My Fake Boyfriend Is the School Bad Boy novel Chapter 46

Chapter 46 Coffee Left Without a Word

The linoleum floor of the main corridor felt entirely too exposed on Tuesday morning.

I walked through the heavy double doors of Crestview Prep alone. I had deliberately taken an earlier bus, arriving twenty minutes before the warning bell, just to avoid the crowded rush. I didn’t want an audience today. I didn’t want to perform. I was completely exhausted, my eyes burning from staring at my bedroom ceiling all night, replaying the harsh, sickening crunch of Ryder crumpling my yellow legal

pad.

I’m not a puppet, Raisa.

The words scraped against the inside of my skull, a relentless, painful echo. I had treated him like a prop. I had been so terrified of the absolute, dizzying loss of control I felt when he touched me that I tried to bind him in red tape. And I had broken the one genuine

connection I had left in this school.

I kept my head down, clutching the straps of my backpack. The hallway was mostly empty, but the few students lingering by their lockers still turned to look at me. The whispers were softer today, more confused. They noticed I was alone. They noticed the heavy leather jacket wasn’t draped over my shoulders.

I walked faster, my loafers squeaking faintly against the polished floor.

I turned the corner into the C-wing and slipped into my first-period AP English classroom. The room was empty, the harsh fluorescent lights buzzing with a low, irritating hum. The air smelled of dry-erase markers and stale floor wax.

I walked down the center aisle toward my usual desk in the third row.

I stopped dead in my tracks.

Sitting perfectly centered on the laminated wood surface of my desk was a large, clear plastic cup. Thick beads of condensation rolled down the sides, pooling on a small paper napkin underneath it.

I took a slow step closer, my heart giving a strange, irregular flutter against my ribs.

It wasn’t a generic cup from the cafeteria. The cardboard sleeve wrapped around the middle bore the dark green logo of The Roasted Bean, a small, independent coffee shop located three towns over. It was completely out of the way. It wasn’t the kind of place you just stopped at on the way to Crestview.

I dropped my heavy backpack onto the floor. It hit the linoleum with a dull thud.

I reached out, my fingertips brushing the cold plastic. The ice clinked softly inside. I turned the cup slightly to read the white sticker slapped onto the side of the plastic. The order was printed in tiny black text.

My breath completely stalled in my throat. The air in the empty classroom suddenly felt entirely too thin.

1/3

80

12:50 Fri, Jul 10

Chapter 46 Coffee Left Without a Word

80

Yesterday, he had brought me a basic black coffee with two sugars. It was the standard, easy order I grabbed from the cafeteria when I was running late. It was what everyone thought I drank.

But this? This ridiculously complicated, highly specific combination wasn’t just a coffee. It was my comfort drink. It was the exact, expensive order 1 only allowed myself to buy twice a year-once after midterms, and once after final exams. I never brought it to school. I never talked about it. It was a private, stupid indulgence I kept entirely to myself because I felt guilty spending six dollars on a single beverage when my mother worked double shifts.

1 stared at the white sticker, my mind completely scrambling.

The heavy, unmistakable thud of combat boots hit the doorway.

I snapped my head up.

Ryder stood in the entrance of the classroom. He was wearing his dark leather jacket over a plain black t-shirt. The fading bruises on his face looked stark in the bright, clinical lighting. His dark hair was messy, swept back from his forehead as if he had run his hands through

it a hundred times.

He didn’t swagger into the room. The confident, indifferent mask he wore for the rest of the school was completely gone. The muscles in his broad shoulders were pulled tight, his posture rigid and incredibly guarded.

He looked at me, then dropped his gaze to the plastic cup sitting on my desk.

The silence between us was deafening. It was heavy, thick with the unresolved tension from yesterday morning. The ghost of the crumpled legal pad hung in the space separating us.

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify