Trouble with the Fake Boyfriend (Rock Bottom #3) - Holly Renee Page 0,7

wasn’t sure. Because I never got to hear it.

Instead, Liam jerked my hand from his pants like I was burning him. I didn’t understand what was happening until Liam forced my dress back down my hips and I heard voices coming around the corner of the house.

Voices that were too close.

Liam took a step back from me, a step that put so much distance between us I could feel the absence of him before he ever moved. I pulled up the top of my dress up just as he spoke.

“What’s up, man?” Liam nodded to a guy I had never seen before as he rounded the corner.

They clapped hands and patted each other on the back all while I stood there with my back against the wall and my heart in my throat.

“I have to head out.” The guy’s eyes landed on me before he looked back at Liam with a smile on his face. “You enjoy yourself though.”

Liam ran his hand over the back of his head, and I swear I had never seen him look so uncomfortable. His friend didn’t seem to notice, but I did. I always did.

“Yeah.” Liam chuckled but didn’t even acknowledge my existence. I was just the girl that he left high and dry, well definitely not dry, like I was nothing more than an easy fuck, and I guess I wasn’t. “I’ll catch you later.”

It took a moment after he walked off before Liam turned back toward me, and I knew before I even saw his face the moment we were having was gone.

If I couldn’t still feel the touch of his hands on my skin, I would have thought that I dreamed the whole thing.

He regretted this.

“This was a mistake.” He took a step toward me, and I wished I could step back. I wished I could get as far away from him as possible in that moment.

I nodded my head, because he was right. Liam Gentry was a fucking mistake, and I was an idiot for ever thinking differently.

One

The Elder Wand

Brooke

“This fucking sucks.”

Kennedy watched me dramatically flop onto her bed as she continued to stuff her belongings into a cardboard box.

“It wouldn’t suck so bad if you helped.” She threw a roll of packing tape in my direction, and I barely caught it in time before it hit me.

“That’s not what I mean and you know it.” I pouted because what twenty-eight-year-old woman didn’t pout when her best friend and roommate of the last eight years was moving out. “I’m just going to miss you.”

“I know.” She sighed and looked like she was genuinely conflicted over leaving me to go live with her husband.

God, I loved this girl.

“But it’s not like we’re not going to see each other all the time. It’s just going to be different now.”

“I know.” I sat up and started building our next box.

Kennedy and I had been inseparable since the day we met. We were complete opposites. If I loved it, she probably hated it and vice versa, but when it came to each other, nothing stood in our way.

When Kennedy met her brand new husband, Tucker, I couldn’t have been happier for her. She deserved all the happiness in the world after everything her family had put her through. I just didn’t expect that happiness would take her away from me so soon.

I hadn’t even realized it until the moment the words Tucker and I are buying a house left her lips that Kennedy was my security blanket. A security blanket that was currently being ripped from my fingers.

“We’ll see each other tomorrow night for our celebration dinner, but I could meet you for lunch tomorrow if you want.”

I chuckled at my best friend and the way she still wanted to coddle me even though we were two grown-ass women. “You don’t have to do that. Plus, I doubt I can get out of there long enough to actually sit down and eat lunch.”

Kennedy rolled her eyes, and I knew what was coming before she even said it. “I can’t wait until you get out of that place. Your boss has become such a bitch.”

“Preach.” She wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know or anything that the two of us hadn’t talked about a hundred times before.

“How much longer until you get to walk out that door with your middle fingers held high?”

“According to my calculations.” I tapped my chin like I was studying my numbers. “If I continue to save twenty percent of