Page 12 of Fool Me Once

Just then, Tripp marches over to me, holding up a bottle of Viagra pills that I had delivered to the front office in his name.

“I know this was you.” His eyes are dark.

Tripp is basically Kolt, but less scary-looking. He’s intense, and he’s grumpy.

Which is why I love to fuck with him.

I squint my eyes. “Viagra?” I rear my head back. “Trippy, you’re too young to be working with a limp noodle, my friend.”

“Fuck off,” he gripes. “Between Logan’s dad jokes and your stupid fucking pranks, I’m fixing to switch teams.”

“My dad jokes are harmless though,” Logan says, eyes wide. “That motherfucker put itching powder all over my hoodie last week, and I was pretty sure I had scabies. I even googled that shit and freaked Maci out.”

I never own up to the pranks, yet they always know it’s me.

Ignoring them all, I start toward the shower, stopping to look over my shoulder. “Hey, Ryder?”

“What?”

“Stay the fuck away from Gemma Jones. And don’t make me repeat that either.”

I don’t wait around for a response. He’s one of my best friends, but even he knows better than to fuck with me after he’s been warned.

I sit on the couch, staring blankly at the open Netflix app displayed on the television.

Since I got here a whopping five days ago, Saylor and I have watched far too many episodes of a series. One night when she didn’t have to work the next day, we stayed up the entire night and watched all ofNobody Wants This, and then we moved on toBridgerton, which, admittingly, I hadn’t thought I’d even like, but then—bam—I became low-key obsessed.

But now, I want to watch more. Only I feel guilty because if Saylorwere home and I was busting my ass, working a twelve-hour shift, and she watched it without me, I’d be pissed. So, here I sit, waiting for her to finish her shift in a little over an hour so that we can eat food that is bad for us and stare mindlessly at the TV screen.

My phone vibrates, and even though Saylor and my parents are the only ones who have my new number, a chill instantly runs down my spine, and my bones are filled with sheer panic.

Looking down, I exhale when I see it’s my mom. After dodging her phone calls for five days straight and holding her over by sending back short text messages, I know I need to answer the phone and talk to her. It was hard—admitting to myself that Richie wasn’t who I’d thought he was. But telling my parents that same thing? I fear it will be impossible.

The thought of sitting them down and telling them what I’ve been through makes me feel sick to my stomach. It’s going to kill them, and the truth is … I don’t want to kill them.

“Hey, Mom,” I say as pleasantly as I can muster up.

For a while now, it’s been hard to find any sort of joy. To be honest, most days, it seems like if happiness were a battery inside my soul, mine would be depleted. And as pathetic as it sounds, I’m not sure I’d be able to find a charger anywhere.

“Jesus, Gemma. What is going on with you?” She sounds panicked. “First, you text me from this random number and tell me you have a new phone, and then you ghost everyone. I have been trying to reach you for days, and aside from a few half-assed text messages, you’ve barely responded.”

My mom doesn’t swear much. And if she does, it’s because she’s either really angry or really worried. In this situation, it’s definitely a mix of both.

“Yeah, I, um …” I utter, scrambling to find the right words. I can’t lie to my mom about my whereabouts. But there’s some strange feeling of shame or embarrassment that’s making it insufferable to even get the words out to tell her what happened.

Everything that’s been happening.

“It’s just been a rough few days—that’s all,” I say weakly. “I didn’t mean to ignore you. I’ve just been dealing with … a lot.”

She wastes no time firing back. “Richie answered my call. He said you took off and that he assumed you had another man because of this wholenew number thing, but that he didn’t know where you were.” There’s no mistaking the disdain in her tone. “I don’t understand why you’d want to take off and leave your fiancé right before Thanksgiving and just weeks away from your wedding.”

My stomach drops. Even though I know he just told her what he thought would buy him time, I can’t quiet that voice inside my brain, telling me that he really does know where I am and is going to show up here.

That’s just my paranoia talking though—I hope anyway. Because Richie is a smart man, the first thing I did after leaving him was get a prepaid phone that couldn’t be tracked. And I texted my mom from it the first night I stayed at Saylor’s, saying I was safe but had left California for good.

“Gemma? Are you there?” she barks out. “Talk to me, would you?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m here,” I whisper. “I …” I stall, not knowing what to say.

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