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Why had I said that my feelings were a fucking joke tonight?
“You know that you don’t have to stay,” Vera said, gaze averted. “I can walk home.”
But I refused to leave her here alone. For one, her walk home would be close to an hour as the temperature dropped. This late at night? Fuck no. And no fucking way I’d leave her at Walmart by herself. Creeps hung around the exits, waiting to grab girls like V.
Plus, Mom had texted me about her being home tonight. I didn’t want to see that bitch.
“Get what you need. And then let’s get out of here,” I snapped.
After I’d royally fucked up at the skatepark—I didn’t know if she’d ever want to go there with me again—she had asked me to drop her off at Walmart because she needed a few things. I’d thought she actually wanted some space from me because it was awkward as fuck in the car.
Vera marched right toward the office supplies and grabbed herself two college-ruled notebooks and a box of cheap black pens. After hugging them to her chest, she glanced up at me and smiled. “Okay.”
“You gonna write your smut in those?” I asked, desperate to keep this thing up.
And by thing, I meant thisblackmailthat really wasn’t so much blackmail anymore. If it were, then I wouldn’t have caught feelings. I would be using Vera’s pussy without giving a fuck if her birth control was active yet or not.
She nodded. “Yeah, I filled my others.”
I nodded, not knowing what the fuck to say anymore. I should’ve never fucking told her how I felt today. I shouldn’t have even brought her to the skatepark. I should’ve played video games with Mateo, eaten pizza, and watched her nervously watch me in her living room.
Vera walked to the self-checkout and scanned her items, tapping on the Pay With Cash button on the screen. After pulling out a worn wallet that looked like it had been used for years, she took a couple hundreds from it.
My eyes widened slightly at the sheer amount of money she couldn’t have gotten from the library alone. She’d told me she made barely minimum wage, shelving books.
How the hell did she havethatmuch?
“Where’d you get all that money from?”
Once Vera stuffed a hundred-dollar bill for a ten-dollar purchase into the machine, she placed the excess cash into her wallet and bagged the items. “Um … I got it from …” She paused and dared to glance up at me. “João.”
“João?” I asked through gritted teeth, tensing at the sound of his name. “What kind of shit did he get you into? Why is he giving you this much money, V? You know it’s probably all illegal and—”
She grabbed her bag. “I’m babysitting his sister.”
“You’re what?”
“I’m babysitting his younger sister,” she said, looking up at me. “Okay?”
“You mean, you’re not”—I stopped short and sucked in a quiet breath—“dating him?”
“Dating him?!” Vera exclaimed, walking to the exit. A cold gust of air rushed in through the open doors, and she pulled her thin jacket closed. “Of course I’m not dating him. He’s almost as annoying asyouare.”
While I wanted to give her a playful response back, I found myself letting out a breath and slumping my shoulders forward. A weight lifted off my shoulders, and I finally felt like I could breathe easily again.
All this time, I’d thought he was trying to get with her. But maybe he was? At least he wasn’t blackmailing her too. At least she didn’t like him or was doing his dirty work behind my back to earn some cash.
“Besides, I think João is dating someone anyway,” Vera continued.
But I hadn’t been listening. I had stopped after she said she wasn’t dating him—where, in the mere tone of her voice, I heard that shewouldn’t everdate him. Maybe she’d do it to piss me off, like she had with that Jim guy at the library at some point. But not for real.
“Blaise?” Vera said, placing one hand on her hip and standing on the passenger side of my car. “Earth to Blaise. Can you open the door? It’s freezing out here. I think my fingers are going to fall off.”
After unlocking the car, I slipped into the driver’s seat and drove her to the slums. Every now and then, I clutched the steering wheel tightly and glanced over at her, still wishing that I hadn’t told her that this was all a joke.
Now that I knew João meant nothing to her …
Fuck, would that change anything? She had been frightened as fuck when I told her that I liked her, even more scared than when I’d held up her smutty notebook that afternoon a few days ago and told her that I knew all her secrets.
