Total pages in book: 136
Estimated words: 131789 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 659(@200wpm)___ 527(@250wpm)___ 439(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131789 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 659(@200wpm)___ 527(@250wpm)___ 439(@300wpm)
“Listen.” He takes a step toward me, but my glare stops him dead. “I didn’t read your DMs or anything. I only wanted to get to know you better.”
“You can’t turn this around like what you did wasn’t fucking creepy.”
And I don’t know what to do with the fact that he believed this was a legitimate way of meeting someone. Behind my back. While I slept. Poking around in the dark.
A rush of anger bubbles in my stomach. “You lied to me.”
Then another piece of this sleazy puzzle clicks into place.
“Oh my God. That’s why you knew I liked Sleater-Kinney! Because you got it from my social media.” I take a step closer, shoving a finger in his chest and barely containing the impulse to shove him on his ass. “You let me talk about my mom.”
“That’s true,” he rushes to say, holding his hands up in surrender. “But I swear, I had no idea what that music meant to you. I wouldn’t have—”
“What? Used my dead mother to get a date? But you’ll totally betray my privacy and my trust.”
I don’t know what to do with the rage burning in my chest. It’s suffocating. I can’t catch my breath. My legs move because I can’t stand still, too much adrenaline coursing through my veins.
“Fuck, RJ. You know I actually liked you? Against my better judgment. But you got me.”
His face falls, wounded. Good.
“I knew better. I told myself not to let my guard down. I broke my own promise to myself, for fuck’s sake. I was supposed to concentrate on school this year, and instead I’ve been texting with you in class and acting like some smitten preteen.” My voice cracks slightly, which only adds insult to injury. He’s not allowed to hear how much this affects me. I clear my throat, arming myself with another harsh look. “You know what I liked best about you? How upfront you were with me. That you were real.” I meet his eyes with a bitter smirk. “Turns out, we’ve never even met.”
“Sloane.”
His gaze softly pleads for another minute. To spin some yarn about how, when you think about it, the despicable lengths he went to only proves the depths of his sincerity, or some other weak-ass bullshit.
But he can save the words for the next target. I’m already gone.
“Have a nice life, rookie.”
Chapter 29
Sloane
I thought I knew who I was. I thought I could trust myself. Now I’m pulling stuffing out through my burst seams, and it doesn’t look like me. I’m a disheveled toy on the floor watching her vacant reflection in the mirror.
My sister watches me from my bed, her teeth digging into her bottom lip. When I stormed into the house after the fight with RJ, she’d taken one look at my face and corralled me up to my bedroom before Dad could see me. I’m pretty sure there’d been tears in my eyes. Actual tears. Nobody makes Sloane Tresscott cry. Asshole.
“If you gave him a chance to explain…” she finally hedges.
“Kind of need you to be on my side with this, Case.”
“I am. Obviously. I just think—”
“Whatever you’re about to say, write it down on a little piece of paper, fold it up real small, stick it in your mouth, and swallow it.”
“Fine. Jeez.”
Lying on my bedroom floor, I close my eyes and try to remember our first conversation. When I clocked RJ as more trouble than he was worth and then walked away. Turns out that was the last good decision I made before his whispers soaked into my skin and sprouted into curiosity, already too late to realize he’d been manipulating me from the start.
“I’m such an idiot. How did I not see this coming?” Bile stings the back of my throat and I gag thinking about what had happened on that path before his phone interrupted us. “How did I ever like him? I fell for my own stalker. I blew him in the woods, Case. Like, just now! I was on my knees with his dick in my mouth.”
Casey’s cheeks go a little pink, and she looks like she’s trying not to laugh. “Oh. Wow.”
“Right? Fucking embarrassing.”
“Sloane, come on. You didn’t do anything wrong.” Now she’s watching me with a sympathetic if helpless frown. “It sounded like he was really into you. Seems like he still is.”
I lurch upright. “He was playing me. Invading my privacy so he could pretend we had so much in common. I can’t trust anything he said was ever the truth.”
Casey’s eyes dart across the room. Her face contorts and I see the strain to bite back the words.
“What?” I demand.
“I am on your side. Just remember that.” Her fingers pick at the corner of a pillow while she musters up the courage to spit it out. “And I’m not saying it’s exactly the same thing…”