The Stand-In Boyfriend (Grove Valley High #1)(16)

He just starts laughing again. “Maybe because Chase told Sarah Billington you did because he knew it would get all around school.”

I groan out loud. Sarah Billington is Grove Valley’s biggest gossip queen, not to mention one of Abigail’s best friends—no wonder the whole school knows. “Is he crazy? I’m going to kill him.” I glance over at Aaron. “Stop laughing!”

“Oh, come on. It is funny!”

“No, it’s not!” Chase Mitchell deciding something and then putting it into motion without my permission is not funny.

“Yes, it is!”

“No, it isn’t. I don’t even know the guy and now everyone thinks we’ve hooked up.” A thought occurs to me. “He did only say we kissed, right? No one thinks we went further?”

He shrugs. “People always assume things.” I pale, and I see Aaron’s eyes widen on my face. “No, no,” he backtracks. “Everyone knows you’re not like that.”

“Chase Mitchell is telling people I’ve slept with him?”

He shakes his head vehemently. “No, absolutely not. He would never do that.”

The panic in me is starting to rise and my eyes flicker around the hall. Is it just my imagination or is everyone staring at me? “But he’ll tell everyone we kissed?”

He shrugs helplessly. I can tell he wishes he hadn’t started teasing me.

“Oh God. This is bad. This is really bad. I don’t want people to think I hooked up with him.”

“Hey, look, I know you don’t know him very well and barely talk to him, but Chase is a good guy. All those rumors that go around about him are hardly ever true.”

Hardly ever true. Well that means some of them are, and that hardly fills me with confidence. When he’s not with Abigail, there are plenty of rumors about Chase that circulate the halls of this school. They’re most of the reason why he and Abigail are always breaking up. At times it seems like there’s a different rumor every week about the number of girls he’s hooked up with, older women who are after him, the places he’s partied. Chase Mitchell’s lifestyle is common knowledge, and it’s what makes him a living legend amongst all the guys (which is probably why Jessie wants to be him so badly) and makes all the girls want him.

“Hey, Livy.” I turn back to him and his face has softened. “Chase won’t let you come out of this looking bad, I promise. He wouldn’t do that.”

“Have you heard what he thinks we should do?”

“Pretend to date?” I nod. “You should totally do it.”

“No way.” I was considering it, but not anymore, not now that Chase has decided all on his own that it’s happening and has gotten the ball rolling without any agreement from me. He’ll get a piece of my mind when I see him.

“Oh, come on! It’s perfect. It’ll get Abigail away from him and…” His voice trails off.

“And what?” I ask sharply, my face warming. Please don’t say anything about Jessie. It’s bad enough that Sophie and Chase know and pity me; I don’t want Aaron to say it too.

“And nothing. You should just do it.”

“No. Besides, what’s the point in us pretending if he’s going to tell everyone it’s fake?”

Aaron rolls his eyes. “He didn’t tell everyone, just me, and I’m a vault.”

I can’t really say anything about that considering I told Sophie less than two hours ago, but still.

“Whatever,” I mutter and push through the doors into the cafeteria, leaving Aaron to laugh at me in the hall. I keep my chin high, ignoring the extra glances I’m getting, no doubt a result of Chase’s lies. I wave my hand in greeting at the girls from the team who are all sitting at their usual table by the windows then head over to the table in the far corner where Jessie, Sophie, and I have eaten lunch every day since we were freshmen.

I plop down into one of the seats and look up just as Jessie walks into the room. He glances my way and nods in greeting before heading to the line to pick up his lunch. The rule is that the first one here always holds the table, or at least it was at the start, but Sophie is forever late to lunch and I know Jessie is starving when he gets here so I always sit down and let him grab his food first. The boy gets grumpy when he’s hungry, and I’d rather not deal with that. I pull out the book we’re reading in English lit and start thumbing through it, waiting for the others, but I can’t concentrate. I’m too irritated with Chase.

“So I heard something in math,” Jessie announces before even putting his tray down on the table.

I swallow. It’s obvious what’s coming. He doesn’t wait for me to respond.

“Caleb Smith said you hooked up with Chase Mitchell at the party on Saturday.” He looks at me warily. “I told him it’s wasn’t true.”

I nod, not looking him in the face.

“I mean, I told him that was crazy. You and Mitchell have barely even spoken before, right?”

“Um…”

“And I mean, you never hook up with anybody.”

“Yeah—”

“And you would have told me, right?” His gaze is pinned to mine, confusion clouding his eyes.

“I couldn’t find you on Saturday,” I tell him quietly, looking at him carefully for his reaction. “I’m not saying anything happened, but even if I had wanted to tell you something on Saturday, you were gone when I got back from playing beer pong with Aaron.” His eyes dart away from my face and he sits down, rearranging the food on his tray and looking anywhere but me. “Where were you?”