Page 37 of Little Lies

A smart, responsible girlfriend. Putting in the effort to improve his grades.

His father finally saw that his son was taking this seriously, and once Nathan could prove it by moving those F’s upwards on his report card, he would have his father wrapped around his finger in no time.

Nathan grinned into his cup as he gulped down the rest of its contents—those college funds were as good as his.

sixteen

tully

“Joliet is acting strange.” Tully stared at her sister across the cafeteria. Stephanie followed her gaze and took her in, sitting at the table with half the cheer team and half the basketball team. Joliet was laughing at something one of the guys said. “She’s barely acknowledged anything since this started.”

“That’s what you wanted, right?” Stephanie asked, her mouth still chewing on a tater tot. “For her to leave you alone.”

Tully frowned. Stephanie was right. This was exactly what shewanted—but in all honesty, it wasn’t what sheexpected.

After Nathan publicly announced their “relationship,” she had been waiting for the moment that Joliet would retaliate. Because Joliet was like that. If something didn’t go the way she wanted, she would do anything she could to fix it.

But that hadn’t happened—yet.

The most Joliet had done was glare at her, and speak passive-aggressively on the phone so Tully could hear, but they barely even looked at each other anymore. At the very least, a confrontation made sense, but nothing. The lack of anything was off—like a cold chill in the height of summer.

Tully nibbled nervously on her plastic fork.

“Hello, angel,” someone touched her shoulder.

Tully jumped as the air next to her shifted to adjust for a new person sitting at the end of their table. Nathan was too quiet when he approached—granted not hard to do in the loud cafeteria.

He was already settled in though, slinging his arm over her shoulder as he sat on the bench. Tully took him in with wide eyes.

She shifted. This was taking her a while to get used to. She wished she could brush his arm off her, but it would only raise eyebrows. So she sucked it up and tried to relax under his touch.

He was as good as ever though. Relaxed, smirking, and unfazed. “Did you get home safely last night?”

She blinked. “Uh, yeah. Fine.”

“I hope your dinner was worth missing out on my mom’s pot roast.”

“It was.” Glancing at Stephanie, Tully didn’t miss her friend’s raised brow. She nodded slowly, not willing to let him know that her dinner had, in fact, not been worth it. “Like I said, my mom’s pot pie is amazing. She cooks the crust perfectly. Restaurant quality.”

Nathan tilted his head. “I thought it was stroganoff.”

She bit her tongue and quietly damned her poor ability to lie. How was she supposed to get people to believe their relationship if she couldn’t even lie correctly to her fake boyfriend? “Nathan, this is my friend, Stephanie.” She stuck her arm out towards her. Stephanie made a weird face at her for using her as a distraction but didn’t say anything. “Stephanie, this is Nathan.”

“Yeah, I know him. We had a class together before.”

“We did?” Nathan asked.

Stephanie scoffed a laugh. “Two years ago.” She gave him a subtle hint. His face didn’t change, still stuck trying to recognize Stephanie’s face. “Miss Pope’s History Class. I sat right behind you.”

“Oh right, I remember now.” It didn’t sound like he did. “Well, it’s nice to officially meet you.”

“You too, Rondeau. It’s great to finally meet the boy that Tully has been going on and on about. You’re very lucky, you know, to have her.”

Tully rolled her eyes so hard it hurt her head. She should have known Stephanie would pull a joke like this. She gave Tully a soft, teasing wink.

Nathan didn’t catch on as easily as Tully did though. Probably because Tully hadn’t told him that Stephanie knew about all of this since the very beginning.

His arm tightened around Tully and he fell into the act like second nature. She just wanted to push him off. “Never felt luckier.”

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