Page 60 of The Stand-In Boyfriend

She frowns, anger spiking in her eyes, but I’m done with her. Turning on the balls of my feet, I go after Jessy.

People move out of my way, which I’m thankful for, but Jessica is nowhere in sight. Pushing the door open, I step outside. Rain has started to fall since I got to school, and is now pouring over me. It takes only a few seconds for me to be drenched completely.

Shit.

I blink a few times to clear my vision and then I see her. The lone figure walking across the parking lot. Or trying to, because her leg is dragging after her.

Stubborn woman.

“Jessica!” I yell, but to no avail. She’s not listening, so I run after her.

“Dammit!” She slips and stumbles, almost losing her balance, but somehow finding it at the very last moment.

My lungs burn from exertion, but there is no way I’m stopping until I catch up to her. Just a little bit more.

“Je—”

She must hear me because she tries to move faster, only it backfires. This time when she stumbles, I know she’ll faceplant to the ground.Fuck.I rush forward and wrap my arms around her, pulling her body into mine. One of the crutches falls down to the ground.

“Are you crazy?” I pant in her hair as I pull her upright. “Your ankle is still hurt. You can’t do shit like this.”

“Let me go,” Jessy protests, trying to get out of my arms.

I shake my head, refusing to let go. “Not until we talk about what just happened.”

“There is nothing to talk about.”

“If there was nothing to talk about you wouldn’t have run away like you did.”

“I didn’t run!” She turns in my arms, those dark eyes staring daggers at me. But for all the fire and anger that’s burning inside her, there are tears clouding her gaze. “Did you tell them?”

“What? Of course not!” How can she really think something like that?

“Then how did they find out? How does everybody know that this… we…”

I wrap my fingers around her wrists and hold them down. “I don’t know, but it wasn’t me.”

“I can’t go in there. I can’t walk those halls when they know the truth. When they know that we were together because you pity me.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“It’s the truth.”

“It’s bullshit,” I fire right back, then say in a more tender tone, “You’re just scared. What they know is what Lisa told them, but that doesn’t have to mean shit because it’s not true. You said you want to try for real, last night. That’s what matters.”

“Doesn’t make the fact that it started out as fake any less real.”

“Maybe, but it started out as a sham that led me to you. My feelings aren’t any less real because of it.”

I trace the tips of my fingers over her cheeks. She inhales a shaky breath at the first contact of my skin against hers.

She’s soaked just like I am, but it doesn’t make her look any less beautiful, wet hair, red-rimmed eyes and all.

“Ask me.”

“Ask you what?”

“Ask me what I feel.”

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