There are snickers from around us, and I don’t even care that I’m implying Chase and I are sleeping together. I want to crush her for the way she just made Hallie feel.
“And you do want him, don’t you? You want him so badly it kills you every time you see him with me, but you need to get used to it because he…wants…me. The one guy you want more than anything wants this soccer-playing dyke.” I pause and take a deep breath while everyone just stares at me with their jaw hanging open. It’s not just the original group anymore—a crowd has gathered around us, and they’re all watching intently. “He’s mine, Abigail, all mine. Now if you don’t mind, my dyke friends and I need to get to class.”
I brush past her without another word, Sophie right on my heels. I grip Hallie’s hand as I pass her and pull her along beside me. We don’t need to hear anything more from Abigail Baker.
Chase is waiting for me by my car when I finally leave school at the end of day. Of course he is. He’s leaning against it, looking down at his phone, but as I approach, a huge smile covers his face and he stands to face me, shoving his phone into his back pocket. His eyes flash with amusement.
“Hey.”
He doesn’t say anything in return, just grins even wider, if possible.
I sigh. “So I guess you heard about me and Abigail then?”
“Uh huh.”
I sigh. “Who told you?
“Oh, I got a word-by-word account from several people.”
Shit. Heat floods my face and I close my eyes in embarrassment. I’m sure they told him every single detail.
“So I’m yours, huh?”
Shit. Shit. Shit.
I open my eyes to look at him, and his grin hasn’t budged.
I shake my head. “I’m sorry about that. She was just being such a bitch and I could tell she wasn’t sorry so I wanted to piss her off and I knew that would do it. I mean, you’re the only thing she wants and I knew that would make her mad. I just said it without thinking—”
“Livy—”
“I mean, I know you’re not mine. I know this is just fake and I don’t want you to think I actually think that—”
“Livy—”
“It just came out before I even knew it and I think it worked. I’m pretty sure she wants to kills me now, but yeah, I should have told you before I—”
“Livy!” I break off at the sound of him chuckling. “Stop.”
I finally look at him. Throughout my ranting, I was kinda looking over his shoulder, not focusing on him, but now when I look at his face, he doesn’t look mad at all. He just looks like he thinks it’s funny—really funny.
“What are you laughing at?”
“You. You’re cute when you freak out.”
I frown. “So you’re not mad?”
“No! Not at all. I just wish I’d been there to see it myself.” He smiles down at me, taking a step closer. “I’m glad you put her in her place.”
“Yeah?” I ask, surprised. I know he doesn’t want to get back with her, but he clearly cares about her. Their relationship is so messed up that I even thought he might take her side on this.
He nods. “Yeah.”
“And you’re not mad about the ‘he’s mine’ comment?”
He takes a step even closer to me and rests his fingers on my hip bones, his large hands pressing in gently. He looks down at me with a smirk on his face.
“I’m glad you shut Abigail down.” He reaches up and brushes a loose strand of hair out of my face, gently tucking it behind my ear. “And I love that you called me yours.”
I freeze at his words, and my heart almost stops beating as he leans down and plants a firm kiss on my mouth. It’s not a kiss of passion like we’ve shared before, or a playful one on my cheek when he’s joking around. This one is unhurried and familiar and comfortable, like he’s not worried about making my knees buckle because he knows this won’t be our last kiss, like we’ll have many more of these kisses to come, like he’ll do this every day.
He pulls back, squeezing my waist. “I gotta go.”
I nod, in a daze as he grabs his stuff and jogs off. After a minute, I manage to pull myself together and turn around to watch him turn down a side path off toward the athletic fields. That’s when I glance around the parking lot and see it’s deserted. There’s no one here, especially not Abigail or Jessie. He didn’t kiss me for anyone else’s benefit. He just kissed me.
