Page 101 of Not Fooling Anyone

I park on the street, not wanting to block any of the other cars in the driveway, Ethan cruising in behind me less than a minute later. I meet him at his car, letting him take my hand as we walk up to his porch, the security light turning on as we pause at the front door for him to unlock it.

Inside, Tyler and Mia are on the couch again, the living room blanketed in darkness save for the TV screen where a man with a knife is chasing a screaming woman around some abandoned building.

Ethan doesn’t stop to greet them, tugging me instead down a hallway, passing two closed doors before he stops at a third and opens it.

He flicks on the light, but I don’t have time to look around before he’s on me, pressing me against the door.

I reach up, cupping his jaw, tangling my fingers through the soft, wiry hair of his beard, enjoying the sound of pleasure he makes in response. How many other sounds can I wring out of him tonight?

He braces his arms on either side of me, once again caging me in, but instead of it terrifying me like it did with Cody, I revel in it, safe and cocooned in his embrace.

“I want you,” he murmurs, brushing his lower half against me, the friction making my toes curl.

“I want you, too.”

CHAPTERTWENTY-FOUR

LEXIE

My voice isall breathless wonder, completely unlike myself. But so much of what’s happening is surreal, it’s like it’s not happening to me. It’s an alternate universe Lexie. One who grew up in a loving household, who’s never known any kind of trauma in her life, who can readily accept a man’s touch without a freak-out.

There’s a faint ringing coming from Ethan’s pocket, and he pulls away from me, drawing his phone out. “Shit,” he mutters, looking at the display, then at me, some of the haze clearing from his eyes. “Give me one minute. I’ll be right back.”

“Um, okay.” I move aside so he can leave the room, another door down the hall opening and shutting a moment later. What was that about?

I press my hand against my chest, willing my heart to slow, but what I see next has it stopping completely, icy dread spreading through my veins.

There’s a syringe on his nightstand. A used syringe from the looks of it. And next to it, two tablet pills.

Is he… using?

My mind unwillingly flashes back to that last moment with Mom, a syringe resting beyond her blue fingertips. Searching for a pulse on her, creepy crawlies running over my skin as I realized I was touching a dead body.

That awful call to 911 to report her death, barely able to get the words out. The white sheet they’d placed over her lifeless form when they’d come.

Will that happen to Ethan too?

Nausea rises within me, quick and strong, and I gag, barely holding it together as I make a split-second decision and leave, racing out of the room, back down the hallway, past Tyler and Mia still watching their movie, fumbling with the lock on the front door, and then I’m outside, the night air cool on my face as I rush toward the end of the drive. I lean over a bush and puke on their lawn, praying no one can see from inside the house, but I can’t hold it in.

Everything comes up—my newfound trust, my faith, my absolute certainty that I knew Ethan inside and out. Maybe not all the details, but the core of him. His heart. His values.

But it turns out he’s using? Why else would he have drugs and paraphernalia in his room? That’s something you mention. You don’t hide that from someone who’s supposed to be important to you.

I told him my mom had substance abuse issues. That I don’t go near any of that stuff. Is that why he wasn’t disgusted when I said that? Because he has familiarity with it? Did he think I’d be more accepting then? Because I’m not.

“Lexie?”

I squeeze my eyes shut for a moment, glad at least it’s a woman’s voice and not Ethan’s deep baritone.

“Are you okay?” Mia asks from the doorway, concern dripping off her.

I give her a wave, hoping she doesn’t come any closer, and walk backward to my car. “I’m not feeling great. Tell—” Another wave of nausea passes over me and I swallow heavily, stuffing it down. “Tell Ethan I had to leave.”

I turn around, not waiting for a response, and open my car with shaking hands, peeling out of there as fast as I can. I rinse my mouth out with the half-full water bottle in my cup holder, spitting it out at the first stoplight, my stomach finally settling.

How in the hell could Ethan have hidden this from me? Is that why he’s always so happy? Why he has so much energy? What is it he’s shooting up? Heroin, like Mom? No, that would make him drowsy. Maybe cocaine. Mom had flirted with that a few times.

And what were those pills? Something to bring him down from his high? Or something he takes when he can’t inject?

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