The Bookworm's Guide to Faking It (The Bookworm's Guide, #2)

by Emma Hart

  “It is. It’s awful. Really, really awful.”

  And people said I was dramatic.

  We all waited, and when Saylor didn’t say anything, we stared at her.

  “Well?” Colton asked. “Care to elaborate?”

  Saylor shot him a dark look. “Fine. I can’t afford my apartment anymore.”

  None of us said a word.

  “Hello? Anyone? Does nobody understand how that is the end of the world?”

  “She for real?” Tori asked, looking at me.

  “Why are you looking at me? I have no idea,” I replied. “Why do you need a roommate?” I asked Saylor.

  “My landlord is putting my rent up by two hundred dollars. It’s extortion, and I won’t pay it.” She downed the last of her wine and put the glass down.

  Josh frowned. “So why don’t you just move?”

  “Joshua, if I can’t afford an extra two hundred dollars a month in rent, do you think I have the money to move?” She raised her eyebrows then turned to me. “This is why I waited for you. You’re the smart one. What do I do?”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN – HOLLEY

  rule sixteen: honesty is overrated. sometimes.

  “Umm.” I paused and licked my lips. “Get a roommate.”

  She leaned back in the chair and looked at me like I’d just told her she had to behead a kitten. “A roommate? Are you kidding me?”

  Seb fought a laugh as he finally joined the conversation. “Why is that so terrible? It’ll actually cut your rent.”

  “I don’t want anyone living in my space,” Saylor said slowly. “Is that not obvious from my reaction?”

  “Well, then you’ll have to move,” I said brightly.

  “I think there’s a place down the road from me up for rent,” Kinsley said, chewing on the end of her straw. “I don’t think it’s less than your new rent, though.”

  Saylor grunted. “Well, I have thirty days to fix this before I have to pay money I don’t have.”

  “I actually know someone who’s looking for a new place,” Seb said after a moment.

  She narrowed her eyes and sipped her drink. “He’s not a baseball player, is he?”

  “What’s wrong with baseball players?”

  “Everything,” I muttered.

  Everyone looked at me.

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “So full of shit,” Tori said out of the corner of her mouth.

  Seb’s eyes glinted when they met mine, and he turned back to Say. “Well?”

  “Look, don’t take this the wrong way, but—”

  “I’m going to be offended, aren’t I?”

  “Cleat chasers,” Saylor said simply. “If I’m not getting laid, I don’t want to hear anyone else getting laid. I like my privacy, and if I have to share my apartment, I don’t want to do it with some asshole who’s gonna bring random girls into my space.”

  She had a very valid point.

  “Dylan isn’t like that,” Seb said. “He’s a nice guy. Look, he just took a job with my team as one of the personal trainers and needs a place to stay. He’s in a shitty house share in Helena right now. It’s too far but he’s struggling to find a place.”

  “Why doesn’t he live with you? Your house is huge.”

  “I don’t like sharing my space,” he replied.

  “Neither do I,” Saylor said in a biting tone.

  “You don’t really have a choice,” Seb said blithely. “Besides, I already offered a spare room to Dylan and he said no.”

  “A spare room. No need to brag,” Tori sang.

  “Don’t you have a spare room?” Colton asked her. “Why doesn’t Saylor move in with you?”

  Tori smirked. “She doesn’t want to listen to people having sex, Colton. I don’t mean to brag, but I have a lot of that.”

  “Your vibrator doesn’t count,” Kinsley said, her straw caught between her teeth. She waved toward the bar and motioned for another round.

  “If you think a vibrator doesn’t count, you need a new vibrator.”

  Josh leaned forward. “She’s just fine, thank you.”

  “Can we not discuss this?” Colton held up his hands. “Just because I’m okay with the relationship, doesn’t mean I want to think about what they do when they’re alone.”

  Seb leaned back in his seat with a grin. “I missed this.”

  “Really?” I replied dryly as Colton and Tori bickered. “I regret this.”

