My Fake Boyfriend Is the School Bad Boy novel Chapter 15

Chapter 15 Why Does His Story Feel Real?

Ryder dropped his gaze to my hands, watching the frantic, nervous energy in my fingers. Then, he looked back up at my face. The

absolute stillness in his expression was terrifying.

“Three weeks ago, he started, his voice dropping to a low, gravelly pitch that made the fine hairs on the back of my neck stand up. “It

was a Tuesday. Raining. You were at the used bookstore on 5th Street, standing in the back aisle.”

I frowned, my eyebrows pulling together. ‘I haven’t been to that bookstore in a month. And it wasn’t raining.”

“They don’t know that,” he interrupted smoothly. “Listen.”

He leaned in a fraction closer. The scent of peppermint and old leather wrapped around me, suffocating and intoxicating all at once.

“You were standing in the back aisle,” he repeated, his eyes locking onto mine, refusing to let me look away. “You were wearing that

oversized grey sweater. The one that slips off your left shoulder when you’re not paying attention. You were stressing over a copy of The

Great Gatsby. Checking the spine, counting the pages, doing that math in your head to figure out if it was worth the three dollars.”

My mouth went completely dry.

“I walked in to get out of the rain,” Ryder continued softly. “I saw you. You were biting the inside of your bottom cheek. You only do that when you’re calculating something. And you had a yellow pencil tucked behind your ear. Not a pen. A cheap, yellow wooden pencil with a

dull eraser.”

The blood rushed in my ears, a loud, roaring static.

I did have an oversized grey sweater. And I always, always kept a yellow pencil behind my right ear when I studied, because the heavy mechanical pens gave me a headache. But I only ever studied like that in my bedroom. Alone.

‘I bumped into the shelf,” Ryder rasped, his gaze dropping to my mouth for a split second before returning to my eyes. “A stack of textbooks fell. You jumped. Your bag slipped off your shoulder and spilled across the floor. Flashcards, highlighters, perfectly organized

chaos.

He raised his hand slowly. I froze, my heart slamming a brutal, uneven rhythm against my ribs as his knuckle brushed the soft hair falling against my cheek. The contact was so light it felt like a ghost, but it sent a massive shockwave straight down to my toes.

“I knelt down to help you pick them up,” he whispered. “You looked at me. You didn’t look scared. You didn’t look at me like I was the

punchline to a rumor. You just looked at me like I was a person.”

I couldn’t swallow. I couldn’t breathe. The air in the car was entirely gone, consumed by the heavy, burning intensity in his eyes.

“Our hands touched when we both reached for the same yellow highlighter,” Ryder said, his voice a dark, rough stroke against my nerves. “You looked up. I looked down. And I asked you if you wanted to get out of the dusty aisle and get a coffee. You said yes.”

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Chapter 15 Why Does His Story Feel Real?

The silence in the car became deafening.

I stared at him, my mind completely blank. The index cards in my lap felt entirely ridiculous. My neat bullet points were nothing compared to the raw, visceral image he had just painted.

It wasn’t a script. It sounded like a memory.

“You…” I started, my voice cracking horribly. I cleared my throat, forcing the syllables past the tight knot in my airway. “You made all that

up?

Ryder slowly pulled his hand back, dropping his arm from the back of my seat. The heavy, magnetic pull between us snapped, leaving me

feeling cold and disoriented.

He turned back toward the steering wheel, staring out the windshield at the darkening sky. The harsh lines of his profile returned, a mask

of total indifference.

‘I told you, Petrova. I’m a good liar,” he said flatly.

“But the details,” I pressed, my heart still racing. “The grey sweater. The pencil. How did you know I bite the inside of my cheek?”

“I notice things,” he muttered. He reached out and twisted the key in the ignition. The engine roared to life, a deep, aggressive vibration

that shook the floorboards. “People talk. You’re the honor roll poster child. It’s not hard to guess your habits.”

I stared at his profile, a cold, unsettling ache settling deep in my chest.

It was a lie. Of course it was a lie. He was the bad boy, the kid who broke rules and threw punches, not the boy who noticed the specific

brand of pencil a girl tucked behind her ear. He was just proving a point. He was showing me how to sell the performance.

But as I sat there in the dark, vibrating car, listening to the deep hum of the engine, the explanation felt hollow.

The way he had looked at me when he described the bookstore… the way his voice had dropped, thick and heavy with something that felt

terrifyingly close to reverence…

“Tomorrow morning,” Ryder said, cutting through my racing thoughts. He shifted the car into drive. “Seven-thirty. I’ll park at the edge of

your street. Don’t make me wait.”

‘I won’t,” I whispered.

He reached across the center console and grabbed the door handle, pushing my door open. The cold evening air rushed back into the car, breaking the spell entirely.

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