Todos los capítulos de My Fake Boyfriend Is My Biggest Rival: Capítulo 31 - Capítulo 40

The game had been over for almost twenty minutes when Harper finally made her way down from the bleachers. Most of the students had already left, dragging blankets and half-empty bottles of water behind them, while the football players gathered near the locker room entrance in various stages of exhaustion. The field looked different without everyone shouting. A few parents stood around talking, and the lights above the stadium had begun to make the grass look almost silver where the players had worn it down.Luca was still there.He had taken off his helmet and was standing with two of his teammates near the sideline, listening to them argue about a play from the second quarter. His jersey was grass stained at one shoulder, and there was a thin red mark along his cheekbone. He looked tired, although he was doing his best not to show it. Every few seconds someone stopped him to say something about the game, and he answered them with the same easy grin he had worn all evening.Harper ha

By lunch, Harper had already checked her phone six times without opening Instagram.She had a perfectly reasonable excuse for five of those checks. Her mother had messaged her about picking up milk. Noah had sent something about the history assignment. The school group chat had been going off since first period, although nobody ever seemed to say anything useful in there. The sixth time, Harper had no excuse at all. Her thumb hovered over the Instagram icon before she locked the screen and shoved the phone beneath her thigh.Across from her, Mia was halfway through a sandwich and watching her with the sort of expression that meant she had noticed everything.“You're doing that thing again.”Harper kept her eyes on the carton of juice in front of her. “I have no idea what you're talking about.”“You've checked your phone six times.”“I've checked it five times.”Mia paused with the sandwich halfway to her mouth. “That was somehow worse.”Harper reached for a handful of fries she didn't

Noah called my name at the bottom of the back steps.Before I even turned around I knew it was him. And I hated that I knew it was him. I always knew his voice, even in a noisy, crowded courtyard. The school was nearly empty now. It stretched across the concrete without a buffer. I paused.Noah was standing by the doors, one hand through the strap of his rucksack. He looked as if he had been waiting there, but I couldn't tell how long. Most of the students had already gone, but some were still heading toward the buses. The sun was dropping behind the main building, and the courtyard had that washed-out end-of-day look it always got in winter.I held on to my bag and waited for him to come over.He didn't rush. That was probably intentional. Noah had never been careful about distance with me before. He used to take my hand without asking, lean against me when we sat together, steal fries from my plate and then deny it while chewing. Seeing him stop several feet away felt wrong in a way

The anonymous account had apparently decided humiliation wasn't enough anymore. I found that out during breakfast when my phone vibrated beside my cereal bowl and I made the mistake of checking it before I'd properly woken up. Someone had sent me a screenshot of the newest post. The photograph itself wasn't interesting. It showed Luca and me leaving school together the previous afternoon, taken from far enough away that neither of us had noticed whoever held the camera. Luca was carrying his football bag, I had my competition folder tucked against my chest, and we weren't touching. Under any other circumstances, it would have been the most boring photograph anyone had ever taken of us. The account had made it interesting by putting dates beside it.There were six screenshots beneath the photograph, arranged into a timeline so neatly that whoever made it must have spent a disturbing amount of time going through old school posts. The first was my yearbook picture from before Luca and I s

Luca invited me to the clinic on Saturday morning as though he were asking me to come watch him return a library book. He mentioned it while we were leaving school on Friday, somewhere between complaining about Coach adding another training session and reminding me that my mother had apparently volunteered both of us to help set up tables for a neighbourhood fundraiser the following weekend. There was no long explanation. He said the community clinic was expecting more children than usual and could use another pair of hands, then told me I could come if I wanted. The casual way he said it almost made me miss what was different. The first time I'd seen him there, back in Chapter 15 of whatever strange disaster my life had become, I'd found that part of him by accident. He hadn't expected me, hadn't prepared for me and certainly hadn't invited me. This time, he was opening the door himself.I arrived twenty minutes early because being exactly on time for something unfamiliar made me ner