Page 67 of Tell No Lies

I watched the muscles in his jaw tense and jump. “I couldn’t look at you yet.”

“What? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Stop acting innocent!”

Time froze. This was the first time Mike ever raised his voice at me. He looked like he was one wrong word away from exploding. I crossed my arms in front of me automatically. I wanted so badly to stay strong, but it was too much. He was acting like Morgan had, angry and out of control.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” My voice cracked on the last word.

“Oh, stop it! You don’t get to act like the victim this time.”

His words were daggers in my heart. He knew what he was saying and how it would affect me. “Please, please just tell me what happened.”

He barked out a laugh and ran a fist through his short hair. He turned to the side, away from me, and shook his head. “Stop looking at me like I’m the bad guy.”

“I’m just scared, Mike. I don’t understand!”

“Just admit it!”

“What? Admit what?” My emotions were coming in waves of panic, anxiety, and frustration.

“You cheated on me.”

That was the absolute last thing I was expecting, and I stood there stunned for a few moments. He seemed to take that as an admission of guilt.

“You aren’t even going to try to deny it?”

“No.”

He suddenly looked so defeated.

“No, Mike. I don’t have to try to deny it, because it’s not true! I would never do that to you!”

“Then explain this to me. Tell me this isn’t what it looks like.”

I stood frozen in confusion as he held up his phone. It was from the day I went running with Gage. It was taken from behind us, but you could clearly see our linked arms and my head resting on his shoulder.

Mike pulled the phone back and swiped. When he showed it to me this time, my chin was resting on Gage’s shoulder, and I was smiling up at him. To an outsider, it would look like we were a couple sharing a precious moment. The photo captured a look on Gage’s face I hadn’t noticed at the time. He was looking down at me with such tenderness. The shy smile he reserved for me was captured there, and I bit back my request for Mike to send it to me.

Taking a deep breath, I stepped back and cleared my head. For anyone who knew that just moments before, we were teasing each other after our race, it was innocent and platonic, but those pictures showed something I hadn’t seen.

It looked like we were in love.

“Mike, there is an explanation, but whether or not you trust me is the real issue.”

“So, this is somehow my fault?” His voice rose.

“That’s not what I said. If you truly trusted me, you wouldn’t have cut me off and turned my friends against me. You could have come directly to me and asked.”

“I needed to know if Mckayla knew about this. I needed to know if you had been playing me this whole time.”

“You can’t really believe that!” My shock was quickly turning to anger. “After everything we’ve been through, you think that lowly of me?”

He clenched his jaw a few times before responding. “You’re not the problem. I don’t trust Gage. I’ve made that clear, and you still went behind my back to hang out with him.”

“He was running past my building and asked Brandon if I could go with him. We ran my normal route to the end of the peninsula, and when we got there we sat and talked. That’s it.”

Mike didn’t look like he believed me, or he didn’t want to. “I told you I didn’t want you hanging out with him.”