  He laughed. “Saylor, Dylan is coming to White Peak in a few days to go through a new workout with me. My doctor said I can start lifting weights again, so he’ll be here for a couple of days. I’ll introduce you.”

  She made a noise that could either be interpreted as reluctant agreement or downright annoyance. It was probably a little weird mixture of both, but she picked up her empty glass before realizing it was empty and putting it right back down again.

  “That went well,” I remarked.

  “It did not,” Saylor said sharply from the other side of the table. “Nothing about this is a good thing.”

  Seb knocked his foot against mine and winked. “Did I tell you he’s British?”

  Four sets of female eyes swung his way.

  Mine. Tori’s. Kinsley’s.

  And Saylor’s.

  “Come again?” Saylor said, her eyelashes fluttering frantically as she blinked. “What was that?”

  “And there it is.” Colton smirked and raised his beer to Seb. “Looks like she’s interested in your friend after all.”

  “Is he the one you mentioned at the wedding?” I asked Seb, picking up a menu even though I already knew what I wanted to eat.

  I mean, I’d had a hand in the menu.

  “Yeah.” Seb turned in his chair so he was facing me. “I just spoke to him this morning when I saw my doctor. Of course, it wasn’t snowing then, so I don’t know if he’ll be able to get here still, but…”

  “Do not dangle a British man in my face only to take him away, Sebastian,” Saylor warned. “You get him here under any circumstances, do you hear me? You’re rich. Get a helicopter or something to get him here.”

  “I thought you didn’t want a roommate.” Kinsley grinned.

  “I don’t want a roommate,” Saylor agreed. “But if I’m going to have one, there’s worse I could do than a hot British one.”

  “I never said he was hot,” Sebastian said.

  “Is he hot?”

  He held his hands out. “I don’t know.”

  “How can you not know?”

  “Guys don’t pay attention to that kinda stuff.”

  “Straight guys don’t,” Tori corrected him. “So ask Colton. Maybe he knows.”

  Colton didn’t even look at her. “I’ve never met him. And I’m straighter than she is, anyway.”

  “Excuse you,” Tori said.

  “Thank you.”

  “How are you straighter than me?”

  “Have you or have you not kissed a woman?”

  She paused. “Three times.”

  Seb blinked. “The same woman?”

  “No,” she replied brightly. “Three different ones. In my defense, I was drunk in college.”

  “I don’t think you need a defense for that.” Josh stared at her then looked at his girlfriend.

  Kinsley hit him. “Not gonna happen.”

  “She’s a great kisser,” Saylor said, perusing the menu.

  All three guys shared a look. “I’m sorry, what?” Colton asked.

  “I said she’s a great kisser,” Saylor repeated, still not bothering to look up from the menu. “I was one of those.”

  “How did we never know this?” I asked, glancing between them. “Seriously?”

  Tori nodded. “Let’s see. It was my sophomore year and there was a birthday party for the head of the sorority.”

  “You were in a sorority? You?” Colton raised his eyebrows.

  “No, fuck that,” Tori replied. “Neither of us were, but they liked us, so they let us come t
o the parties. Also, I knew where to buy good pot.”

  “Ah,” Seb muttered. “The key to all good parties.”

  I choked back a laugh.

  If I didn’t already think I was the nerd of the friend group, this just confirmed it.

  Man, my college years were boring compared to the years my friends apparently enjoyed.

  “Shut up,” Tori shot at him. “It was a huge blow out that almost got shut down the cops. Almost everyone left and a small group of us stayed behind to play spin the bottle, and I don’t think I need to elaborate on that.”

  “Spin the bottle doesn’t count,” Kinsley said. “Everyone’s kissed a member of the same sex while playing that.”

  “I haven’t,” Josh offered.

  “Me either,” said Colton.

  “Thirding,” added Seb.

  “Fine.” Kinsley shot them all a dark look. “All girls have kissed girls during spin the bottle.”

  “I think we were playing with the wrong girls,” Seb mused quietly.