THE SUN IS SETTING AS Chase and I drive down the streets from my house to Jessie’s. We’re running late; the bakery was so busy today that it took forever to clean up afterward and I ended up having to text Chase to tell him to pick me up later than planned. I’ve already had two texts from Jessie asking where I am, and even though this is his 18th birthday, the party he’s been planning for what seems like years, I don’t want to be there. I don’t want to be in the same room as both Jessie and Chase when they’re both making me feel all kinds of emotion. I’ve had this horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach for the last couple of days and all I want to do is stay in my room, put my head under the covers, and pretend everything in my life is normal and I’m not a confused mess.
Chase pulls up to Jessie’s but there are so many cars lined up in his driveway and all along the street that he has to go farther down the block before he can park. When he does, I immediately unbuckle my belt and reach for the handle of the door.
“Livy, wait.”
I pause and turn to face him. He’s watching me closely, and I sit back in my chair and force a smile on my face.
“What’s up? We’re already running late, we should get going.”
He glances away from me briefly, weighing something up in his head before he turns back to me. “You’ve been pretty hard to get a hold of over the last couple days.”
I bite my lip, thinking of all the times I’ve let his calls go to voicemail and all the texts I’ve left unanswered. “I’ve just been busy, y’know? Homework and the bakery, helping with Scotty.”
He nods, but I can tell he knows it’s bull. He knows I’ve been avoiding him. I press my lips together and I’m pretty sure he’s going to drop it, but then, “You’re freaking out because of what I said by your car and because I kissed you when no one was around.”
I swallow hard. It’s scary how easily he can see through me, how well he knows me, but it’s not something I want to deal with right now. “No. No, I know that was nothing,” I say, because it’s easier to deny it than to face it. I force a laugh. “Don’t worry, I’m not reading anything into it.”
“We need to talk,” he says, not dropping eye contact.
“What? No we don’t. Everything’s fine, Chase. We’re friends and we have this agreement and it’s going well. It works.”
“Livy, I don’t—”
“Sorry, I mean, I know we said we’d end it soon—very soon—just tell me when and I’ll go with it.”
“I don’t want—”
“Honestly, Chase, don’t. It’s not necessary.”
Out of the corner of my eye I see him clench his fists on the steering wheel in frustration. I’m stopping him from saying what he wants and it’s not the first time, but I can’t hear it right now. I honestly don’t think I can deal with it right now. Instead I turn away and pull down the sun visor to look in the mirror. I swipe under my eyes, wiping away the remnants of my smudged eyeliner, and start running a hand through my hair. I know tonight will be full of kids from school who look like a million bucks and will have spent hours getting ready to make sure they look their best. I only had ten minutes to get ready, and it shows. I have barely a lick of mascara on my eyes, concealer to cover the odd blemish on my skin, and hair that could do with a good brushing. My outfit situation is even worse. I’m wearing skinny jeans and a loose fitting V-neck shirt I’ve worn a million times before. I’m feeling inadequate before I even get inside, and I’d bet money Courtney looks incredible. I don’t know what I’m thinking of trying to compete with her—or Abigail, for that matter, who
will surely have gone all out to try to get Chase’s attention. No one can compete with her when she makes an effort.
Suddenly Chase reaches out and gently rests his hand on my arm. I freeze at the contact. “You don’t need to do that,” he tells me, pulling my hand away from my hair. “You look beautiful.”
My heart skips a beat and I force a chuckle, playing it off and turning to him. “Oh come on, you know everyone in there will look insane. I’m going to look like a total mess in comparison.”
“It doesn’t matter what you wear or how you do your hair, Livy—you’ll still be the prettiest girl at the party.”
A compliment like that from the most popular guy in school should make my heart soar, but instead his words make me want to cry and I have to bite my lip to keep from showing any sort of emotion. I don’t understand how this happened, how he crept up on me like this, how he got inside my head and is making me feel all sorts of confusing emotions for him. Jessie is my goal. He’s been my goal all along. “You don’t have to say that, Chase. There’s no one here to hear it.”
