Page 13 of Faking It With the Small-Town Bad Boy

“I’d fucking kill for a sip of whiskey right now,” he mutters. “I’ve been

dealing with this shit for months.”

“What happened between you two?”

He doesn’t seem amused with my rather dismissive interest in his

history with my ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend, and he’s even less

interested in the obvious struggle he’s facing in wanting a sip of

alcohol.

And yet, he doesn’t disappoint.

“We had been dating for the last four or five years,” he grunts. “It was

a fast-paced kind of thing. We fell for one another fast, and I thought

it was just her way of being rebellious against her father. Being in

politics, he wanted his daughter to be this princess of a lady. She was

more into getting into trouble just so he would bail us out of it.”

“So, what happened? Get into trouble you couldn’t weasel out of for

once?”

Ignoring my rather sharp tone, he replies, “I caught her naked with

your prince charming.”

I wince, surprised by how much that actually hurt to hear. “How…

how long ago was that?”

He shrugs, looking at the array of bottles longingly. “About four

months ago.”

Swallowing the brick in my throat, I wish I never came in here in the

first place and struck up this conversation. All I can think about is

the joy Ryan brought me for four years of our high school era. For

the time after we graduated and were navigating our lives together in

this little town. For the talks of marriage and family in our early

twenties.

I gave him my virginity, my heart, and every secret there was to share

—and he left me at the peak of my pain. To get in bed with a woman

who was already in a relationship with someone else.

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