Mr. Lone Boy /BoyxBoy/

||Seven||

"I don't know what you're talking about," I said, turning around and heading towards my car.

I heard footsteps behind me before I felt Ian's fingers wrap around my wrist.

"Let go of me," I seethed.

"Not until you give a good reason to why you lied to Devin about dating Tom," he shot back.

I painfully twisted my hand out of his tight grip, anger pulsing through my veins, "I don't owe you anything."

He backs away, nodding his head, "You're right. But you owe it to Devin.''

His words sting me in the right place, and I watch as he realizes that.

"Until next time," he says, and walks away towards his car.

I watched him leave, his car zooming away in a blur, and slowly walked towards my own.

I felt sick.

I never wanted things to go this way, and I suddenly began asking myself why. Why did I go through with this? Was it really worth it, to pretend I was with someone else?

**

The next morning was hands down one of the worst I ever had to live through. Things between Jake and I were...weird. So I couldn't ask him to come over.

By mid-afternoon, I had opened a bucket of cookie dough ice cream, and swallowed it down like some teenage girl in a chick-flick. It was great comfort food, but it still couldn't distract me from the thing I just couldn't let myself think about.

If Ian had told Devin yet.

I almost yelped when my phone rang, the dog barking curiously as he strutted over.

I read the caller's ID, and sighed as I swiped to accept the call.

"Hey, Tom."

"Nate, where've you been?" He asked.

I frowned, "What do you mean?"

"I mean," he stressed, "it's almost four pm and you still haven't dropped by. Is everything okay?"

I didn't want to lie to Tom. Of all people, he had the right to know what was going on.

"No," I said. "I'll be there in a second."

"Wh-?"

I hung up before he could say anything else, grabbing my hoodie and locking my apartment door behind me.

I was at the cafe two minutes later. Tom rushed up to me as soon as I walked in, following me to a window seat and taking my order of a warm spice tea.

"Can I have a muffin with that?"

He raised his eyebrows but nodded anyway, returning with my order less than three minutes later.

He sat in the chair in front of me, and watched as I drank sips out of the tea cup.

"So, let me get this straight. First, you don't show up here early like you always do. Second, you order food. Food. Are you some kind of alien pretending to be the Nate I know, or what?" He said.

"Can't a guy be hungry?"I respond.

But by the look on Tom's face I knew he wasn't buying it.

"Ian knows," I said, my voice barely over a whisper.

"Say that again?" He leaned closer, a frown painted across his face. "Please don't tell me what I heard is true, that you just don't own a calendar so you think it's April?"