My Fake Boyfriend Is the School Bad Boy novel Chapter 30

Chapter 30 A Locker Moment Too Close for Comfort

I stood in front of locker 412, staring blindly at the silver combination dial.

My fingers felt numb as I spun the metal wheel. Seventeen. Thirty-four. Nine. I pulled the latch up. The heavy metal door popped open with a dull clunk, exposing the perfectly organized interior. My textbooks were stacked by period. My extra pens were sorted by ink color

in a magnetic mesh cup.

Everything in that narrow metal box was perfectly controlled. Everything outside of it was spiraling completely out of my grip.

I leaned my forehead against the cool edge of the locker door, closing my eyes for just a second.

Every time I blinked, the glaring white push notification from last night burned the back of my eyelids. I’d burn that school to the ground before I let him put his hands on you again.

He had deleted it. He had tried to erase the raw, terrifyingly honest confession and replace it with a cold reminder of our transaction. But I had seen it. I had felt the absolute, heavy devotion behind those words. It completely shattered the narrative I had built to survive this arrangement. I wasn’t using the bad boy as a shield anymore. I was standing in the middle of Crestview Prep, waiting for a boy who was secretly harboring a massive, volatile attachment to me.

I checked the digital clock on my phone screen. 7:44 AM.

“Raisa.”

The high-pitched, entirely too-casual voice came from my left.

I opened my eyes, turning my head. Chloe was leaning against the locker two doors down. She held a steaming paper cup from an expensive coffee shop, her manicured nails tapping a restless rhythm against the cardboard. She wasn’t alone. Two other girls from Harper’s inner circle were standing behind her, pretending to scroll through their phones, though their eyes kept darting in my direction.

“Morning, Chloe,” I said, keeping my tone perfectly flat. I reached into my locker, pulling out my heavy AP Biology textbook and shoving

it into my bag.

“You’re here early, Chloe noted, taking a slow sip of her coffee. She tilted her head, her eyes scanning the crowded hallway behind me. “Usually you’re studying in the library until the warning bell. Change of routine?”

“Just grabbing my books,” I replied, refusing to give her an inch.

“Right. Chloe lowered her cup. A sly, venomous little smile played at the corners of her mouth. “Harper said she saw you walking toward the South Lot yesterday after school. We were just wondering if you… needed a ride. Since your new arrangement seems a little rough

around the edges.”

My grip tightened on the spine of my textbook until my knuckles turned stark white. They were fishing. They were poking at the edges of the lie, looking for a weak spot to tear open.

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Chapter 30 A Locker Moment Too Close for Comfort

“I have a ride,” I said, forcing my jaw to relax.

“Really?” Chloe took a step closer, dropping the friendly act. “Because the rumor is, Steinmann didn’t even show up to his afternoon

classes yesterday. He’s completely unreliable, Raisa. If you’re going to try and fix your image after that whole thing with Mr. Harrison-‘

The noise in the hallway didn’t stop, but the pitch completely shifted.

The chaotic shouting at the far end of the corridor abruptly died, replaced by a low, frantic murmur that rolled toward us like a fast-

moving wave. The heavy, metallic slamming of locker doors ceased.

Chloe stopped talking mid-sentence. Her eyes widened, focusing on something directly over my shoulder.

The thick scent of worn leather, rain, and sharp peppermint hit me a full second before he actually spoke.

“Move.”

The single syllable was a low, gravelly scrape that cut completely through the ambient noise of the hallway.

Chloe actually flinched. The expensive coffee sloshed over the edge of her paper cup, burning her fingers. She didn’t say a word. She didn’t look at me. She just backed up, grabbing her friends by their blazer sleeves and practically fleeing down the corridor.

I took a slow, shallow breath, bracing myself, and turned around.

Ryder was standing right behind me.

He didn’t give me any space. He stepped directly into the small gap between the open locker door and my body. He was wearing a dark, charcoal henley under his battered leather jacket, the buttons undone at the collar to expose the strong, corded muscles of his throat. The bruising on his face had settled into a harsh, mottled yellow-purple, making the sharp angles of his jaw look even more dangerous.

“You’re late,” I whispered, the words slipping out before I could stop them.

The digital clock on the wall above the lockers ticked to 7:46.

“Got held up, he murmured.

He didn’t step back to apologize. Instead, he raised his left arm. He planted his large, calloused palm completely flat against the cold metal of the locker right next to my head.

The heavy thud of his hand hitting the steel echoed in the quiet space he had just created.

He leaned in.

His broad shoulders completely blocked my view of the hallway. He boxed me in, creating an incredibly intimate, inescapable cage out of his body and the locker bank. The physical reality of him was entirely overwhelming. The heat radiating off his chest seeped right through

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Chapter 30 A Locker Moment Too Close for Comfort

my uniform, settling deep in my bones.

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