happens, sure.”
Their eyes met, the air of competition suddenly electric between them as they shook their hands in agreement.
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