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Chapter 54 — Lines Get Louder

Author: Pauline Maxwell
last update Huling Na-update: 2026-02-07 14:47:19

The thing about tension was that it never stayed quiet for long.

By Wednesday, the school had decided on a new narrative.

“Ruby’s playing both sides.” “She likes the attention.” “Kingston and Theo—she’s using them.”

Ruby heard it in fragments. Whispers that paused when she passed. Looks that lingered too long. Smiles that weren’t kind.

She didn’t react.

Not because it didn’t hurt—but because reacting had become predictable. And Ruby Hale was done being predictable.

Theo waited until the library
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  • The Guy Who Lives Next Door    Chapter 60 — “It Didn’t Mean Anything”

    The silence stretched too long.It pressed into Ruby’s chest, heavy and wrong, until the warmth of the kiss faded and reality rushed back in—sharp, unforgiving.Kai stepped back first.That alone should have warned her.He ran a hand over his face, breathing unevenly, eyes unfocused like he’d woken up somewhere he didn’t recognize.“This—” he started, then stopped.Ruby waited. She didn’t reach for him. She didn’t soften. She just watched.He laughed once, short and brittle. “This was a mistake.”Her stomach dropped.“A mistake?” she repeated quietly.Kai nodded too quickly, like he needed the lie to stick. “Yeah. I shouldn’t have come here. I shouldn’t have—”He gestured vaguely between them, unable to look at her.Ruby felt the sting before the words even landed.“It didn’t mean anything,” Kai said.The sentence echoed.It didn’t mean anything.Ruby stared at him, searching his face for hesitation, for guilt, for anything that suggested he didn’t believe his own words.She found pan

  • The Guy Who Lives Next Door    Chapter 59 — The Kiss

    Kai didn’t remember deciding to go to Ruby’s house.He just knew that after leaving Brielle—after the threat, the leverage, the smug certainty in her eyes—there was only one place his feet carried him.Not home.Never home.Ruby’s porch light was on. Soft. Warm. An island in the dark.He stood there for a full minute before knocking, chest tight, pulse loud in his ears. He hadn’t planned what to say. He only knew he couldn’t stay silent anymore—not after Brielle. Not after realizing just how much damage his silence had already done.The door opened.Ruby froze when she saw him.For a heartbeat, neither of them moved.“Kai?” she said quietly.He looked wrecked. Hair messy, jaw tight, eyes darker than usual—like he was holding something together with sheer will.“I need to talk to you,” he said.Ruby hesitated, then stepped aside. “You have five minutes.”The door closed behind them with a soft click that sounded far too loud in the quiet house.They stood in the living room, a careful

  • The Guy Who Lives Next Door    Chapter 58 — Brielle’s Last Card

    Brielle moved like someone who knew time was running out.Not frantic. Not sloppy.Precise.Ruby noticed the shift first—not through gossip or posts, but through absence. Brielle wasn’t loud anymore. No public smirks. No dramatic comments in class. No obvious jabs in the hallway.That scared Ruby more than the open cruelty ever had.Lila felt it too.“She’s quiet,” Lila whispered during lunch, eyes flicking across the cafeteria. “That’s never good.”Ruby nodded, unease crawling up her spine. “She’s planning something.”Across the room, Brielle sat with her usual group, laughing softly, phone face-down on the table. She didn’t look at Ruby once.Which meant Ruby was the entire point.The first sign came that afternoon.Ruby opened her locker to find nothing inside had been touched—except one thing.A manila envelope.No name. No note.Just weight.Her fingers trembled as she pulled it out, heart pounding loud enough she was sure the hallway could hear it. She didn’t open it there. She

  • The Guy Who Lives Next Door    Chapter 57 — Theo’s Ultimatum

    They didn’t go inside the café after all.Theo led Ruby past it, down the quieter street where the city thinned into brick and shadow, where conversations felt safer because no one was close enough to overhear. The hum of traffic faded, replaced by the soft scrape of shoes on pavement.Ruby sensed the shift immediately.“This sounds serious,” she said.Theo stopped walking.“It is.”She turned to face him. He wasn’t smiling. His hands were clenched at his sides, not in anger—control. Like he was holding something back that had been pressing against his ribs for too long.“You said there were things I don’t know,” Ruby said. “About Kai.”Theo exhaled slowly. “I said he controls the story. And he always has.”Ruby’s instinctive response was to defend someone she’d just decided not to wait for. That annoyed her.“I’m not here to pick sides,” she said. “I already told you—”“I’m not asking you to,” Theo cut in. Then, softer, “I’m asking you to be honest with yourself.”That landed.Theo s

  • The Guy Who Lives Next Door    Chapter 56 — The Lie That Stings

    Ruby told herself she was done expecting honesty from people who thrived on silence.So when Kai denied caring, she believed him.Too easily.It happened the next afternoon, outside the library, where the air smelled like rain and old paper and things left unsaid. Ruby had been sitting on the steps, scrolling through notes for a club meeting she’d volunteered to help organize. Growth, she reminded herself. Movement. Forward.She didn’t hear Kai approach until his shadow fell across her screen.“Kai?” she said, looking up.He stood there with his hands in his pockets, posture casual, expression carefully blank. Like he’d practiced this version of himself.“You wanted to talk,” he said.Ruby hesitated, then stood. “Yeah. I did.”For a moment, neither of them spoke. Students passed by, glancing, whispering. The usual gravity of his name still pulled attention, but it felt… thinner now. Fractured.Ruby broke first. “Yesterday—what I said. About you pushing me away.”Kai nodded once. “I he

  • The Guy Who Lives Next Door    Chapter 55 — The Calm Before the Break

    Ruby on the other hand felt it before she could explain it.That something was wrong with Kai, the moment she saw him.Not the obvious kind—no sharp remarks, no cutting smirks, no dramatic entrances that bent the hallway around him. If anything, he’d gone too quiet. He passed her in the corridor without looking up. Sat two rows back in class and stared out the window like the room didn’t exist. When teachers spoke to him, he answered politely. Empty.That scared her more than his temper ever had.She caught up to him after the last period, just outside the science wing where the lockers thinned out and the noise dropped.“Kai,” she called.He kept walking.“Kai,” she said again, sharper this time.He stopped, turned slowly. His face was carefully neutral, like something locked behind glass.“What,” he asked.Not what’s wrong.Not hey.Just what.Ruby folded her arms, grounding herself. “You’ve been avoiding me.”“No, I haven’t.”“You haven’t looked at me all day.”“That’s not a crime.

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