Chapter 12 #3
“Turns out, they didn’t just ‘hit it off.’ She started texting him that night.
Then meeting up with him after track practice.
It went on for nearly three weeks right under my nose while I was busy thinking everything was great.
She was coming over to my house, sitting on my bed, kissing me goodbye, and then Justin would sneak out his window to meet her in her car. ”
“That’s horrifying,” I whispered. A wave of sickness washed over me. “Rhys, that’s vile.”
“When I found out,” Rhys said, turning his head to look at me, his green eyes hollow and dangerous in the dim light, “I lost my mind. I threw Justin into the drywall in the upstairs hallway. My dad had to physically drag me off him. That was the night the whole house split in half. And Justin didn’t even care, Ainsley.
He just wiped his mouth, looked at me, and said, If she wanted to be with you, she wouldn’t have come looking for me. ”
“That’s why your parents are so obsessed with pushing you two together,” I realized softly. “They’re trying to fix a broken house.”
“They can try all they want.” He finally looked back at the ceiling.
“I will never forgive him. Not for taking her—if she wanted him, she could have him. But for doing it like a coward behind my back while living under the same roof. He destroyed whatever family we were trying to build, and he acts like he just won a game.”
A sudden, horrifying wave of embarrassment crashed over me as I realized I didn’t know Justin at all.
All this time I’d spent mooning over him, obsessed with the pieces of himself he shared with the world, all the while I had no idea what he was like on the inside.
I felt a sudden, sharp spike of revulsion—not just at Justin, but at my own foolishness.
The shallow, silly crush I’d carried for him didn’t just feel old; it felt dead.
It had withered into dust the second Rhys described his step-brother.
“I can’t believe I ever thought he was interesting,” I blurted out, the words bursting out of me in a rush of disgust. My face started burning as I buried my chin deeper into my knees. “Why didn’t you tell me to stay away from him?”
Okay, blaming Rhys for not telling me what Justin was like was definitely unfair considering the circumstances, so I didn’t take them back.
“I believe I told you that you looked pathetic,” he reminded me. “Was that not enough of a warning?”
“I didn’t know he was a sociopath!” I yelled quietly, hitting his knee with the side of my foot. “I thought he was just quiet! I feel completely sick now. I am officially revoking my past self’s right to make romantic decisions.”
“Your taste was appalling, Novak,” Rhys teased, his voice dropping into that low, gravelly register that made my stomach do a strange, dizzying flip. “I literally have to fake-date you just to save you from ruining your own life.”
“You didn’t save me, you trapped me,” I shot back, though the words were weakened by the circumstances.
I looked at him, taking in the faint shadow near his temple, the tired lines around his eyes, the way he was sitting so close to me that I could feel the heat radiating off his shoulder.
“In all seriousness... I’m glad I know. He’s terrible. And you didn’t deserve any of that.”
His smirk faded and he glanced away from me with a half-shrug. “Yeah, I know.”
I hated how small he looked in that moment. How obvious it was that he wasn’t taking in my words. I hated that Justin and Kelcey had done that to him.
“You know,” I said, shifting into a more comfortable position where I was facing him better, “Sebastian used to date a girl that we all called a she-devil.”
Rhys raised one perfect eyebrow. “You called someone a she-devil?”
I ignored whatever he was implying. “Tiffany was a lot like Kelcey. She’d break his heart, cheat, leave, and then show up on our porch two weeks later crying because she missed him.
And Sebastian would take her back every single time.
It went for so long that I got sick of hearing him say how he was never going to take her back.
Every time was supposedly the last one.”
“And now?” he asked. “Are they together or broken up?”
“Oh, she’s gone now,” I said, waving a dismissive hand. “Since September, actually.”
“What snapped him out of it?”
I smiled as I thought of it. “I guess you could say he found out what love really feels like.”
It had all been a stroke of luck—him kissing Nora in a game at a party and starting to pursue her. They’d fallen head over heels for each other, and since then, they’d never been apart. I couldn’t even remember the last time anybody brought up Tiffany.
“Huh,” Rhys murmured, his green eyes reflecting the faint blue light of the TV. “Turns out your brother and I have more in common than I thought.”
“Don’t tell him that or he might kill us all,” I joked.
But the laughter died in my throat as I looked at him—really looked at him.
The boy who was supposed to be my nemesis, sitting in the dark with a bag of frozen peas, telling me a sad story of his life like it was nothing.
“For what it’s worth, Rhys... Kelcey made the worst mistake of her life. ”
Rhys went entirely still. He looked down at his hands, his fingers lightly linking together as he digested what I’d said.
“Maybe,” he whispered after a long moment. “Or maybe it was for the best.”
I tilted my head, confused by the strange, thick tension creeping back into the space between us. “For the best? How is getting cheated on with your step-brother for the best?”
“Because,” Rhys said quietly, “I loved Kelcey. I really did. But... the truth is, Ainsley... even when I was with her... I never really stopped thinking about that first girl.”
“Oh.” The word came out in one harsh breath.
I wasn’t sure why I hadn’t been expecting it.
Of course he still wanted that girl—moving on with Kelcey wouldn’t have erased those feelings.
What I didn’t understand was why I was so…
upset about it. It was good that Rhys was interested in somebody else.
That meant he was moving on. Maybe our fake relationship was helping him move forward.
“Well, maybe if we keep doing this fake dating thing, she’ll see us together,” I said. I tried to infuse some optimism into my voice for him, even if I wasn’t feeling it. “Maybe she’ll get jealous and you’ll finally get her.”
Rhys dragged his eyes away from the TV screen saver to finally look at me. There was so much depth and emotion in his green eyes that I felt like they were pulling me in.
“Yeah,” Rhys murmured softly, his voice dropping to a low, rough whisper that sent a shiver straight down my spine. “I hope so.”