The Stand-In Boyfriend (Grove Valley High #1)(47)
She doesn’t wait for our response, just parks her ass between the two of us where there isn’t really any space, making me shift away.
Jessie acts like everything is normal and hits play on the movie while I sit there rigidly trying to control my emotions. I’m an idiot. Here I was thinking Jessie was happy to hang out with me, reading way too much into things—as per usual—and all I am is Courtney’s understudy.
After ten minutes, she leans in to kiss him. She kisses him like I’m not sitting next to them, like I can’t hear the sloppy noises they’re making and don’t notice her hands creeping toward him. My stomach turns. I can’t believe he’s letting her do this when he knows I’m sitting on the same damn bed as them.
I jump up and quickly gather my things. “I’m going to go,” I mutter, not even looking at them.
“Oh, sorry,” Courtney says, her voice so smug it makes me want to hit her, something I’d never dream of actually doing. “Are we making you uncomfortable?”
I don’t reply, just continue to gather up my books and shove them into my backpack, hunting around for my sweater, which I threw somewhere earlier.
“Baby, I just need to run to the bathroom,” Courtney tells Jessie, giving him another peck like she’s not going to be back in here in two minutes and making out with him for the rest of the night. She brushes past me without a word, but that same smug look is still on her face. Her plan worked—she’s gotten rid of me.
I swallow back the lump forming in my throat and turn back to Jessie. His hair is ruffled and his mouth is redder than usual—because he’s just been kissing Courtney, hard, with me in the room.
“Really?” I ask. I don’t care what he makes of the question. He wouldn’t dare do that in front of Sophie—why does he think he can do it in front of me? And why does he want to when he must know I’d hate it?
He shrugs but doesn’t meet my eye. “I didn’t think you’d care.”
I wouldn’t care that I was seconds away from witnessing her slipping her hands down his pants?
“What?” Jessie demands. “You don’t seem to mind PDA—you definitely didn’t with Chase the other night.”
And that’s what it comes down to: he saw me kissing Chase and this is his fucked-up way of getting back at me.
I turn and walk away without another word. I don’t even care that his words imply that he’s jealous, that he wasn’t happy about me kissing Chase. I only care that he’s capable of acting like a total freaking asshole to me.
I WAKE UP ON TUESDAY morning feeling like my brain is going to combust. The sunlight is too bright for me to deal with, and despite forcing two acetaminophen down my throat, the pain doesn’t lessen. My mom takes one look at me and tries to send me back to bed. I start to shake my head but stop because it hurts too much to make sudden movements. I can’t miss school. I have a math test that is a big percentage of my grade and there’s no way I can miss it. I start to explain this to my mom and she sighs and gives in before I even finish my sentence. She knows if she makes me stay home I’ll only worry and stress out about it. She reluctantly kisses me on the forehead, makes me promise to call her if I get worse, then takes my phone, calls Sophie, and asks her to come pick me up before I can even process what she’s doing.
By third period I’m starting to think it wasn’t a good idea for me to show up to school, test or not, and by lunchtime I’m honestly concerned that my head is going to implode while I simultaneously vomit all over the cafeteria floor. There’s not a chance I’ll make it to soccer practice.
“You look even worse than you did this morning.” Sophie tells me as I lower myself into my seat. My whole body aches, and she’s right. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror in the bathroom and my complexion actually looks gray. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt this ill.
“You should go home.” This time it’s from Jessie. I glance at him and he offers me a small smile. It’s genuine and full of concern, and something about it makes me relax. I feel like we’re always so on edge around each other these days and I honestly wanted to kill him for being such a selfish asshole last night, but when he saw me this morning in the hall right after homeroom, he apologized right away and told me Courtney left pretty shortly after me. She walked past me on the way to English and gave me a dirty look, which I assume means he was telling the truth and they must have had some sort of argument over it. To be honest, I was feeling too crappy to try to figure it out. “I’ll drive you,” he tells me.
I start to shake my head. “No, I can’t. I have to just get through math and then I’ll go.”
“No,” he states firmly. “I’ll talk to Ms. Peters and explain. She’ll let you retest when you’re feeling better. You need to rest.”
“I think I should—”
“No arguments.”
I nod in defeat, because he’s right.
Chase appears. “Hey, I’ve been texting you. I spoke to Ab—”
He stops suddenly when I turn my head to the side—slowly, because sudden movements are a total bitch today—and see him staring down at me. The look on his face tells me Sophie was being kind. He frowns when he sees me and quickly sits down, straddling the bench so he’s facing me. Surprise is written all over his face. I was fine when he saw me yesterday in the parking lot, and now I look like the walking dead. He reaches for my hips and tugs me closer to him, but the sudden movement makes me wince in pain.