ALL THE BOYS AND THEIR LIES

I was biting my lower lip. It took me a second to realize I was holding my breath. His fingertips were tracing the sensitive skin of my inner thigh. I pressed my legs together. I quickly scanned the small coffee shop with my eyes; everyone was minding their own business, nobody was looking at me or anything. I scratched behind my ear, trying to suppress the urge to let out a moan. When I parted my legs for him, he smiled. “Good girl,” he murmured, sending a shiver through my entire body.

I jumped when the table violently shook from a heavy backpack dropped onto it. The paperback hidden inside my massive Constitutional Law textbook almost tumbled to the floor. To an outsider, I looked like an ambitious pre-law student buried deep in legal statutes. Which was precisely what I wanted them to think. Getting branded as the “girl who reads smut on campus” was definitely not on my goal list for this semester.

The guy who owned the bag had already pulled out the chair across from me, slumping into it with a cocky, wide-legged stance. Completely ignoring my existence, he was busy talking to a buddy. Even after I cleared my throat twice, I couldn’t catch his attention. I narrowed my eyes and took him in. Who did this guy think he was?

“This seat is taken,” I said, grabbing his bag and shoving it off the table onto the floor. His backpack had crumpled the pages of my notebook and scattered my pens everywhere.

He hadn’t bothered to look at me until his bag hit the ground, but now he was staring at me with a mix of shock and a dangerous flash of anger. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Taking back the table that belongs to me. What does it look like I’m doing to you?”

He sneered, taking in me and my setup. When his eyes lingered a second too long on my books, panic hit me, and I tried to slam the thick textbook shut. But the guy—clearly a varsity athlete on the college football team based on his jersey—had lightning-fast reflexes. He snatched the romance novel out from inside the law book like it was nothing.

“Give that back!” I bolted up, lunging forward.

He shot up too. Standing at a massive 6′2", he yanked the book out of my reach while his eyes flicked down to the open page. I didn’t care how desperate I looked from the outside; I just needed that book back.

“Easy there, Dean’s List,” he said, his voice deep and mocking. “What’s the rush?” His eyes scanned the lines. The sarcasm on his face dissolved into shock, followed immediately by pure, smug satisfaction. “Holy shit, you’ve gotta be kidding me.” He dropped his voice just enough for only me to hear, “Good girl, huh?” though his laugh was still way too loud.

“Give it back, stop acting like a three-year-old!” I reached for the book again, but he used his long reach to swing it even further away in the opposite direction.

“Wait, you actually highlighted it?” His laughter echoed through the small coffee shop. He clearly didn’t give a damn about disturbing anyone; in fact, he was taking sadistic pleasure in keeping me completely helpless.

My blood ran cold. I stopped scrambling for the book and started processing the sheer catastrophe I had just walked into. I was positive my face was burning crimson and my heart was pounding hard enough to be heard across the room.

After skimming a few more lines, he handed the book back with a smirk plastered across his face. The second my slender fingers gripped the cover, instead of letting go, he yanked the book—and me along with it—harshly toward him. The distance between us closed to zero in a fraction of a second.

“Your secret’s safe with me, Dean’s List. Don’t worry.”

I looked up, meeting his eyes. He was loving this. Still, considering he could have yelled what was written on those pages at the top of his lungs for the whole coffee shop to hear, I had gotten off easy.

“I’m Josh. Nice to meet you.”

I snatched the book from his hand, shoved it into my bag, and packed up my stuff in a blur. I needed to get the hell out of here, fast. As I bolted for the door, his voice calling out from behind made me freeze in my tracks:

“Thanks for the table, Aideen!”

Bad idea. Horrible idea. Why hadn’t I just brought my Kindle? My stupid obsession with reading physical paperbacks was about to get me humiliated in front of the entire campus. The guy practically screamed “don’t trust me,” and now he knew I read dirty books. Which wasn’t even dirty! It was a two-hundred-and-sixty-five-page slow burn, and for God’s sake, that scene on page one hundred and fifty-four was literally their very first physical intimacy.

I slid into my seat in the auditorium and slumped my forehead against the desk. What if he submitted a tip about this to the campus gossip page? Worse, what if he told his teammates? I knew for a fact they’d act like total jock stereotypes. Cold sweat beaded down my back as the auditorium slowly filled up. Every single pair of eyes on me felt like a silent judgment. I quickly pulled up the collage gossip page on my phone; nothing about me yet. My heart skipped a beat when two guys from the team walked past me, laughing. Had he told them?

I was being paranoid. Besides, even if he did, so what? There was literally a campus book club called A Book and a Little Bit of Spice dedicated entirely to smut. Of course, I wasn’t in that club. I couldn’t be. If my dad ever found out, I could already hear the three-hour lecture waiting for me at home: “Aideen, if you have free time, you aren’t trying hard enough. Aideen, hobbies steal your precious time—and that includes those trashy books you read instead of your course syllabi.”

The screen of the phone in my hand lit up. A notification popped up from Instagram.

Hey Dean’s List, what was the name of that book again? You know, the one where the guy parts her legs, or whatever. I missed what he actually does next.

I locked the screen and shoved the phone back into my bag instantly. The professor had started class, writing the assigned reading sections on the whiteboard in giant letters. I pulled the phone back out and re-read the message. He had actually sent that. I locked the screen and threw the phone back into my bag again. I looked around. Nobody was staring, but I felt like I was being watched. Just as my hand reached back into my bag, Professor Rahul called my name out loud, making me practically jump out of my skin.

“Ms. Adams, could you give us a brief summary of last week’s lecture? Then we’ll move on to today’s reading.”

I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to recall the material, but Josh’s message was burned into my retinas, making it impossible to think about anything else.

“Um... last week, we...”

The professor stared at me over the top of his glasses, which had slid down his nose. “Yes?”

“Well, sir...” My phone buzzed inside my bag. Focusing was completely off the table now. The professor let out a quiet sigh and turned toward a guy in the front row. “Mr. Cassedy.” I muttered a quiet curse under my breath. “That fucking bastard.”

I slipped my hand into my bag and pulled out the phone, reading the second notification on the lock screen.

I can literally picture the exact face you’re making at your phone right now, Adams. I’m standing right outside the law building. Buy me a coffee and maybe I’ll be keeping your secret.