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“You … what?”
“I got you something too,” Blaise repeated, setting down his milkshake on the rock and leaping up from his seat. “Hold on.” He jogged over to the car, opened the trunk, and rummaged through it for a moment.
When he returned, he held a single black matte gift bag. After hesitantly taking the bag from him, I stared down at it. My stomach twisted into knots, and I didn’t know if they were the good kind or not. Nobody—other than my family and my close friends—had ever bought me anything.
“Why?” I asked, nervous to open it. “What is it?”
“Open it up. You’ll see. It’s just something for your writing.”
I scrunched my nose and pulled the black tissue paper out of the bag, giggling softly to myself. “I swear, it’d better not be a dildo because—” I stopped and sucked in a sharp breath, my eyes widening. “Blaise … wh-what’s this?” I asked, looking over at him, my voice barely audible.
Blaise shrugged one shoulder—the way he did when he wanted to act like he didn’t give a fuck—and barely gave me a smile. “I thought you’d get some use out of it. Do you, uh … do you like it?”
I furrowed my brows, reached down into the bag, and pulled out his gift.
A brand-new MacBook Air.
ChapterForty-Six
BLAISE
“You bought me a laptop,” Vera whispered, gaze stuttering between one side of the box and the other. She glided her fingers against the matte box and frowned. “Why would you get me something like this?”
“Because I—”
She shoved the box into my hands. “I can’t. No. I-I don’t like it.”
My chest tightened, my throat closing. “Why don’t you like it? You can use it to write.”
“Because, Blaise …” She suddenly stood on the rocks, hopped onto the pavement near my car, and paced back and forth. “Why would you spend that much money on a gift for me? That’s insane! You know what else you could’ve done with that?!”
So, this was about money, not because she didn’t like it.
“It’s okay, V,” I said, leaning back on the rock.
“No, it’s not.” She ran a hand through her dark hair and shook her head for emphasis. “It’s not okay. I can’t accept something like that, especially for no reason at all! I hate feeling like I owe people something. And with you …”
As she continued to pace around the Overlook, I set my milkshake down on the rock, stood up, and stepped into her path. She attempted to walk around me, but I seized her waist and stopped her completely.
“Don’t touch me in an attempt to convince me to keep it. It’s not going to work,” she argued. “It’s way too expensive, and I don’t have anything but sex to pay you back with. I can give you nothing that you already don’t have.”
God, she was so wrong.
My family might’ve had money, but to me, Vera had everything that I’d always wanted—family and friends who cared about each other and not because of the cash they had in the bank or their prestige. Vera’s family and friends cared about her for her.
That must’ve been the greatest fucking thing in the world, and Vera didn’t even realize it.
“You don’t have to pay me back,” I said softly.
She tore her gaze away from me and glared at the ocean. “Yes, I do. I have to.”
“Why?”
“Because, Blaise.”
“Tell me.”
“Because that’s how my mom raised me, okay? We might not have a lot, but you’re not supposed to take things from people, especially when it costs upward of a thousand dollars. Or more. People work hard for their money, and this is too much for me.”
