Don't Lie

Sarah Jules DON’T LIE Copyright © 2022 Sarah Mosley All rights reserved. For all those who picked up FOUND YOU. You’re in for a wild ride with this one. Contents Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty-One Chapter Twenty-Two Chapter Twenty-Three Chapter Twenty-Four Chapter Twenty-Five Chapter Twenty-Six Chapter Twenty-Seven Chapter Twenty-Eight Chapter Twenty-Nine Chapter Thirty Chapter Thirty-One Chapter Thirty-Two Chapter Thirty-Three Chapter Thirty-Four Chapter Thirty-Five Chapter Thirty-Six Chapter Thirty-Seven Chapter Thirty-Eight Chapter Thirty-Nine Chapter Forty Chapter Forty-One Chapter Forty-Two Chapter Forty-Three Chapter Forty-Four Chapter Forty-Five Chapter Forty-Six Epilogue Leave a Review Connect with Sarah Jules About the Author Also, by Sarah Jules… FOUND YOU Chapter One Quinn The pregnant rain cloud overhead looked fit to burst, an omen that I shouldn’t have agreed to come on this stupid trip. Katie had been convincing, as she always was. ‘One last blow out’ before we all go our separate ways, that’s what she said. And now here I was, in a glorified caravan, in the middle of nowhere. University had already ended. The metaphorical stage curtains drawing to a close, exit stage left and don’t look back. There’s this misconception that you can just walk into a job after university, and somebody will take you on, as long as you rid yourself of any moral fibre and accept whatever comes your way. I didn’t want to be that person. I wouldn’t be that person. I had a first-class honours degree, for God’s sake. I’d passed my qualified teacher status with flying colours. There was no way I was going to go and work in a McDonald’s, not after three years of stress up to my back teeth and very little sleep. This is why I’d lied. How do you tell your only friends that everybody else on your course landed a teaching job except for you? Even the girls who cared more about over-drawing their lips and having eyelash in-fills every six weeks than imparting any education to the poor children in their teacher training classes had found schools willing to take them on. Schools that would force them through their NQT year and turn them into proper little professionals, but not me, and not for lack of trying. The only reason I’d agreed to come, other than Katie’s pestering, was the fact that I needed a break from the constant stream of job applications. Have you ever filled out a teaching post application? It takes hours. What’s wrong with sending off a CV and a personal statement? And so, I found myself unpacking my bag, listening to the people I’d lived with for the last three years, joking in the living room cum dining room cum kitchen, while I hung up my clothes in the children’s wardrobe. We were only supposed to be here for three days, but old habits die hard. I couldn’t live out of a suitcase. I pulled out the Bio Oil from my toiletry bag, relieving it of its lid. Gripping the bottom of my t-shirt between my teeth, I rubbed the cool contents over my ribs; my chosen area for taking out my frustration. Scars, like jagged bite marks, decorated my skin. Bright white against my already painfully pale skin. The door creaked open. I released my shirt from my mouth and straightened up to see Ellis leaning languidly in the doorway. I despised the way he made my skin prickle. The way I flushed. The way I forgot how to string a simple sentence together in his presence. ‘There you are.’ He smiled. If my life was an American teen sitcom, he’d be the jock. The one all the girls fawned over for his handsome jawline and naturally tanned skin. His smile could part the waves, fell the monster, cause the damsel in distress to swoon at his feet. ‘Thought you’d vanished. We were just about to organise a search party,’ he said when I failed to answer. The bottle of warm Budweiser was brought to his lips, my eyes fixed on his Adam’s apple, bobbing up and down perilously. He was out-of-this-world beautiful and dear God, did he know it. ‘I was just unpacking,’ I explained, gesturing unnecessarily to the suitcase on the bed and the open wardrobe. He shook his head at me, his eyes crinkling with the smile that tugged on his lips. He knew what I was like. Type A personality, he was always reminding me. ‘I like your hair like that,’ he said, stepping towards me. His fingers found my hair before I could back away. He’d been blowing hot and cold with me over the last couple of weeks, and I was determined not to act like a puppy dog, and instead respect myself a little, and demand respect in return. ‘Thank you,’ I said. My brunette hair was usually tied back in a ponytail somewhere near the base of my skull. But I’d decided to try something different. Instead, I allowed the natural curls to form as it dried, pulling hair from my temples back in plaits and securing them at the back of my head. ‘Are you trying to impress someone? I hear Xan’s single.’ His lips were against mine before I could formulate a response. Gently, barely there. The kind of kiss that made me think there might be something real between us. Something that could last after we leave our student house and go into the big wide world to be real-life adults. ‘Come on, Kate has dug out a set of cards and we’re playing Ring of Fire.’ Just like that, I came crashing back to earth. Ring of Fire. At nine o’clock in the morning, all because his ex suggested it. The future I, too often, imagined for the both of us dissolved into nothing as I traipsed