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JOÃO
“Will you stop fucking flipping out now?” I growled down at Imani.
With her curly hair in all different directions and her eyes wide, she lay on Landon’s parents’ bed in a daze. “I just …” she whispered, peeling her gaze away from mine and pulling on her clothes. “I don’t want any of you to go to jail for this.”
“We won’t go to jail.”
She tugged on her jeans and buttoned them. “You don’t know that.”
I clenched my hands into tight fists by the door, annoyance rushing through me. I’d thought fucking her would relax us both, would show her that this was all fucking for her, but I guessed that hadn’t been enough.
“We won’t,” I said.
“But what if you do, João?” she snapped, staring at me with just as much annoyance.
“We won’t!” I said, raising my voice louder than expected.
“But—”
“Why does it matter so much to you?” I pushed. “Why do you care about us going to jail?”
When she parted her lips, my chest tightened. I couldn’t help the thoughts racing through my head. This was the same way I’d felt the other night with her when I collapsed into her arms, pulled her tight, and admitted to her that I wanted someone to love Ana and me.
Truth was that I wanted her to be the one to love us. To love me.
She stayed quiet for a long time. All I wanted was for her to say something, to tell me that she didn’t want me in jail because she loved me. I had been waiting for that for so long, yet still, she didn’t say anything.
“Say it,” I whispered.
“Because I …”
The moments passed so agonizingly slowly. I could hear each unsteady breath exiting my mouth, could feel my throat closing as she shifted her gaze, those dark brown eyes trembling for a moment.
“Because I …” She tucked some hair behind her ear, swallowed, and softened her stare. “I care about you guys.”
My heart dropped, and the words I had wanted her so desperately to say seemed so lost and distant now. I hadn’t wanted to hear that she cared about us. If she hadn’t, she wouldn’t have given a fuck about Ana or my family or any of the shit we did.
I wanted to hear that she loved me.
Me.
“I don’t want you guys to leave me. You’re the ones who’ve made me stronger, the ones who showed me the real side of Redwood.” She frowned and stared at the scuffed wooden floorboards. “You can’t go to jail for this, and you know that someone will try to blame you.”
She continued talking, continued to speak shit that I couldn’t focus on at the moment. Anger rushed through me. She had already told Landon that she loved him. If she felt that way about me too, she would’ve said it. Which meant that …
I ran a hand through my hair and stormed to the door. “Fuck this.”
Imani widened her eyes. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Fucking leaving.”
“Why?!” Imani asked, hurrying after me. “I tell you why I don’t want you to—”
“I don’t want to hear it anymore, Imani,” I said through gritted teeth, hastily pulling on my clothes so I could head back downstairs to the basement.
Maybe I’d take a drive instead and pick Ana up from Vera’s house, deal with Mom’s shit by myself. I’d been doing it by myself for this long. I could do it for the rest of my fucking life alone too.
“Can you stop and listen to me?!” She hurried over to me and grabbed my forearm, pulling me back. “Please, João.”
