Page 67 of Classroom Confessions

“Water. And there are some painkillers in the cabinet.” I sat on the edge of the couch and held my head in my hands. “It’s not as bad now. Just leave the lights off a little longer, please.”

Ethan and Cole stood in front of me. Cole moved first. “I’ll feed Fitz.”

Hearing his name, Fitz barked from down the hall. I squinted into the darkness leading to my bedroom. “Fitz, what are you doing?”

Another excited bark and then a muffled thud. No doubt, he’d been sleeping on my bed. Claws clicked and Fitz appeared in the hall, but he didn’t come from my bedroom. Prancing from my office, he held several papers between his teeth, his head tipped back to keep from walking on them as he carried them toward me.

“Fitz. If you chewed up my homework, I’m going to need you to explain it to my professors.” I tried to laugh, but the sudden movement shot another pain across my forehead.

Unconcerned, Fitz carried the papers over to Ethan and dropped them at his feet.

“I’m going to have a talk with Lily about teaching you new tricks.” I took the water and painkillers from David. “What did he ruin this time?”

Ethan bent at the waist, giving me an excellent view of his ass and the curve of his spine. Damn. If my head didn’t hurt so badly and they weren’t mad at me, I’d invite them back into my bedroom.

He straightened and carried the pages over to the window, tilting them toward the light coming in through the closed blinds. “Looks like a chapter from a book.” Ethan’s eyes narrowed. “And my name’s on it.”

Cold washed down my spine. My headache stopped mattering as I realized the truth. Fitz had brought Ethan my book, the book starring Ethan as the main character. Why had I thought it was a good idea to print off the pages? I’d wanted to do a manual readthrough to check for typos, that’s why. Damn me and my insatiable need to act old-school in a digital age.

33

ETHAN

Pain tore through my fingers as I gripped the pages. My eyes jumped from paragraph to paragraph, each one more explicit than the one before. Heat unlike anything I’d ever felt before—even in the darkest of my pits of anger—locked a vise around my ribs and squeezed. “What the fuck?” It was me, the things I’d done to Rebecca, and some things I’d dreamed of doing, written out in detail.

I shoved the papers toward David and Cole. Cole took them when David kept his hands by his sides. The poor man looked paralyzed, and I didn’t blame him for the state of abject, terrible fury stamped on his face.

The lack of light in the room suddenly felt right. What better atmosphere to learn about betrayal than in the gloom of a small apartment?

Rebecca stood, wavering on her feet with her brows pinched down in either pain or annoyance. “I can explain.” She’d been found out. She sure as fuck was going to explain.

“Yeah?” I barked out the response automatically, my voice matching the caustic feeling rumbling around in my gut. It churned, the acid hot and raw. “You can explain why our sex life is on those pages?” I stabbed a finger toward Cole, who held the pages up for him and David.

David took them from Cole and flipped through them too fast to read.

“It wasn’t meant to be like that. I…” She pressed both her thumbs into her temples and made slow circles. “I was pissed at you, and I was horny. So I wrote a story of what I thought you’d be like in bed.” Looking up, she scanned the room.

“What did you intend to do with this?” I waved at the papers in David’s hands. He’d gone an odd gray color exacerbated by the lack of natural light. He took a step back and gripped the edge of an antique table with one hand. A vintage typewriter sat behind him. I’d thought Rebecca’s house was charming when I first came here. It was a modern Victorian look with the typewriters and leather couch coming together in an odd conglomeration that somehow worked for her. Now I looked at it with suspicion. “You said you wanted to be a romance author. Were we nothing but fodder?”

“No.” She lurched forward with her hands outstretched in a gesture of surrender. “It was never like that.” A pause for a breath. “I mean, yeah, I used you for inspiration on that character, but it’s not really you.”

“Not really me?” I scrubbed both hands through my hair and down the back of my neck. “Fuck, Rebecca. You wrote out our sexual experience.”

She winced, caught in her own web of lies.

Cole fisted the papers, tearing them away from David. “I can’t say about the sex, but this character is different from you.” He focused on the pages. “Though they all do bear a striking similarity to each of us.” Coldness burned in his eyes when he strode toward Rebecca. “You’d better have a damned good explanation for this. We’re people too. You can’t use us like this.”

“I didn’t mean to.” She covered her face with her hands, her chest heaving with every breath. “I’d been working on another story, one that I thought would get me published. But I fucked up and Fitz destroyed the papers. It would have been easy to keep going with that story, but inspiration struck while in class with Ethan, and I started a new book.” She pointed. “That book.”

We kept silent. I wanted her to stew in this moment, this complete and utter disregard for our feelings and how it would look if anyone discovered our relationship this way.

Cole waved the papers toward her, then tossed them aside. They landed on the table and fanned out, slamming into the typewriter and spilling onto the floor. “So you used us for inspiration. You took our relationship and made it into a story.”

“What were your intentions with this?” I asked the question again since she’d refused to answer it the first time.

Fitz whined and danced around at our feet. The poor dog had no idea why he was being ignored. I leaned down and scruffed his ears. It wasn’t his fault we were arguing, but I was glad he’d brought the papers to us now. I blocked my mind to the thought of what might have happened if we’d learned about this later.

Rebecca stayed on her feet despite her headache and what looked like a desire to sink into the couch and never come up again. If I looked closely, I was sure I saw remorse, maybe even regret. No wonder. We’d caught her in the act of ruining us.

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