Page 93 of Fake Out Hearts

This kiss is less fevered than the ones before it, and she melts a little as our tongues dance. Then she pushes on my chest a little, breaking the kiss.

“You should probably get back out there,” she says, looking flushed and gorgeous as she smiles at me. “For real, this time. I’ll get dressed and meet you out there.”

“Okay.”

I nod, but it takes several more minutes before I can pull myself away from her. Even though my cock is spent, I know it would only take minutes before I’d be ready to go again. But she’s right. It’d be an asshole move to make my friends wait for that long, and despite all my dirty talk to Becca earlier, the possessive side of me doesn’t want them to hear her fall apart for me again.

“Alright,” I murmur, breathing heavily as we separate. “I’m going, I’m going.”

She laughs, pulling me in for one last kiss before we move away from the door.

I drag my pants back up and tuck myself away while Becca searches her room for an appropriate set of clothes. I slip out the door and close it as quietly as I can behind me, but Noah is standing at the end of the hall and staring right at me, so I know I’m busted.

“Sorry, I thought the tables were in the guest room, but turns out they’re probably upstairs,” I say, going with the cover story I invented earlier. “I must have moved them when Becca moved in.”

But Noah doesn’t say anything. He’s got his phone clutched in one hand, and when I reach the end of the hall and enter the living room, I find all the rest of the guys sitting and staring at their phones too. They look up at me when I walk in, but quickly avert their eyes.

“What’s with the weird looks? Is Gretzky coming out of retirement or something?” I joke, but no one laughs.

Instead, Noah claps his hand on my shoulder and flashes me a sympathetic smile as he raises his phone so I can see the screen. He’s got a social media post pulled up, and he gestures for me to read it, but I see the words “Shawn Kaplan” and “Becca Summers” and immediately go tense.

“What the fuck did he do?” I ask, dreading the answer.

Noah’s expression turns solemn. “A new episode of his reality show just dropped,” he tells me. “And Becca is in it.”

Chapter 28

Becca

My stomach drops. I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, but there wasn’t any way to avoid overhearing what the guys were talking about while I made my way down the hall. I should’ve known this was coming—Peyton warned me about it right before I left LA—but nothing could’ve prepared me for the dread that’s twisting in my stomach.

Whatever it is, it won’t be good.

“How bad is it?” Theo asks Noah, who shrugs.

“I don’t know. We haven’t seen it yet. The news just dropped, and Margo texted me about it as soon as she heard,” he explains.

It’s Margo’s job as the Aces’ social media manager to be on top of that stuff, which I’m grateful for. As awful as this is, at least we got somewhat of an advance notice about it and didn’t have to find out from some sleazy reporter hounding us with questions about it tomorrow.

“Put it on,” Theo orders, and Noah raises his eyebrows at him.

“Are you sure about that? We don’t have to watch it. I’m sure Margo or someone can summarize—”

“I said put it on,” Theo cuts him off and storms over to the coffee table for the remote. He jabs it at the TV to turn it onand starts furiously flipping through channels. “Which channel is this trash on again?”

Noah takes the remote from him and finds the right channel, but the episode is already about halfway over, so he restarts it. I sink down on the couch next to Reese, who looks like he’s sitting on pins and needles, and Theo sits on my other side. His hand finds mine as the intro finishes, and I hold on to it as tightly as I can because I’m afraid I might float away without something to keep me anchored.

When the intro finishes, the black screen fades to a shot of Shawn sitting in his living room with tears in his eyes. He isn’t full-on crying, but the moisture is there, and I can’t help wondering if it’s as fake as everything else about this damn show. It wouldn’t surprise me if his producers made him squirt some eye drops in before the cameras started rolling.

“I never thought I’d have to film an episode like this,” Shawn says after a few moments of silence. “But then again, I never thought my girlfriend would turn into a drug addict, either.”

Theo’s hand spasms in mine, and all the dread roiling in my stomach comes crawling up my throat. I feel like I’m going to be sick right here, because I already know what’s coming next.

Shawn stares directly into the camera, his expression serious. “Becca seemed like the perfect girl for me, at least at first. She was sweet, a super talented dancer, and had a bright future. But she had a dark side too.”

The shot fades into black-and-white, grainy footage of another living room that I recognize, but only barely. That whole night is a foggy haze in my memory, and I hate it.

The footage shows me sprawled out on a couch, staring at the ceiling, and my stomach twists at the sight. The camera zooms in on me, past the shoulders of a group of other women who are talking in slightly slurred voices. Even though the footage isslightly unfocused, it’s not hard to see just how dilated my eyes are, how high I am.

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