Chapter 1

It was a gray and chilly autumn morning. Splendidly cold. The perfect weather for cuddling. And thanks to Dean’s irregularly high body temperature, he was radiating a cozy warmth I couldn’t get enough of. I snuggled into him, treasuring the smooth skin of his bare chest, tracing the gentle slopes under my fingers. So this was what having a boyfriend was like. This was what feeling safe and protected and loved was like.

He pulled me close, scooping me in by the waist with one strong arm. I couldn’t stop the small giggle that escaped me as he pressed a kiss to my lips. Then another.

I melted into him, his lips warm against mine. My fingers found their way up into his lush hair, and my cheeks heated at the slight slip of his tongue easing its way into my mouth to caress mine. We fell deeply into one another, until there was no breath left to spare.

He was snaking a finger down my hip, tracing the waistband of my jeans. I could feel his erection pressing through his jeans. Then Dean pulled back enough to speak. Enough to look me in the eyes. “Are you ready?”

HONK!

I jerked awake to the sound of a blaring car horn. I was in my car, parked outside Dean’s apartment. Across the street, someone had nearly rear-ended the car in front of them at the gas station, and the honking hadn’t stopped since. I took in my surroundings, a bit bleary from my dream. What was I doing here?

Right. Staking out Dean’s apartment. Normal things.

I rubbed my eyes and noted my cup of coffee, gone cold during my incidental nap. I took a sip, the taste like mud in my mouth. Didn’t matter. I needed to stay awake.

I focused on his apartment building across the street and shamefully tugged my little brother’s baseball cap down over my face.

What the

was I doing? It was insane—staking out the guy I was dating’s apartment with disgusting coffee and a lousy disguise. But there was something about Dean I just couldn’t shake. He was always saying the right things, never missing a beat, always doing that thing with his voice that made my cheeks blush and toes curl. And to top it all off, he was ridiculously hot.

So naturally my brain assumed something was wrong.

Maybe it was because this was all so new—nice, but new. Maybe it was just a sign that I was falling for Dean that I worried he was beginning to pull away. And so quickly, too. We had only just made it official a few weeks ago.

I’d barely dipped my feet into the deep, dark waters of dating, and it felt like everything was already blowing up in my face.

Why did I have to tell him I was a virgin?

He’d put a stop to everything so quickly. One moment, we were making out like no one else existed in the world, and the next, he was pulling away. Staring at me like he’d just seen a ghost.

I couldn’t shake the way he’d looked at me that night. How he said, “It’s fine. It happens.”

What did he mean by that? It happens? Being a virgin… happens?

It wasn’t like I was against sex—I

wasn’t. My one requirement was that I was “in like” with whoever I had sex with for the first time and that they liked me too. And if love were there, even better. Just no random one-night stands for me, but my best friend Nikki was of another opinion.

Regardless, I’d been totally down to have sex with Dean. Things had been going well between us. But ever since I’d dropped the V-card info, he’d been distant. He didn’t look at me the way he used to. Even his kisses hadn’t felt the same. I just couldn’t shake the idea that maybe he was pushing me away because he was hooking up with someone else.

My phone began ringing in my lap, and the vibrations gave me a jolt. I nearly screamed as it slipped between my knees and hit the floorboard. I leaned down and scooped it up, promptly answering the incoming call from Nikki.

“Shayla Santos, you listen to me right now. Go home!” Nikki said before I’d even managed a hello.

“Just a few more minutes,” I replied.

“You’ve lost your marbles, babe.”

“I’m fine. I have this under control.”

I hung up.

Shit, Nikki was probably right. What I was doing wasn’t exactly within the realm of chill. No doubt that if I were wrong, Dean would hate me for it and that would be the end of the relationship altogether. But if I was right…

My phone was ringing again. I groaned and answered Nikki’s call.

“Nikki, this is serious! Stop distracting me; I’m trying to do something.”

“Shay, you’re stressed about school, and you’ve never been in a relationship before,” Nikki replied. “You’re just a shy future librarian. It’s okay! First-time boyfriend jitters are totally normal.”

Nikki wasn’t exactly wrong. Maybe I was just getting jitters, like she’d said. Freaking out and blowing everything out of proportion. “But what if he actually is cheating on me?” I asked. “I just don’t have a good feeling, Nik. Wouldn’t you want to know?”

“Come on, Shay. You two just started dating,” Nikki replied. “Guys are rats, but not

bad. What are the chances your first boyfriend ever cheats on you in the span of a couple weeks?”

“Not impossible,” I said.

