Page 184 of The Dixon Rule

It is real.

Not to him, it wasn’t.

To my utter horror, tears sting my eyelids. I start blinking rapidly in a desperate attempt to contain them.

“What’s wrong with your face?” Mya demands, and I realize she’s watching me in the side mirror.

Gulping the lump in my throat, I swipe my coat sleeve against my suddenly burning eyes.

“Hey, Diana, seriously. What’s going on?” Gigi looks concerned. “Did you get in a fight with Shane?”

“Not really.” My voice shakes a little. “I mean, he went to meet up with his ex-girlfriend after I asked him not to.”

“Whoa.” Mya whistles softly.

“And she just broke up with her boyfriend and clearly wants him back. But you know…” Sarcasm drips from my voice. “He ‘owes it to their history’ to hear her out.”

Mya’s jaw drops.

Gigi curses. “Are you kidding me? What do you mean, hear her out? She’s obviously trying to win him back.”

“Yeah, that’s what I said.” I clench my teeth to stop my lips from quivering. “But whatever. It doesn’t matter. He can do whatever the hell he wants.”

“He’s your boyfriend.”

“Actually, he’s not.” A tired laugh slips out. “He never was.”

The confession hangs in the car. A loud honk makes us all jump. The man in the car behind us is pissed that Gigi isn’t going through the intersection. She holds her hand up in an apologetic wave and moves forward, heading in the direction of the interstate. It’s about an hour drive back to Hastings, and after this bomb I dropped, I know it’s not going to be a comfortable one.

“It started with him wanting to save face when Lynsey showed up at his apartment with her new boyfriend. So I went over there and, you know, pretended that we were dating. And then he returned the favor after Percy started harassing me.”

“Gigi told me about that,” Mya says, sounding upset. “How on earth did Percival turn into a stalker?”

“I know, right?” I bury my face in my hands and groan into my palms.

When I raise my head, I feel anxious and sad and pissed all in one. I was on such a high earlier. Especially after the tango. Sure, the cha cha was passable, and the Viennese waltz could have been better, but oh my God, that tango.

I’ve never experienced anything like it. The thrill that shot through me when Shane was commanding the floor with his presence, basically fucking me in front of the entire audience without removing a stitch of clothing. After that, everything else seemed anticlimactic. That tango lives in my blood. I’m not surprised we came in fifth.

What I am surprised about is that he chose Lynsey over me. Maybe I’m naive, but I truly believed he was done with her.

I say this out loud now, sighing unhappily.

“I saw the difference in him from the summer until now. We even ran into her once on campus and he didn’t seem like he was pining anymore. He was giving me signals that he was into me.”

Gigi bites her lip. “I think he is into you.”

“Then why the hell did he go off with his ex-girlfriend?” Mya counters.

“You’re not helping,” chides Gigi.

“No, I am helping because we’re not going to delude her into thinking that the guy is into her. This all started because he used her to make his ex jealous.” Mya twists in her seat. “He told you he still had feelings for her, right?”

“In not so many words, yes.”

“So feelings just don’t go away.”

“Yes, they do,” Gigi insists. “Feelings do go away, and then you meet someone new and new feelings develop, and the old ones don’t matter anymore.”

---