All the Little Lies (English Prep 1)

“You don’t?”

I slowly shook my head.

His grasp grew tighter on my face. “So, what does this mean then?”

I shyly shrugged. “I don’t really know.”

Christian’s hands dropped from my face as he reached up and grabbed the straps of his backpack. “I don’t either.” He licked his lip. “Let’s just do what feels right. Yeah?”

“What feels right to you?”

Christian looked away for a second before pinning me with an intense look. “Honestly, I don’t know. I’ve never done this. I’ve never been this way before.” He looked away again, and I could have sworn his cheeks grew pink for a second. “The old Christian, from five years ago, was completely infatuated with you. Then, I grew to hate you and everyone around me. My feelings were superficial at best. Girls hung on my arms, but it was all for show. My heart didn’t beat for them.” Christian stepped closer to me, his body heat enveloping me. He swallowed roughly, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “I know there’s been a huge gap of time between us, and other constraints of the past, but this…” Christian took my hand and placed it on his chest. I could feel his heart thumping against my palm. “This has always beat for you. Even when I wanted to hate you, it beat for you.”

My eyes glossed over at his words. I gulped back a lump as I watched the hope gleam in his eye. He was waiting for me to say something. He wanted confirmation that I was feeling the same way.

Three days of accepting my feelings and my heart was already attached to his like it was when we were barely teenagers.

“What are you thinking?”

A smile found its way onto my face. I hurriedly grabbed Christian’s large wrist and pulled him down the hallway. The farther we moved from the corner, the more our peers appeared. Every one of their faces was stricken with confusion. I kept pulling Christian until we were outside the school doors. Mostly everyone was getting ready to leave for the day, slowly walking to their overpriced cars or mingling in the courtyard, gossiping.

I stopped just a few feet away from Christian’s group of friends. My hand slipped from his wrist, and when I peered up into his face, a gust of crisp autumn wind blew leaves around us. I reached up on my tiptoes and placed a long, full-of-life kiss on his lips. My mouth moved over his languidly as his hands wrapped around my waist. I was pulled into his body roughly, and somehow, everything and everyone disappeared. This kiss wasn’t for them. It was for us. I wanted to show him what felt right to me. And it was him.

/> He felt right.

As soon as we broke our embrace, we stood and stared at each other. He smiled first, and then I followed suit. We didn’t break our stare until people started clapping, which caused the both of us to chuckle.

“There,” I said, still staring up at him. “That’s what feels right to me.”

He tipped his chin once, grabbed onto my hand, and pulled me over to his group of friends. I may not have fit in right away, but nothing seemed impossible with Christian being mine.

Nothing at all.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Hayley

The next week at school, things changed dramatically. Dynamics were shifted. Some stared; others gossiped; teachers were shocked. Even Headmaster Walton came out of his office to see if the gossip mill was being truthful.

Christian, the unattainable king, was no longer single. And to everyone’s surprise, the girl to snag him was one from the wrong side of the tracks.

Whenever Piper and I would pull up a chair at his lunch table, the room would grow quiet, as if people lost their sense of verbiage. It was funny, but a bit unnerving.

It did nothing to affect Christian and me, though. All the stares and curious whispers behind our backs didn't bother us a bit. We sat together, walked the halls together, and kissed when we felt like it. Butterflies swarmed my stomach 24/7, and they were the good ones. Not the dreadful, ominous ones with black wings.

It was like that all the time now. I fluttered around the school and Pete and Jill’s like I was a butterfly myself. Even Ann noticed a change when she’d stopped by to check in the other day. And it was a damn miracle that Pete and Jill hadn’t caught on to Christian and me yet. If they were to pay a little more attention to me, they’d know something was different. I was surprised they hadn’t caught him in my room yet, either. He popped in through the window around nine every night, which was a rule I laid out so I could still get my homework and studying done (there was absolutely no hope with him near), and we’d either end up talking for hours or stripping down underneath the covers. It was usually a bit of both. We’d gotten out of hand a few times now, but still, no one came looking.

One week of being Christian’s and it felt like no time had passed between us at all. The hate was gone. The past was in the past. Every day with him felt like the start of forever.

“Madeline is staring again.” Piper bent her head down to me as we all sat at Christian’s lunch table. His hand was resting on my knee as he casually talked to Ollie and Eric about this week’s game. I slowly swiveled my head to Madeline and caught her thick-mascara-laden eye. I flicked an eyebrow up, and she glared.

My ears felt hot, but I told myself not to engage in her catty behavior. A feud with Madeline was the last thing I needed. Things were finally calming for me—at least at English Prep.

A small squeeze of my knee had me glancing up at Christian. His sexy grin was plastered on his face. “You’re coming to the game, right? With Piper?”

“Piper is definitely coming.” Ollie’s grin matched his brother’s.

Piper’s head swung forward. “I’m not coming for you, Ollie—in either sense—so I don’t know why you’re so excited.”