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As soon as the words came out of my mouth, guilt washed through me. I hated hurting people intentionally, but I couldn’t stop. I shouldn’t have said what I had said to him. I was jealous that he had all the money in the world and I had to work at a lousy library instead of doing what I loved every day.
He stared down at the counter, eyes shifting back and forth, and didn’t say anything for a while. The more time that went by, the worse I felt. His jaw twitched.
“Tell me that you’re lying,” he said, voice quieter.
While I had wanted to hurt him, I now felt really freaking bad. Blaise usually always had something harsh to say to me. He wasn’t this quiet with his words ever, and I didn’t like it.
Not wanting to hurt him more—because I didn’t like the way I felt when people hurt me—I stared down at the counter and pressed my lips together. If I kept talking or if I answered him, I knew I’d say something that I didn’t really mean.
But he had kissed another girl today. He had let her touch him after he was with me last night, after … spending time with me and encouraging me to release a chapter of my story online. I’d thought for a second he actually cared.
“You should go,” I finally found the courage to say.
“I’m not leaving.” Blaise shook his head, turned around, and walked back to the couch. He pulled on a pair of Apple AirPods Max, the kind that all the rich kids wore in the halls, and took out his laptop. “I don’t have shit to go home to anyway.”
ChapterTwenty-Four
BLAISE
Thunder rumbled through the library, a flash of lightning igniting the darkness outside the windows. I sat on a cheap-as-fuck black couch and edited a skateboarding video that I had taken at the skatepark last weekend on my laptop.
No matter how much Vera wanted me to leave, I refused to go anywhere. It wasn’t like anyone was waiting for me back home. Here, Vera was actively ignoring me, which meant that she … cared. At least, a little, right?
I glanced up from my computer toward the front counter. Vera scribbled on a scrap piece of paper, biting her lip and grinning softly. Fuck if she cared about me—probably not—because she was happy now while she wrote.
Tabbing over from my editing software to the bookmarked website where she had posted her story last night, I scrolled through the comments. She’d better have been checking this out, too, today because people wanted more.
I wanted more too. But … not only of her stories.
I wanted to plead with her so badly because … I didn’t want her to hate me. I didn’t want her to think that I was useless and that I wasn’t going anywhere, that I would rely on my father’s money for the rest of my life.
My parents already thought that I wasn’t going anywhere in life because I loved skateboarding and rejoiced in royally pissing them off. Dad had even told me that I would never see a penny of his money when I finished high school if I didn’t follow in his footsteps and take over the family business. But he didn’t know that I planned on getting out of this freaking town as soon as I could.
His money made my life easier, but I didn’t want to look at numbers and talk with clients all fucking day long. Hell, I didn’t even know what he did all the time with all these solo vacations he took without my mother.
I tabbed back to my video editing software to rewatch the video I had taken, making sure that it didn’t show my face. If Dad knew that I uploaded these stupid fucking videos on YouTube—because it was what I loved doing—he’d try to shut it down immediately.
When a young kid walked up to the counter with his mother, Vera quickly hid her smutty story and tossed some brown hair over her shoulder. She scanned the three books and waved them out of the library. With the storm outside, those were the last few people here, but Vera still had about two hours until she closed.
Suddenly, thunder crashed through the night, and the library went dark. I pulled off my headphones and heard Vera gasp softly. When I went to stand, Vera turned on her phone’s flashlight and disappeared into a back room, mumbling something about candles.
I followed behind her, maneuvering between carts of books and counters. She rummaged through a closet, trying to hold her phone steady while searching for the candles and a lighter.
“I know she keeps these back here.”
“Let me bring you home,” I said behind her.
She jumped into the air, flashing the light at me and holding a hand over her heart. “You scared me half to death. You shouldn’t be back here, and I can’t leave. I have work to finish before my shift ends tonight.”
I shielded my face from the blinding light. “Your coworkers can finish it in the morning.”
“No.”
“Vera, the lights are out, and I doubt this place has a generator.”
“It doesn’t.”
“Let me bring you home.”