  I rolled my eyes. “Well, I haven’t.”

  Tori wiggled her eyebrows at me. “You wanna?”

  Saylor snorted. “Good luck. I spent a whole year trying to get her to party with us at college and she never did.”

  “Then you dropped out.”

  “Why did I need a chemistry degree? What on Earth was I going to do with that in White Peak?” She raised her eyebrows, then looked at Kinsley. “And it totally counts. It wasn’t a peck. We full-on made out.”

  “You studied chemistry?” Seb asked.

  “That’s what you took from that?” Saylor blinked at him. “You’re weird.”

  “I don’t know what to do with all this information,” Colton said, staring between her and Tori.

  “I’m sure you’ll figure it out. In the shower,” Tori said dryly.

  “And I’m going to find my mom to see where our drinks are.” I got up, holding up my hands. I could not listen to those two bicker their way through their sexual frustration anymore, and nor did I want to hear more about their apparently wild college years while I was actually studying for a degree I…

  Used.

  In my bookstore.

  All that time, wasted, on the Dewey decimal system, only for my best friends to never put a book back in the alphabetical order I needed.

  Sigh.

  ***

  “That is some serious rapping.”

  Slowly, I nodded, looking toward the karaoke stage where Kinsley was currently spitting Eminem like her life depended on it.

  “Is that a skill she picked up during pot parties at college, too?”

  I almost choked on my drink and spat it everywhere. I elbowed Seb. “No. It’s one she’s always had that only comes out when she’s drunk.”

  “Oh. She’s drunk? And she can rap like that?” His eyes widened. “I know rappers who can’t rap like that.”

  “Apparently my friends are full of surprises,” I replied dryly. “It seems to be a theme tonight.”

  “You really didn’t know about their… adventures… in college?”

  “Why would I have known? Unlike them, I actually studied.”

  “I can’t believe Saylor was a chemistry major.”

  “Yeah, nobody can. I can’t imagine why,” I finished dryly. “She realized that while she loved chemistry, it was a waste of money because she knew she’d never leave White Peak. So she dropped out, got a full-time job, and stayed living with us off-campus until the year was done.”

  “She didn’t come home?”

  “Why would she? What would she have done?”

  “I sometimes forget how joined at the hip you three are.”

  “We’re not joined at the hip,” I lied. “Well, not so much now Kinsley and Josh are dating. Apparently they need time together.”

  “Does it get in the way of your book club?”

  “I don’t like the way you said that.”

  He grinned, leaning back and resting his arm over the back of my chair. His thumb brushed against the back of my arm, and the sensation of the soft pad of his thumb against my bare skin made goosebumps break out down my arm.

  At least I didn’t shiver. That really would have given it away.

  Could I blame this on the wine?

  I really had to stop drinking wine around Sebastian Stone.

  It made me feel things.

  No, it didn’t.

  It made me acknowledge these things I felt, and that was a very scary prospect.

  Because I didn’t want to.

  My life was simple before he came back. I held a grudge against him, I was happily single, and lived an easy life.

  Now everything was complicated.

  This was the reason I didn’t really date. Feelings were difficult and complicated, and I didn’t have the time for them.

  Lying in bed with Sebastian on Saturday night had awoken several things inside me—things I’d really thought I’d left behind years ago. Those deep feelings that only come from knowing someone.

  They existed because despite how we’d changed, he was still the teenage boy I fell in love with all those years ago. He was still the same guy I laughed and joked with, who threatened to break the noses of the guys who hurt me, who really did help me with all the math homework I could never figure out.

  And I really, really had to get to the bottom of how I felt so I could clear it out of my system.

  I didn’t know how he felt. The only reason he was going along with this whole fake relationship thing was because I really didn’t think he wanted to tell his grandpa the truth.

  At least, I thought that was the only reason.

  The truth was that I didn’t know. I hadn’t asked, and I wasn’t going to ask.

  I didn’t want to know the answer.

