“She was.” He keeps looking straight ahead. “Until we hooked up at prom.”

The words hit me like a knife to the back. I can’t speak at first. I’m stuck and still, too busy trying to understand how I missed this. “You slept with her?”

I need to hear him say it. Again.

“Only a few times.”

A sick feeling churns in my stomach, a weird mix of relief and disappointment.

“Only?” I spit out, because as far as I’m concerned, one time is too many when he could have just been honest from the beginning. At least then I could have been prepared.

Now it all makes sense. The way he looked at her at that party. The way she looked at him. Their chemistry. Why she agreed to help me out and set me up with her dad in the first place. She wasn’t doing me a favor; she was doing Nate a favor. Not as a friend, as a...whatever they are. Trying to get closer to him. This whole time.

My breath echoes in my ears. No wonder Taylor thinks I’m an idiot. There I was, smiling in her face when she was already one step ahead of me. Who knows what she said to him that night while we were apart.

I thought she wanted him—but no. She wants him back.

Of course she almost lost her shit when he came out of the shower the other day. She’d probably been waiting for that moment for years. Years.

I’ve never checked Nate’s phone, I’ve never even considered it, but now I’m wondering how long they’ve been texting. The thought hits me hard and fast, and I’m not ready for it. My mind races as I imagine them together. Kissing. Touching. His mouth on her long neck. Her hands on his—

I stop before I get too far ahead of myself. It’s not like I thought Nate had only been with me; I know he’s been with other girls. I just don’t understand why he couldn’t have been up front with me from the beginning. Why did he feel like he had to hide this from me? Is there more he isn’t telling me?

A few times.

Nate glances over at me once we reach the intersection. “She said she was saving herself for, I don’t know, until she was in love or whatever.”

My heart pounds. “You were in love with her?”

“I said until she was in love.” He looks away. “It doesn’t matter. She never cared about me. I walked in on her and some random dude in the weight room. We were boys. She did that shit with no remorse. After we split, I realized she’d been gaslighting me for months.”