His eyes stare into mine and I beg him to let it go, to let me off the hook and make some flippant comment so we can return to normal and ignore this weird tension between us, this shift in our relationship that has gradually been coming for weeks but I’m only just noticing and am not ready to deal with. “Let’s ditch the party,” he says quietly. “Let’s go somewhere just you and me.”
I’m shaking my head before he’s even finished his sentence. “I can’t, Chase. It’s his 18th birthday. We’ve talked about it for years. I have to be here.”
I can see the hurt in his eyes at my rejection before he covers the emotion and nods in agreement. “Okay, but we do need to talk, Liv. I don’t want—”
“Why have you never asked me to kiss you in front of Abigail?” I blurt out. It’s been playing on my mind since he kissed me in the parking lot. When we agreed to this, his reasons were to get her to stay away so he could concentrate on soccer, but he’s never tried to kiss me in front of her, not once. “I mean, we’ve kissed in front of Jessie to get his attention, but never in front of her, and that’s the reason you wanted this, right? That’s why you suggested it in the first place?”
He doesn’t break eye contact with me. “I never needed to,” he tells me softly.
“Why?”
“I never needed to prove I was into you. It’s obvious. She already got it.”
My heart slams in my throat and I feel like I’m going to burst into tears.
“Liv—”
He’s cut off by loud banging on his window, and I’ve never been so glad to see the members of his soccer team in my life. I open my door and stand. Just before I close the door, I look back in and see that Chase hasn’t moved. “We will talk, okay? Just not tonight. Tonight is about Jessie.” Then I close the door and make my way into the house without waiting for Chase to catch up.
The minute I step through the door, I know this is the party of Jessie’s dreams. It’s heaving with wall-to-wall people, everyone who’s anyone in school is here, and you can barely move without bumping into someone. A few people smile at me in greeting as I make my way through, but when they step toward me, their eyes lit up, I know it’s because Chase must have caught up to me. A second later his hand is on the small of my back and I know I’m right. I turn to face him and he’s already focused on me, ignoring the people trying to catch his attention, only he doesn’t look happy. He’s not angry either, just sort of distant, detached, like he’s not really here. His usual crowd swarms us almost instantly and I take the opportunity to inch away, telling him I’ll see him later then heading toward the kitchen where I imagine Jessie will be.
I keep my head down as I pass through the throngs of teenagers. I can’t be bothered to deal with anyone right now. Part of me wishes I wasn’t here at all. I want to be with Jessie and I want to celebrate his birthday, but I wish it were just me and him so we could actually talk, so I could actually try to figure this out, because I can’t like Chase—I just can’t. It’s all about Jessie; it always has been.
I see Tia out of the corner of my eye, chatting with some guy who looks like the boyfriend she’s described. She raises her hand in a wave but I don’t stop, don’t stop until I get to the kitchen and find Jessie leaning against the kitchen cupboards, surrounded by guys from his debate team, staring straight ahead, not paying attention to anyone.
I don’t go to him right away. Instead I stand just inside the doorway and look at him. I look at Jessie, this guy who has meant the world to me for so long, this guy I’ve been completely and utterly devoted to since I met him. This guy is capable of making me feel better than anyone else but more often than not makes me feel lower than I knew I could. I don’t know what’s going on between us anymore.
He turns my way and our eyes meet. A smile breaks out across his face and he steps away from his friends without another word, coming to stand in front of me within seconds.
I force myself to smile. “Happy Birthday, Jess.”
He smiles back. “I didn’t think you were coming.”
He’s staring into my eyes and I swallow hard. We both know there’s something weird going on. We can both sense it, but I refuse to acknowledge it. Now is not the time or place to deal with it. “I’d never miss your birthday.”
He pauses. “I’m sorry.”
He doesn’t have to tell me what he’s sorry for. I just know. I swallow down the lump in my throat. “It’s okay,” I tell him, feeling dangerously close to tears.
