All the Little Lies (English Prep 1)

I felt a shove to my shoulder. “What?” I asked in a daze.

Ollie’s mouth split in two, and then he started to laugh. Our group of friends all stopped what they were doing and stared. “Dude, I’ve never ever seen you like this.”

“Like what?” I asked, keeping my eyes off Hayley.

“Fucking shit... I don’t even know.”

Eric popped up beside Ollie. “I think the word he’s looking for is…not a fucking asshole.”

I shrugged. “I’m not always an ass.”

“You surely aren’t right now, which means…” His line of sight left mine. “Does this mean what I think it means?”

“Does this mean what?” April, along with her catty friends, sauntered up, all of their faces burning my irises. Did I really find any of these girls attractive before Hayley?

“Christian?” Eric snagged my attention, and I gave him a small flick of my head.

Hayley doesn’t want unneeded attention, and I understood that. I respected it. I told her I'd try my hardest to keep things level on my end when it came to us. Keeping things under wraps for now was okay with me.

I wasn’t going to stop staring at her, though.

And it probably wasn’t going to stop me from sneaking in touches every chance I got.

But I’d try.

For her.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Hayley

Christian was absolutely awful at keeping his distance from me at school. It’d only been two days since the treehouse incident, and basically, the entire school knew something was up.

I smiled more, and Christian wasn’t his usual, brooding self.

We’d get caught staring at each other, and someone would make a comment. Christian wouldn’t correct them, and neither would I. I was at a point where I didn’t care much about high school drama. Madeline’s secret dirty looks in PE did nothing to faze me. April and a few other girls rolled their eyes at me or made comments about my uniform being too worn, but I only shrugged.

Things were good.

Christian snuck in kisses and forbidden touches under the stairwell at school, and afterwards, when his hands would leave my waist because the bell rang and soon students would start pouring through the hallways, I felt indifferent.

Unwanted attention was something I’d always been against.

But now that it stole Christian away from me, I was second-guessing my decision. I didn’t care if people knew I was a poor foster kid, and I shouldn’t care if they knew I was with Christian. Most girls would have been flaunting it everywhere, if they were me. But that was the difference between me and other girls my age. I didn’t want to flaunt it for them; I wanted to flaunt it for me. I didn’t want to hide him, because I actually felt better with him by my side.

I wanted him by my side.

Just as the thought escaped me, a large hand wrapped around my waist and pulled me around the hallway corner. I yelped and spun around, exhilarated. “Hi.”

Christian’s lip tipped upward. “Hey.” Then, his hands wrapped around my face, and he kissed me. He swooped his tongue into my mouth, which left me breathless.

I pulled away quickly, butterflies floating in my stomach. My hands clasped onto his wrists.

His brow furrowed. “What’s wrong?”

I swallowed, my gaze bouncing back and forth between his gray eyes. “I don’t think I want to hide this.”

Christian’s head tipped to the side. We were tucked away near the library, hidden in the corner at the far end of the hall.