Page 36 of Betraying Him
It was much easier without friends. With no friends, there’s no one to call you out on your shit. I already have Logan doing it constantly and now Lana too? Fuck my life. Maybe I should just go back to being the girl who kept to herself. At least that way, I didn’t have to force myself to be in the moment or have someone picking up on my bullshit excuses.
“Out with what?” I ask innocently, fluttering my eyelashes, and she snorts.
“You know, when I first met you, I really thought you were an innocent good girl type, but maybe I was wrong.”
Well, she’s not the first to tell me that.
“You hide behind this façade, showing people a version of you I don’t think is real. I think there’s more to you, and I think there’s something going on. You trust me, right? You can tell me if there’s something bothering you.”
Knowing Lana won’t back down from this conversation without a fight, I sigh deeply and completely fix my attention on her. “I’m fine, seriously. There’s nothing going on, but there is actually something I’ve been wanting to?—”
A chair scraping has my words coming to a halt, and I look up to see none other than Cole Aston sitting down at our table.
I swallow, my surprise no doubt evident on my face as my mind runs out of control. Does he also know about what I did to Harley? Does he know about mine and Harley’s…situationship? Will he say something to me? Has he already said something to Lana?
I know there’s something going on between the two of them, since it’s been the talk of the school since she joined, but I don’t know just howclose they are. She would have said something if she knew, right?
Unless she’s been waiting for you to tell her yourself…
No, Lana’s not that type of girl. She’s the type that would just come out and say something, no matter how uncomfortable the subject is.
“Lana, I’ve been looking for you. You weren’t at home,” Cole drawls, and my eyes dart between them.
“That’s not my home,” Lana mutters, and my head whirls as I process their words.
Just hold on a damn?—
“Oh, come on, little menace. We live together, if you need to talk your feelings out, we can.”
—minute.
“Wait, you twolivetogether?” I blurt, speaking for the first time since Cole sat down. I immediately regret my choice about speaking up because the less of his attention on me, the better.
“Yes.”
“No.”
They both answer at the same time, contradicting each other before they start kicking under the table like children in elementary school.
“Now now, Lana. This is not the time nor place for foreplay,” Cole says, and I take that as my cue to leave.
I grab my things from the table, shoulder my bag, and mutter a goodbye before leaving them to whatever the hell is going on between them.
I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t tell Lana, because if shereallyisliving with Cole, then she’s also living with Harley, which means my new friendship just got a whole lot more complicated.
What’s that saying? The past is better off staying dead and buried…
But maybe I would be too. Maybe things would be a whole lot better for everyone if I weren’t around.
TWENTY-FIVE
HARLEY
PRESENT DAY – SENIOR YEAR
I absently laughat something Cole says as we walk across the courtyard. It’s something I’ve been doing more and more lately—pretending to give a fuck about what’s going on around me when, in actual fact, I don’t.
I don’t know why, but I just feel… numb.
