The Stand-In Boyfriend (Grove Valley High #1)(80)

Sophie pulls up outside my house but I don’t move. I’m totally drained of energy. Even climbing out of the car and heading up to my room seems like an impossible task right now.

“He hates me, doesn’t he?”

Sophie shifts uncomfortably. She doesn’t have to ask who I’m talking about. “He seemed pretty upset,” she concedes.

I nearly laugh out loud. Upset is an understatement. From where I was standing, it looked like I’d broken his heart, but when did I get the power to do that? When did it change between us? And why have I only just figured it out?

“Are you okay?” Sophie’s voice is gentle.

I lean back against the headrest, closing my eyes. No. No, I’m not okay. I’ve messed everything up. “I don’t know what to do,” I admit.

“What happened?” That’s right—she doesn’t even know. She just supported me as always, no questions asked.

“I kissed Jessie. Chase walked in.”

A faint smile covers her lips. “I figured that, Liv. I mean how did it happen?”

I shrug and have to fight to hold back the tears. I hate that something I’ve wanted for so long, have literally dreamed about for years finally happened and has left me feeling like this. Jessie is everything I’ve always wanted, but all I can focus on is the betrayal on Chase’s face. It was never supposed to happen like this. “He, um…” I try to remember exactly what happened; it feels like a lifetime ago when I went up to his room. “Hallie told me he was upset so I went to his room.” I sigh. “He knew, Soph. He knew how I felt all along, and I dunno, we just…I wasn’t…he said he loved me.”

Her eyes flash. “He said what?”

I frown at the look on her face. “He said he loved me, said he was scared before and had messed it all up.”

Sophie lets out a snort of disbelief, shaking her head.

“What?” I ask sharply, and she mutters something under her breath that I don’t understand. “What?” I ask again. “What did you say?”

She sighs loudly before turning to me. “I said typical.”

“What?” My brain doesn’t have the capacity to figure this out right now.

“I said typical fucking Jessie.”

I screw up my face. I have no idea what she’s talking about. “I kissed him, Soph, not the other way around.”

“Yeah, after he’d just told you he loves you. The selfish dick manipulated you into it.”

“Hey! Don’t talk about him like that. He’s our best friend.”

“No,” she states firmly. “You’re my best friend, Livy. You.” She must see the confusion written all over my face because she explains further. “I like Jessie. He’s fun, but he’s also selfish and takes you for granted. You’re my number one. You’re the one whose back I’ve got.”

I reach up and rub my fists into my eyes. All three of us have always been friends. She’s going to have to break this down for me.

“Look, Livy, you’ve liked Jessie for years, right?” I nod. “Well did you really think he didn’t know how you felt?”

I blush. Not until he told me. I really did think I was better at hiding it, and if he knew, God knows how many people actually knew my so-called secret. “He didn’t want to ruin things between us.”

She curls her lip at his reasoning. “He didn’t want to change things because having you there on a leash was convenient for him.”

My jaw falls open. “I was not there on a leash.”

She looks me right in the eye. “He gets you to do his homework, you’re willing to drop everything if he needs you, you always have his back no matter what, even when he’s shoving other girls in your face—of course he didn’t want to change things between you. He had it good as far as you were concerned, and he didn’t give a damn that he was using you and hurting you by keeping you so close.”

“That’s not…” I’m so shocked that I’m stumbling over my words. “That’s not what happened.”

“And then Chase took what he considered to be his and he didn’t like it. He clearly didn’t care that you’re happy with Chase, that you’re the happiest and most relaxed I’ve ever seen you. Nope, Jessie Stephenson doesn’t care about that.”

I’m astounded. I had no idea she thought about Jessie like that. I always thought all three of us were best friends. “But Chase and I aren’t real, you know that.”

She scoffs. “If you and Chase weren’t real then you wouldn’t be shaking like a leaf and he wouldn’t have looked like someone just killed his dog.” She’s confirming what I already know.

This is too much, way too much information. “So you don’t think Jessie loves me?”

She throws her hands up in the air. “I don’t know. He cares about you. He’s crazy jealous of Chase—there was no hiding that. Of course he cares about you and he’d be crazy not to love you, but it just seems very convenient for him right now.”

I want to tell her to shut up, want to tell her she’s wrong, but it’s all sounding painfully true, and the one thing I know above anything else is that Sophie wouldn’t lie to me. She has no reason to, and she’s the one who has my back one hundred percent. “What am I gonna do?”