Nikki continued, but I’d stopped listening. The door to Dean’s apartment building had opened, and I nearly dropped my phone at the sight of someone stepping outside. Where the hell were my binoculars—

I snatched them out of the passenger seat and held them to my eyes, peering out at the front stoop of the building. It wasn’t Dean who’d come outside, but some woman who’d taken her dog out on a walk.

“What?” Nikki was rasping through the phone. “What was it? Was it him?”

“No,” I replied, scanning the area. Maybe I was taking this too far. This was borderline obsessive girlfriend behavior, and I might’ve been a little needy, but I wasn’t psycho. Then the door opened again.

This time, it was Dean. And he was lingering at the stoop, holding the door open for someone. A woman stepped out—a cute one at that. She paused outside the door and smiled up at Dean. Some words were exchanged, but of course I couldn’t hear them.

Then it happened.

Dean leaned in and kissed her. Not a chaste kiss, but one that lingered for much too long. Long enough for me to mutter coldly into the line, “Hang on.”

I dropped my phone, snatched my stale, cold coffee, and marched across the street.

I didn’t have a plan. Just a boiling rage within, threatening to spill over. I charged toward him, shouting his name. “Dean!”

He turned from his sidepiece and took me in, his eyes widening, the smile slipping right off his face. “Shayla—” He held up his hands as if he were calming a wild animal. “Shay, hold on. It’s not what it looks like. She—she’s my—” But his words were drowned out by the pulse of my own heart in my ears. I didn’t see sweet, handsome Dean anymore. All I could see was red. I threw the cold coffee at him, the liquid splashing down his face, staining that precious 90s band T-shirt he loved so much.

I turned to the girl he was with and said, “Let me save you the time. He’s a fucking cheater.”

Her jaw dropped, and she looked at Dean with a healthy level of disgust. I gave him one last brief look and snarled, “Fuck. You.”

Then I marched back across the street, got into my car, and drove away.

***

I didn’t want to be bothered by what Dean did. I wanted to be

who stopped caring about a man the second he betrayed her. But I couldn’t shake the sadness, even hours later when I found myself at the school mixer with my classmate, Kenna.

School usually lifted my mood. Something about being surrounded by books at every turn. Books were one of my favorite things in the world—the smell of them, the feel of them, the inspiration and knowledge they held inside. They weren’t like people. No matter how many times you read them, the pages never changed. They were dependable and safe. That was one reason I’d decided to become a librarian. But today, even the power of books couldn’t ward off the cloud over my head.

Kenna and I snatched a bagel before we dipped out of the room and made the brief walk across campus toward our next class. She was going on about something from our reading for class, but I couldn’t bring myself to listen. I still felt the adrenaline from this morning pumping through my veins, and my thoughts were running rampant with images of Dean kissing that woman. How was I supposed to go about the day like everything was normal? What if I ran into him?

The last thing I wanted to do was talk to him. But what if he was on campus?

God, if he tried to talk to me, I was gonna explode.

My phone rumbled in my pocket for the millionth time today. I knew it was Nikki, but I didn’t have the energy to deal with all that right now. I just wanted to settle down in class and eat my bagel with an unhealthy dose of cream cheese. Thank god for carbs.

“It was bleak, that’s all I’m saying,” Kenna was going on. “I mean, I understand assigning a hundred pages before next class, but at least make the reading something bearable, you know? When I enrolled in Library Studies, I thought we’d be talking about our favorite authors and books at least a

bit.”

I muttered a sorry excuse for a reply—something along the lines of “Haha, yeah,” and we crossed the street toward the next building. I hadn’t been paying much attention until I spotted Dean on the other side of the road. On instinct, I booked it, racing into the building before he could see us. Kenna followed at my heels, yelping, “Shay, hold on! I’m gonna spill my coffee!”

I didn’t want to have to explain everything to Kenna while still trying to process it all myself. I could tell by the look on her face that she was picking up on something. It wouldn’t be long before the questions started. What excuse would I make up for why I was acting so crazy?

God, Dean was an asshole for putting me in this position. How could he do this to me? Our relationship was young, but I would’ve liked to think I was a decent girlfriend! Up until the stakeout in front of his apartment, but that had at least had a reason for it! Was I really so boring that a guy would cheat on me just a couple weeks in?

“Shayla Santos.” I was walking into class when a voice came from behind me. I turned to see the department head, Sandy Miller, leaning out of her office. She crooked a finger at me, and the dread I felt over Dean was replaced with the only thing worse: anxiety. I followed her into her office and sat in the chair across from her desk.

The look on her face was abysmal.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

She gave a deep sigh and folded her hands on her desk. “I’m so sorry, Shayla, but there’s been a mistake.”