Page 12 of Perfect Score

It made me feel special when he asked me to go with him. An ego boost that I really needed at the time after such a hard breakup with Liam.

The day before prom, Liam had heard that Brent had asked me to go as his date. Liam texted me, telling me to be careful and that Brent was a player, but I didn’t have a choice. It was too late to find a different date, and maybe I liked that Liam was a little jealous after dumping me.

I guess Liam got the last laugh when Brent canceled on me while I stood in my kitchen, dressed in my gown with my hair up and my makeup done. Liam showed up the next day with red roses and apologized for Brent being a jerk. We got back together that night.

So yeah, if Liam thought that Brent and I were dating, he would turn green with envy, I’m sure of it.

I hear Brent clear his throat next to me, and then I realize that I forgot to guard my phone.

“You want to make Liam jealous?” I hear Brent’s voice directly over my shoulder as he reads my text.

“Are you serious right now?” I ask, my eyebrows knitting together. I bury my phone back in my jacket pocket so that he can’t read anything else that my sister says. “Can’t you mind your own business for five minutes? I’m sure there’s a flight attendant around here somewhere that you could flirt with instead of spying on my conversation with Phoebe.”

Brent is the last man on earth that I want to dive into the nitty gritty of my failed engagement with Liam. I’d rather jump out of the emergency exit upon reaching altitude.

Think of the irony of it all. Attempting to make the man who left me before our wedding jealous of the man who left me at my house all night in a prom dress waiting for him to pick me up.

I think I’ll pass.

“I already know about the breakup. And I don’t need the flight attendant now that I have you,” he says.

My stomach twists. Of course, he already knows. We have mutual friends, after all, and it happened a year ago.

“What do you mean “you have me”? If you think I’m desperate enough to take the flight attendant's place and play tonsil hockey with you all weekend, then you’ve had too many hits to the head.”

He shakes his head with a lopsided grin. “That’s not what I meant. I’m saying we can help each other.”

I stare back at Brent, considering whether or not to ask him to elaborate, but I’m not sure if I want to know what he wants in return for this favor.

The thing is, I don’t really have a choice.

Part of me wants to tell him to go to hell, but there’s a small, annoying voice in the back of my mind reminding me I’m out of options. Brent might be the only one who can make this wedding bearable.

Chapter Four

Brent

Fucking Liam.

David told me that Liam and Zoey called off their engagement, but I never asked why… though I had a hunch.

I always wondered how he held on to her for so many years. He’d been cheating on her while he was away at college, and when he broke it off with her before prom, I saw my chance to move in.

After all, I’d seen her first in our freshman Spanish class, but when I told Liam about her during hockey practice, he made the first move a few days later.

I was young and stupid–a freshman in high school and Liam was the older hockey player, taking me under his wing. I didn’t put up a fight for Zoey. Then, when he left for college, I figured he’d be too busy chasing women around campus to care about who she went to prom with. Not to mention that dumping her right before the dance was fucked up, even for him, and I couldn’t let her go alone.

But that’s when it all fell apart.

Her predicament has my brain turning. Maybe I can help her make Liam jealous. And in return she can fake being my girlfriend for my grandmother’s birthday party.

It wouldn’t hurt to give a little “fuck you” to Liam in the process.

“I wouldn’t use a Christmas gram for your fake date. I watched a documentary once about a serial killer who used it as a disguise to pick his next victim.”

“What?!” She turns to me, her honey-brown eyes wide and her eyebrows up to her hairline.

I’m fucking with her to make sure she doesn’t get any other ideas. I’m her best option, and I need a woman to take to my gran’s birthday party.

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