The Great Pretenders

Chapter 9

Matt's POV

We owed the girls pancakes. They crushed the boys 6-0 and there were only 3 of them. Sadly when we tried to get them to go after the game, most of them claimed they had to go home and study. How fucking weird was that??

So here I am, at the grocery store getting some snacks for the guys when they came over to jam. As I perused the aisles, I tried to process all the information I'd received today.

First up, Kelly Sullivan? Was it possible? She had a crush on me? Kelly was one of the sweetest kids I knew. But she'd always been into appearances and fashion and was entirely too high maintenance for anyone. And I? Well I was me. Band t shirts and jeans guys. We were totally mismatched.

And she also had a very high sense of self-preservation...my kind way of saying she was selfish. Not that she wasn't beautiful or something to look at it, but I'd never thought of her that way. Thinking of her didn't give me tingles the way thinking of Lucy...Val..I meant Val...no tingles the way Val did.

And almost as if I conjured her up, down the milk aisle was Valary herself.

"Hey there," I said trying to be amiable.

She turned to me surprised but was going to speak when her phone rang. She put a finger up as if to tell me to hold on. And I did...what a moron I am.

She pulled her phone out of her purse, looked at the caller ID and smiled. She quickly flipped her phone and held it to her ear.

"Hey sweetie," She giggled. "Yeah... I'm at the store right now...I should be done in about 20...sure you can come to my place... Okay, bye sweetie. See in a few minutes." She was talking on her phone and then hung up.

"Oh. Hey Matt," she smiled and put her phone back in her purse.

"Was that Harrison?" I gritted my teeth.

"Matthew-" she rolled her eyes.

"Was it?" I yelled. I never lost my cool, but thinking about the girl I loved with a different man... it broke me.

"Yes. It was. My boyfriend," She said softly.

"Your what?" I stuttered.

"My boyfriend." She repeated.

"He's your boyfriend? I didn't know it was official. Since when?"

I knew they were fooling around after we broke up but boyfriend? I guess in my head I'd thought that he was just a quick fix till she came to her senses. When did they become sex buddies to boyfriend and girlfriend?

"Since you and his ex-girlfriend have been together," she smiled.

What? Where did she get that from? I loved her and only her. Lucy and I were supposed look like we were interested in each other, but not actually be together. When anybody asked as we would just say we were close. We were never together.

"We're not together!" I mumbled

"Well that's not what she said to Mark or her friends," she crossed her arms against her chest. If I wasn't so mad I would be checking out her cleavage.

"What did she say?" I asked her.

"I don't know, but whatever she said confirmed you two were together to Mark," she smiled when she said the asshole's name. What did Lucy fucking tell him? Maybe that's why she didn't want to explain earlier.

"So Mark and I are going public. We didn't do it at first because he didn't want to upset the girl or you. He's real sensitive like that. But now that we know that you two are... happy, we can be happy. Together." She smiled.