  Which was probably why I hadn’t told Amos the truth either.

  It was easier to just… let it go on. Until there was a real reason to stop.

  “Are you all right?”

  I jerked out of my own head and back into the moment. Seb’s blue eyes were boring into mine, and I blinked. “I’m fine. Sorry. I was in my own little world. I’m a bit tired.”

  “Do you want me to take you home?”

  I looked at the bottle in his hand. “Can you drive?”

  He paused. “Shit. Probably not. I can call a cab, or I can walk you home?”

  I turned and looked out of the large windows that overlooked the main road. It was dark, but the lights at the front of the bar illuminated the outside enough that I could tell it was no longer snowing.

  There was about four inches on the ground, but at least it had stopped for now.

  “My apartment isn’t far. I can walk there.”

  “Holley, I’m not going to let you walk home alone. It’s dark and cold and you’ve had at least three glasses of wine.”

  At least? I’d only had three, thank you very much.

  “Okay, fine. Walk me home and you can call a cab from my building.”

  “Sounds good. Shall we tell them we’re going?”

  I looked over at our friends in front of the karaoke book. Ivy and Kai had left a little before nine to pick up Tegan, and it was almost eleven now. Since I had to open the store tomorrow, I was seriously regretting this life choice.

  “No. I’ll text Josh. He’s the most sober of the lot.”

  “Really? Bohemian Rhapsody was him sober?”

  “Sadly, yes.” I gave him a pointed look and got up, grabbing my coat. I was extra thankful I’d brought fifty layers with me today, so I wrapped up and told Seb to wait for a moment so I could say goodbye to my parents.

  I walked up to the bar where they were both working and waited until Mom was done pouring two glasses of wine.

  She glanced over. “Are you leaving, honey?”

  “Yeah, I have to open the store tomorrow. Sorry to leave you with, well, my friends.”

  She laughed as she rung up the order. “Don’t worry about it. It’s not like we’re
not used to this every single week. Is Sebastian staying?”

  I shook my head. “He’s walking me home then getting a cab from my place.”

  “Oh, really?” There was a hint of something in her voice.

  “No, Mother.” I pointed at her with my gloved finger. “Get that idea out of your head right now. We’re friends.”

  “Friends who are pretending to be more,” she replied. “Your sister might have fooled me, but you can’t.”

  “Thank God for that.”

  “Hey, Holls?” Dad called over. “Any chance of season tickets yet?”

  “In your dreams!” I leaned over the bar and hugged Mom, then waved him goodbye and headed back through the people to grab Seb and drag him out before my dad went any further.

  First, he’d want season tickets.

  Then, he’d want a wedding.

  It was just how his weird little brain worked.

  “Okay?” Seb questioned as we stepped out into the freezing tundra that was White Peak’s Main Street.

  “Fine. My dad is asking about season tickets again.” I shoved my hands in my pockets and buried my chin in my scarf.

  He laughed, his elbow bumping mine as we walked. “I can probably get him season tickets if he really wants. Or he can come to the home games as my guest sometimes. It’s fine.”

  “No,” I said quickly. “Don’t tempt him. He’ll never leave you alone if you open that avenue.”

  “I don’t mind. I like your dad.”

  I peered over in time to catch his smile. I shook my head. “You’re insane.”

  “Maybe a little bit.”

  “That’s not something you should agree with.” I paused. “Although you did turn down that hot girl who tried to buy you a drink.”

  “You think she was hot?”

  “We’ve had a whole discussion about this tonight. Right after the whole making out thing, we literally talked about how girls tend to notice how hot other girls are but guys aren’t really bothered by that stuff.”

  “Point well made.” He nodded his head slowly.

  “Why did you turn her down? She didn’t seem like one of those weird groupies who chases baseball players around.”

  His breath puffed out in a cloud of steam in front of him, and he looked at the streetlights that lined our path. “I wasn’t interested in her. She’s not my type.”

  “A tall redhead with an ass better than my boobs isn’t your type?”