Hate to Love You novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: Caught

By Thursday I had a system.

I walked into the library through the side door, ten minutes before Shay, so that we never entered together.

I took the table in the corner behind the biographies.

He always found me anyway.

That Thursday, we finished the last chapter, and he closed the book with a ceremony.

"I understand Gatsby," he announced.

"Do you?"

"He loved a woman who wasn't who he thought she was, and it ruined him."

I looked down at my notebook.

"That's pretty close," I said.

"Is it?"

"It's close."

We packed up and walked out the side door together because it was raining lightly and the front steps were slick.

Shay was telling a story about the time his mom locked herself out of the car at the hospital.

He was doing her voice.

I was laughing so hard I had to stop on the path.

"And then she says, 'Sweetheart, I'm a professional,'" he finished, "and she's holding a coat hanger."

I wiped my eyes.

Then I saw the truck.

It was parked in the first row of the lot, with the engine running.

Mason was leaning on the hood, his arms crossed over his letter jacket.

I stopped laughing.

Shay followed my eyes and went still.

For a second nobody moved.

Then Mason pushed off the hood and walked toward us.

"Henslow," he said. "Funny seeing you here."

"I'm studying."

"With him."

"He needed a tutor." My voice came out thin. "It's for English."

"Is that right." Mason's eyes slid to Shay. "Nice of you to waste her time."

Keep reading free with an account. Start Hate to Love You from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.