My Fake Boyfriend Is the School Bad Boy novel Chapter 69

Chapter 69 Defensive Words Guarding Hidden Truths

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I hadn’t heard a single word from Ryder since Friday afternoon. My phone screen had remained entirely blank. The silence was heavy,

oppressive, and thick with the absolute certainty that I had crossed a boundary line he had spent years cementing into the ground.

When I stepped off the city bus on Monday morning, the overcast sky above Crestview Prep mirrored the heavy, suffocating knot sitting

directly behind my ribs.

I walked through the massive oak doors, the immediate noise of the A-wing crashing over me. The smell of floor wax and aerosol deodorant made my stomach churn. I navigated the sea of navy blazers and pleated skirts entirely on autopilot, my eyes darting frantically toward the corners, the locker bays, the shadowed alcoves.

I was looking for him, but I was also absolutely terrified to find him.

I had invaded his sanctuary. I had shattered the carefully constructed, violent illusion he used to keep the world at arm’s length. I had seen the monster sitting in a miniature blue plastic chair, patiently teaching a seven-year-old girl how to subtract.

I reached my locker and mechanically spun the silver dial. I traded my weekend textbooks for my morning binders, my hands shaking so badly that my AP Chemistry syllabus slipped from my fingers and fluttered to the linoleum.

I bent down to pick it up.

When I straightened, the heavy scent of worn leather, cold rain, and sharp peppermint hit me like a physical wall.

Ryder was standing three feet away.

The casual, bored slouch he usually wore for the morning crowd was completely absent. He stood entirely rigid, his broad shoulders pulled tight beneath a faded charcoal henley. The heavy leather jacket hung open, exposing the tense, rapid rise and fall of his chest. His jaw was locked so hard the muscle beneath his fading bruise was a stark, ticking line.

He didn’t look at me. He kept his hazel eyes fixed firmly on the metal locker door directly above my head.

“Walk,” he commanded.

His voice was a low, gravelly scrape, completely stripped of its usual mocking edge. It was a harsh, flat order.

I didn’t argue. I didn’t ask questions. I grabbed my backpack, slammed my locker shut, and followed him.

He didn’t lead me down the main corridor to put on our usual fake-dating performance. He turned sharply down the narrow, dimly lit hallway that housed the old science labs. It was a dead zone before first period.

He reached the heavy, reinforced fire door at the end of the hall. He pushed the metal bar, shoved the door open, and stepped into the

enclosed North Stairwell.

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Chapter 69 Defensive Words Guarding Hidden Truths

I followed him inside.

The heavy metal door slammed shut behind us, the latch clicking with a loud, echoing finality.

The stairwell was freezing, constructed entirely of raw, gray concrete and steel railings. The air tasted stale, thick with dust and the metallic scent of old pipes. The ambient noise of the school was instantly severed, leaving us in a heavy, suffocating silence.

Ryder didn’t stop until he reached the landing halfway up the stairs. He turned around, spinning on the heels of his combat boots, and

looked down at me.

The expression on his face made my breath completely stall in my lungs.

He looked cornered. He looked like a wild, dangerous animal that had been backed into a cage. The shards of gold and green in his eyes were burning with a dark, feral intensity that actually made me take a half-step backward, the heels of my loafers hitting the edge of the

concrete step.

“Why were you following me?”

The words tore out of his throat, harsh and completely raw. The sound echoed violently off the concrete walls.

1…” My voice cracked. I swallowed hard, the metallic taste of fear flooding the back of my mouth. “I saw you leaving the courtyard. You were walking toward the transit station instead of your motorcycle. I was just… curious.”

“Curious,” he repeated, the word dripping with absolute, bitter venom. He closed the distance between us, taking two steps down until he was towering directly over me. The sheer physical heat radiating off his body crashed against the freezing air of the stairwell. “You trailed me for six stops on the subway. You followed me three blocks down Elm Street into the worst neighborhood in the city because you were

curious?”

“You didn’t look like you were going to a fight!” I snapped, the defensive panic finally breaking through my paralysis. I gripped the straps of my canvas backpack, forcing myself not to shrink away from his heavy, looming presence. “You looked like you were going somewhere important. And the rumors… none of it was making sense anymore, Ryder. I needed to know where you went.”

“You had no right,” he snarled softly, his hands curling into tight, white-knuckled fists at his sides. He was physically restraining himself, fighting a violent internal war just to keep his hands away from me. “That wasn’t part of the contract. You don’t get to step out of this pristine little prep school bubble and dig through my life.”

“It’s not a bubble, it’s reality!” I shot back, my chest heaving. “And I wasn’t digging. I just walked through a door. I didn’t expect to find the school’s worst nightmare sitting on an alphabet rug teaching math to a second-grader!”

Ryder flinched.

It was a tiny, sharp, completely involuntary movement. The mention of the community center struck him like a physical blow.

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