Page 31

Chapter 31

Blake

Eight A.M. classes are the worst invention since calculus.

It’s a rough reality check after two weeks of bliss. No amount of caffeine can get me to pay attention, so I will have to record the lecture and stay up late transcribing notes again. Maybe I can talk Alexis into making it a study date. She’s the only thing that could make studying bearable.

Downing the remainder of my coffee, I’m about to walk into the lecture hall when a flash of bright pink hair catches my eye.

“What the hell dude?” Alissa shouts and shoves me face-first into the brick wall. “I went to bat defending your lying ass to Levi and this is what you do? She loves you, you dick! This will ruin her!”

Alissa is livid and rough, but I don’t try to break free from her grasp. “What are you talking about?”

“Drop the act, Taylor. I’ve seen the school newspaper. You ran your mouth!” Alissa hisses. “What happened, did she refuse to put out? Did you get tired of being with someone real for a change but were too much of a baby to end it yourself? Well?” she pushes me further into the wall until I’m sure my cheek must be bleeding, but if Alexis is hurt…I deserve it. “You’re lucky I don’t have my bat with me or I would’ve rammed it so far up yo?—”

“What are you talking about? Alissa, I promise you I didn’t say a word. Frankly, it’s insulting that you think I would ever hurt Alexis.”

Alissa shoves the latest edition of the school newspaper, the Brookside Times into my face, her manicured finger tapping the prominent headline I’ve seen countless times in my nightmares.

Hockey Heartthrob fakes relationship to scam school.

“Fucking hell. That wasn’t me! I swear!”

She drops her grip, stepping back so I can turn around and face her. Like Alexis, Alissa is a good bit shorter than I am, but both can be intimidating when angry enough. And right now, Alissa is seething.

“You, me, Lex, and Levi are the only ones in on it. Who else could have tipped them off?” she says. “I know Levi is still cross with you, but he wouldn't do this.”

That’s true. He might hate my guts, but Levi would never put Alexis in the crossfire. Aside from hockey, family is his whole life; it just doesn't make sense for him to be the leak.

Any of our competitors in the Cute Couples contest could have started the rumor, but somehow I don’t suspect any of them. There is only one person who thinks they benefit from breaking us up, and I should have finished him off months ago.

“I think we both know who did this—it has to be him, right?”

A flicker of recognition passes through Alissa’s gaze as she nods. “Sorry for throwing you against the wall.”

“Don’t worry about it. I have to find Alexis—she needs to hear this from me.”

I rip the newspaper from Alissa’s trembling hands and storm off, muttering curses under my breath. I have to find her before she sees this bullshit article. Before she has a chance to think I betrayed her.

She should still be in class right now, and no one around her will have access to the Brookside Times until after that class, giving me a tiny window to intercept her. She’s on the other side of campus, so I rely on every ounce of my stamina and shortcuts to get there before her class lets out.

People shout as I speed past, some calling me cruel or a liar, others assuring me we’ve got their vote—guess they don’t read the paper. There’s a cheerleader bribing people for votes near the café, and the grin she shoots my way is almost villainous.

I’m sweaty and out of breath, but I make it in the nick of time.

Her classmates pour out of the lecture hall. They move slowly, so slowly, and though it gives me a chance to catch my breath it feels like ages before I see Alexis. But then I see her, and she spots me, breaking into the most dazzling smile that takes my breath away.

“Hey,” she says softly. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be in your Legends and Lore class right now?”

Her ability to make it sound like I am only taking fictional classes is adorable, but she’s not wrong. I really, really should be in that class.

“Yeah,” I press a kiss to her forehead so her overactive brain doesn’t jump to conclusions as I say, “Everything’s fine, but we need to talk. Now.”

“We were so close,” Alexis says slowly. “Just three more weeks and we would have made it.”

She lowers the newspaper and lets it fall to the floor, not even watching it fall. This is the first thing she has said in twenty minutes, resigning to stare blankly out onto the empty lecture hall for the rest of the time. I’m not sure this is progress.

Her gaze fixed on a place far behind me. I hate seeing her like this, so… void of anything. Empty. “I have made you many promises, but let me make one more: you are getting that degree come hell or high water. I’ll make sure of it.”

Alexis only shakes her head. “So close, Blake. All those stress-induced pain flares and every stupid date they forced us to go on. We even had sex in a tent, loudly! Then they run one stupid, slanderous article and we’re done. It’s truly over now.”

In the five stages of grief, Alexis is steadily crossing into anger. It’s a good thing, and not just for processing this. There is an ocean of anger hidden beneath her skin, things she has never allowed herself to feel or acknowledge to keep from rocking the boat. I hope she lets it all out now and drowns the world in her wrath.

“By the end of the day, everyone will think I am nothing more than a slut. That I’m a liar, a fraud who was all too happy opening her legs to rip off the school.” Her face is lifeless, a terrifying sight on someone as expressive as her. The knot in my stomach tightens.

I step closer, cradling her cheek in my palm. “You are none of those things, you hear me? You are kind, and honest, and smarter than any one of those idiots out there. Let me fix this for us. I’ll sic my mother’s lawyer on them for defamation of character and force the paper to write a new article. This whole thing will be old news long before the final vote.”

At long last, those silver-blue eyes snake up to meet mine. “What if it’s not?”

“Then you will still have me and my fortune,” I say. “You’ll get your dream, Alexis. Even if I have to set up a colony on Mars or start an apocalypse and build the school myself, you will be a teacher. And a damn good one at that.”

Alexis laughs, but it’s far from the laugh I fell in love with. This one is bitter, almost mocking. “I don’t even know what to do with myself right now, how to go from here. Doing this contest was supposed to take away my panic, the one that’s set off by the unknown. But we’re right back in it now, aren’t we?”

How am I the more level headed one between us now? It’s a strange, unnerving feeling. I hope it doesn’t happen again. “I’ll get everything sorted with the paper, and we take it one day at a time. Classes, homework, dinners. I have a game on Friday, but you don’t have to come if you don’t feel like it. Then there’s the last contest date on Sunday, and we’ll see how to go on from there.”

Alexis isn’t convinced. I can see it in her eyes, in the way they have lost their spark. I know why, though; she is still refusing to take my money, and now she thinks this will be her last year at Brookside. But she underestimates how selfish I can be in the way I love.

So far, she hasn’t questioned why she has not run out of money on her meal card yet, or how her fridge is always stocked. I’m not sure if she suspects my hand in it all, and I don’t really care—I just want her to eat. So if I have to go to administration and pay her tuition without telling her I will do it, even if it costs me her love.

Because to love is to sacrifice, and I will always love Alexis more than I love myself.