My Fake Boyfriend Is the School Bad Boy novel Chapter 20

Chapter 20 A Fry That Felt Too Intimate

The rough heat of Ryder’s thumb finally left the back of my neck.

The sudden absence of his touch felt like a physical drop in temperature. I shivered, my shoulders drawing inward, despite the

suffocating, humid air of the crowded cafeteria. He tossed the half-eaten green apple onto my plastic tray. It rolled and bumped against

the cellophane wrapper of my sad turkey sandwich, coming to a stop.

I stared at it. The bite marks in the fruit were a glaring, physical reminder that the lines of my perfectly ordered life were already

blurring.

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Ryder leaned back in his hard plastic chair, the heavy leather of his jacket creaking with the movement. He hooked the heels of his heavy combat boots around the metal legs of his chair, completely relaxed under the crushing weight of five hundred staring teenagers.

I couldn’t do it. My skin crawled. The hairs on my arms stood straight up. Every single conversation in a fifty-foot radius was focused entirely on us.

I risked a quick glance to my left.

Three tables away, Harper Vance was sitting with her usual crowd. Her plastic fork was suspended mid-air over her salad. She wasn’t even pretending to talk to Chloe anymore. Her eyes were locked onto my face, narrowed into two sharp, calculating slits. She was looking for a crack. She was waiting for me to pull away from Ryder, to look disgusted, or to show any sign that this was a desperate business

transaction.

“Stop looking at her,” Ryder murmured.

His rough, gravelly voice snapped my attention back to our table.

I looked at him. He was already watching me, his hazel eyes dark and entirely focused. He had a small, red plastic basket sitting in front of him, piled high with greasy, golden crinkle-cut fries from the hot food line. I hadn’t even noticed he brought food with him.

“She’s dissecting us,” I whispered back, keeping my lips barely moving. I pressed my trembling hands flat against my thighs beneath the table. “If we just sit here in silence, she’s going to know it’s fake. Couples talk. They interact. I’m supposed to look like I actually want to be here.”

Ryder’s jaw tightened. A muscle ticked rapidly just beneath the dark purple bruise on his cheekbone. “You look like you’re waiting for a firing squad, Petrova.”

I’m trying, I shot back, a sudden spike of defensive panic tightening my chest. “I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know the script for sitting in a cafeteria with a boy who makes everyone else clear the room.”

“There is no script. He reached forward and grabbed the edge of the red plastic basket. The harsh scrape of the plastic against the laminate table sounded loud in the quiet bubble he had forced around us. He slid the basket directly into the center of the table, bridging the space between his tray and mine.

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12:39 Fri, Jul 10

Chapter 20 A Fry That Felt Too Intimate

The smell of hot oil and heavy salt immediately hit my nose, drowning out the lingering scent of floor cleaner.

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“You want it to look real?” Ryder asked, his voice dropping an octave, becoming a low, dark rumble that vibrated straight through my ribs.

“Then you have to stop thinking like a math problem. You can’t calculate this.”

“I calculate everything,” I admitted, my voice cracking humiliatingly. It was the absolute truth. I survived Crestview by anticipating every

variable. This entire fake relationship was just a massive, terrifying equation I had built to save my scholarship.

Ryder tilted his head. The harsh fluorescent lights caught the gold flecks in his eyes, making them burn with an intensity that made my

breath hitch.

“Then calculate this,” he said.

He reached into the red basket. His long, calloused fingers bypassed the fries on top and pulled a single, golden fry from the pile. It was

coated in thick grains of salt.

He didn’t eat it. He didn’t drop it onto my tray.

He lifted his hand, bridging the space between us, and held the fry directly in front of my mouth.

Time completely stopped.

The background noise of the cafeteria faded into a dull, distant static. My entire world narrowed down to the rough, bruised knuckles

hovering inches from my face, and the dark, unyielding stare of the boy attached to them.

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