Page 50 of Faking It With the Small-Town Bad Boy

rancher. He built the shop, and I’ve worked there ever since.”

His eyes widen with every admission, like spilling my secrets is hard

to do. Most people in Rally already know all of this information,

except maybe the people who don’t care. Up until this idea of his,

Percy was one of those people who didn’t care about me. We ran in

different circles, and it’s not that I didn’t care for him before. He just

wasn’t on my radar.

Now that we have to see each other, we have to see one another as

our truest forms, or it will fall through.

“Fine,” he says at last, throwing his hands up while he leans forward

on the kitchen island with his elbows down. “I guess it’s my turn. I

like enchiladas the most. I’m not big into beef, but chicken is okay.

Sometimes fish. I play an old guitar that my father had laying around

the house when I was young. I picked it up, taught myself how to

learn it with online videos, and I play pretty well. My parents are

gone now, and I don’t miss them. I like old rock and roll more than

—”

“Wait,” I say, cutting him short in awe. “Repeat that.”

“The newer stuff just has so much techno and pop influence in it. I

like the older rock bands more. That’s not to say the new guys aren’t

good, but still. The heavy, old-fashioned sound is better, in my

opinion.”

“No,” I grunt, waving my hand between us to clear the fog in his

mind. “What did you just say about your parents?”

He sits up straighter as if surprised that he also said those words.

“Well, I’m not sorry, Leah. I don’t care. I should, but it’s hard to give

a damn when I watched them do it to themselves for so long.”

“What do you mean?”

“They were drug addicts, Leah. They killed themselves with that shit

and left me behind to deal with the mess of it all. I don’t care, and I

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