The Stand-In Boyfriend (Grove Valley High #1)(61)

“What?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “Nothing.”

“Soph?”

“You’re still set on Jessie, huh?”

My eyes flash to hers and I know she doesn’t buy for a second that her telling me about Chase’s college girl hasn’t thrown me, but I don’t know why she’s asking me about Jessie. Nothing has changed there. My feelings are exactly the same as they have been for years. “Yes,” I reply with complete certainty. “I still want Jessie.”

She nods in acceptance. She knows better than anyone how deeply rooted my crush on him is. She knows I’m not lying if I say I want him, despite how confusing Chase is starting to make things. “Well he should be here. He’s never one to miss a party, and he was really happy for you.”

I grin. I’m not going to pretend I’m not happy to hear that. “I can’t believe we kissed. What do you think it means?”

She starts to laugh and rolls her eyes. “Do not try to figure that out now.” She shakes her head in amusement. “Deal with that mind fuck tomorrow.”

“But where is he?”

She rolls her eyes. “Who cares? His moody ass will show up soon enough. You just need to enjoy the night.”

I grin at her. She’s right. For once I need to not make this about Jessie. Tonight is about me and my team, not Chase, and not Jessie.

“Here, have some of this,” she tells me, pushing a red cup into my hands.

I glance down dubiously. “What is it?”

She grins. “Something that will make you feel even better and let you forget about Jessie.”

I bite my lip and hesitate for all of a second. I usually don’t drink much, but tonight is an exception. She raises an eyebrow in a challenge. I raise my cup in the air, shoot her a grin, and down it in one gulp. Then we make a beeline over to the drinks table and mix up two more.



“Chapman, you lose again!” Tia crows at me from across the table. We’re playing beer pong, although we’ve substituted the beer for vodka and lemonade. I’m not quite sure how I got roped into playing this game again, and I’m just as bad as I was last time.

Sophie starts laughing hysterically from beside me. She seems to be enjoying me losing a lot more than she should.

“Down it!” Hallie demands from her place next to Tia. “Down it, down it, down it.”

I shrug my shoulders and reach for my cup, staggering into Sophie as I do, but before I can get it to my lips, it’s taken out of my hand. “Hey!”

“You’ll thank me tomorrow,” Chase assures me, a look of amusement on his face.

“She needs to drink that,” Tia insists. “It’s the rules.”

Chase doesn’t think twice before downing the whole cup himself. Tia looks outraged, but Sophie cracks up laughing again. “Aww, Liv, Chase is being your hero—how sweet.”

“Shut it, Steele,” he tells her before grabbing my arm and tugging me away from them. I stumble into him and he snickers and wraps an arm around me, leading me out of the room, down the hall, and into the kitchen. It’s still pretty busy in here and as I look around, I see a few people I recognize from school, but no one whose names I know.

“Who are all these people?” I ask as he leads me over to his humongous fridge.

He shrugs. “People from school, I guess.”

“Aww,” I tease, “is the great Chase Mitchell too good to know their names?”

He smirks. “Shut up, Chapman.”

I stand up taller as he pulls out a bottle of water from the fridge, unscrews the lid, and wordlessly passes it over to me. I chug down half of it immediately. “Seriously though, thanks for letting us have the party here. That’s really nice of you.”

He leans against the counter next to me. “Anything for my girl.”

I burst out into a fit of giggles. My girl. He’s very good at keeping this act up all the time. I’ve conveniently shoved what Sophie told me about the college girl to the back of my head, and now that I’ve had a bit of time to think about it and had a few more drinks, it seems silly. Chase probably just didn’t like her and is being a good guy, sticking to our agreement.

Again he rolls his eyes at me, and when I nearly fall over from laughing too hard even though it really wasn’t that funny he grabs my waist and hoists me up on top of the counter.

I stare down at him in surprise, unsure how I made it up here. He’s just staring back at me in amusement, his green eyes sparkling, and the strangest thing happens—I almost lose my breath.

Wow. Sophie and all the other girls were right—Chase really is gorgeous.

I reach out and brush back a lock of hair that has fallen onto his forehead. “You’re really good-looking, aren’t you?”

He laughs again. “You’re drunk.”

I shake my head. “I just figured it out. Now I get why everyone likes you—you’re really hot.”

“Oh am I?”

“Uh huh,” I state. “And really nice. I never knew you were nice until we started hanging out.”

He just smiles back at me. Something tells me he’ll enjoy reminding me of this tomorrow when I’m sober and will be mortified.

“Honestly, Chase, you’re hot.”