My Fake Boyfriend Is the School Bad Boy novel Chapter 13

Chapter 13 One Touch Changed Everything

My hands were shaking again. I picked up the black pen he had tossed on the table earlier. The plastic casing was still warm from his

fingers The heat transferred into my palm, a phantom touch that made my chest tighten.

I pressed the tip of the pen to the paper.

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My cursive was neat, precise, leaning slightly to the right. A perfect representation of the girl I forced myself to be every single day. The

girl who never made a mistake, never stepped out of line, never gave them a reason to look away.

I finished the final loop of the ‘a and lifted the pen. I took a shallow breath, the smell of lemon wax and stale coffee filling my nose. It

was done. I was committed.

I held the pen out across the table, offering it to him.

Ryder didn’t reach for the plastic barrel.

Instead, he reached for my hand.

His large, calloused fingers closed over my knuckles.

The air left my lungs in a sharp, silent gasp.

It wasn’t a spark. It wasn’t a flutter of butterflies. It was a terrifying, high-voltage jolt of electricity that shot straight up my arm and

crashed directly into my chest. My heart slammed against my ribs with brutal force.

His skin was incredibly warm, the texture rough and uneven from the split knuckles and fading scars. The sheer size of his hand

completely dwarfed mine. He didn’t grip me tight enough to hurt, but the pressure was undeniable, heavy, and grounding.

I froze. Every single muscle in my body locked tight. I couldn’t pull away. I couldn’t even blink. I just sat there, my arm extended over the

table, entirely trapped in his hold.

He didn’t take the pen. He just held my hand, his thumb resting perfectly against the wildly beating pulse point on my inner wrist.

He could feel it. He had to feel how fast my heart was racing. The frantic, terrified rhythm thumping against his skin betrayed every

ounce of control I had tried to project.

Ryder’s hazel eyes darkened. The golden flecks in his irises seemed to burn. He looked down at our hands, watching the way his dark,

bruised skin contrasted against my pale, trembling fingers.

The library disappeared. The hum of the lights faded into a dull roar in my ears. The only thing that existed was the heavy, suffocating

heat of his touch and the sharp smell of peppermint hanging between us.

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12:37 Fri, Jul 10

Chapter 13 One Touch Changed Everything

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Slowly, he slid his hand down. His rough palm dragged against my knuckles, the friction sending a fresh wave of heat straight to my core.

He wrapped his fingers around the plastic barrel of the pen, grazing the sensitive skin between my thumb and index finger as he pulled it

from my grip.

My hand fell back to the table, completely limp. The wood felt freezing cold where his heat had just been.

I pressed my hands together in my lap, squeezing my fingers tight to stop the violent trembling. I couldn’t look at his face. I stared

fixedly at the collar of his faded charcoal shirt, my chest heaving as I tried to drag oxygen back into my starved lungs.

Ryder didn’t say a word about my reaction. He didn’t mock the obvious, pathetic panic in my eyes.

He shifted his attention back to the paper. He pressed the pen down hard, the nib scratching loudly against the paper in the quiet room.

He signed his name on the line next to mine.

It wasn’t cursive. It was a sharp, jagged print. Heavy black ink that pressed so deep into the page I could see the indentation on the other

side. His signature sat next to mine, a dark, chaotic storm crashing into a perfectly ordered shoreline.

He tossed the pen down. It clattered against the wood.

“It’s official,” he muttered, leaning back in his chair. He shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his leather jacket, watching me

carefully.

I swallowed the lump in my throat. I reached out, my fingers still clumsy and uncoordinated, and folded the paper in half. I shoved it into

the manila folder and closed it. The physical evidence of my lie was hidden, but the heavy reality of it was pressing down on me from all

sides.

“Monday,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. I cleared my throat and tried again, forcing the academic, controlled Raisa back to the

surface. “We need to go in together on Monday morning. That’s when Mrs. Gable expects an update.”

“Fine,” Ryder agreed, his tone indifferent again. The intense boy who had just held my hand hostage vanished, replaced by the apathetic

outcast the whole school feared.

“We need a story,” I pushed on, grabbing my backpack from the adjacent chair and hauling it onto my lap. I started shoving my binders

inside, desperate for a task to focus on. “People are going to ask questions. Jenna, Harper, everyone. They’re going to want to know how

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