“I broke up with Courtney.”
I sigh, my breath feeling shaky. I’m not totally surprised though. I knew something was starting to change.
“Will you dance with me?”
My stomach lurches and I can’t tear my eyes away from his.
“Please, Livs, dance with me on my birthday.”
I hesitate and look around, chuckling nervously. “What?”
He cocks his head to the side, leveling me with his warm brown gaze. “There are people dancing in the front room.”
“You know I can’t dance.”
He doesn’t look away. “Liv—”
“I just…I don’t know…” I sigh. Chase is here. I can’t do this in front of Chase. “I can’t Jessie. Chase might—”
“Really? My best friend can’t dance with me on my birthday?”
That’s what changes it for me, because no matter what’s been going on between us, he’s my best friend and always has been. I’ll always do anything for him. He holds out his hand, and this time I take it.
I take it with a sick feeling in my stomach and let myself be led down the hallway into his front room. I fix my gaze ahead and ignore the stares I can feel on our locked hands. It’s something I would have been so happy about only a couple of months ago, but now it feels like a chain pulling me down, and I can’t get it out of my head that I’m doing something wrong.
We break through into his front room, and he wasn’t lying. There are tons of people here, crowded in and dancing together. The music switches to a slower beat and I would say it’s because the universe is against me, but as Jessie pulls me close to him and wraps his arms around me, I know even if a heavy metal song was playing right now, it wouldn’t stop him from pulling me in for a slow dance.
He pulls me in tighter, and it’s too much for me to deal with the way he’s looking at me so I rest my chin on his shoulder, my gaze fixed on nothing as my heartbeat thumps in my chest. I’ve dreamed of this, of being this close to him, but I never thought it would hurt this much, never thought it would make me feel this confused and stressed and emotional. He sways to the music, keeping rhythm with the beat, and I close my eyes, hoping when I open them again, things will become clearer, easier.
They don’t.
They don’t because every time he sways, he rotates us around, and when I open my eyes, I see Chase has entered the room. He’s not doing anything except staring at us. He’s not telling me to stop,
he’s not getting angry with Jessie, he’s just staring at us sadly, and it honestly tears me apart that I’m the cause of that look on his face.
I stiffen in Jessie’s arms and step away from him. I can’t deal with this right now. Jessie’s brow furrows in surprise and he follows my gaze to Chase. He turns back to me. “I’m too late, aren’t I?”
I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe with both of them looking at me like this and I have to get away. I turn and break my way through the crowd, out into Jessie’s back yard. I don’t stop until I reach the bench half hidden at the bottom of the narrow stretch of grass, and I pray neither of them follows me.
“ARE YOU OKAY?”
I glance up and see Sophie peering down at me.
I nod my head but she looks like she doesn’t believe me. She sighs and crouches down so we’re at eye level.
“What’s going on Liv?”
I shrug my shoulders helplessly. I don’t really know what’s going on, to be honest. I just know nothing seems right and I have this feeling that everything is going to blow up in my face.
“Liv?”
“Everything’s such a mess,” I manage to whisper.
She shifts position, sitting down on the bench next to me and crossing her legs out in front of her. “Go on,” she urges.
I sigh. “Chase…I don’t think…part of me thinks it’s not fake, thinks he doesn’t want…uh…” I drop my head back and stare at the sky, unable to articulate the thought that maybe this isn’t fake for Chase anymore. “And Jessie, I think he gets it now, I think he sees me like that—but, I don’t know…I don’t want to hurt anyone and Chase has been so good to me but it’s Jessie I’ve always wanted. Maybe I’m just being stupid and Chase is just a really good pretend boyfriend and that’s all there is to it, but…I don’t know, it doesn’t feel fake anymore, and I was just dancing with Jessie, and Chase was watching, and I felt so guilty…” I trail off, my rambling thoughts reflecting the state of my mind.
The Stand-In Boyfriend Page 22