AllFreeNovel
Share Us
IMANI
The words seemed to tumble out of my mouth before I could stop them. I stared at João, who seemed not to even have heard what I said to him. All he had gotten from my confession was that I thought that he was stupid.
“Did you hear what I said, João?” I whispered.
Until this moment, I hadn’t known that I needed to hear him say it back. I hadn’t thought that I would ever tell João that I loved him. He had always been so pissy with me, always showed me his dark side and wanted me to break. He rarely showed me this side of him.
He was so fragile.
We stared at each other for a few long moments. My heart pounded hard inside my chest. I wanted him to tell me that he loved me too. I didn’t want to be a fool, standing in the middle of the mall with my mom and trying to get him on insurance for nothing.
After a heated moment, João turned away from me and headed toward the guys. “Come on, Ana,” he called.
Not letting him get away that easily, I jogged over to him, grabbed his wrist, and pulled him back to face me. We stood inches from each other, the tension between us making me anxious more than ever.
“Say it back,” I whispered, my voice trembling.
João clenched his jaw, gaze flickering from my eyes to my lips, then back. He shoved my hand off his wrist and watched me carefully, his gaze making me unusually nervous around him. “You didn’t say shit to me, Imani.”
“Yes, I did.”
“No,” he clarified. “You skirted around those three words.”
Hatred rushed through me. All João ever wanted was to make himself feel good. He had heard what I said to him. He knew how I felt about him. He was now content enough and didn’t give a fuck about saying it back.
I shoved him back. “Why are you so aggravating? Why can’t you admit it to me too?”
Something shifted in João’s brown eyes, and for a moment, I thought he would finally tell me that he loved me too, that he cared about me as much as I cared about him and his family. But instead, he swallowed hard.
“Ana! We’re leaving.”
Once I balled my hands into tight fists, I gritted my teeth. “You’re an asshole.”
João stared at me with so much emotion in his eyes. It was like he wanted to tell me so many different things, admit so much to me, but he would never be open enough to do any of that shit.
Ana walked over to us, her sneakers lighting up, and hung her head low. “I want to stay. You said that we can get ice cream and walk around to the stores.”
Deciding to piss off João, I crouched down to Ana’s level and held out my hand for her to take. “Come on, Ana. I’ll take you shopping and to get ice cream. I know the cutest little store for a princess like you.”
She giggled and grabbed my hand, then waved João off. “We’re going girl shopping. See you later.”
“I’m taking you shopping, Ana,” João said through gritted teeth.
But Ana was already pulling me down the mall and pointing into the different stores that she wanted to go into and shop. I gave her my full attention, spending the next few hours helping her try on clothes and accessories and buying her whatever she wanted.
I expected João to leave, but he and the others stayed in the food court. When we finished shopping, I held about twenty bags of clothes for her and for me in my hands while Ana walked down the corridor with a wide grin and new sunglasses that sparkled.
“Look at this fashionista!” I said, dropping the bags on the table and spinning Ana.
If the Poison boys thought that I was dramatic, they obviously hadn’t met this side of Ana. With an ice cream in one hand, she strutted back and forth down the aisles, her free hand on her hip, striking poses left and right in her new sunglasses.
“She’ll have to do a fashion show for you guys later,” I said, smiling at how happy and excited that Ana looked. “She found so many cute princess clothes.”
I looked over at the guys and caught João staring at me with softer eyes than the ones he had been giving me a few hours ago. He quickly looked away and clenched his jaw, taking Ana’s bags from the table.
“I have to go,” he said, calling Ana back over to the table. “Ana, you’re going with Landon and Kai. I have to—”
“Yay!” Ana said, bouncing over to us and jumping into Kai’s arms. “Can we make brigadeiros?”
