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I strolled to the main office, passing Principal Vaughn on my way there and throwing my skateboard on the ground in front of him to piss him off. Then, I found my way into the main office and leaned against the counter, flashing a smile at the older woman.
“I’m looking for Vera Rodriguez’s schedule,” I said to the woman in the main office.
“And why is that, Mr. Harleen?”
My lips curled into an even wider grin, and I waved a few hundred-dollar bills of my parents’ money at her. Eyes widening in greed, she tapped a couple buttons on her keyboard and printed out Vera’s schedule for me. After exchanging my money for the schedule, I walked out of the office and found that Vera should now be on the third floor in AP Biology—a class that João Rocha wouldn’t even be able to get into.
Though my first class was on the first floor, I walked up two flights of stairs to floor three and into the science wing, toward AP Biology. Instead of checking through the door window to make sure that Vera was there alone and not with João—I would have to talk to him later—I opened the AP Biology door and stepped right into the class.
From Allie Hall to Imani Abara to some nerdy kid named Akio, everyone stared at me with wide eyes and began to whisper. I scanned the room until they landed on Vera, who sat with her best friend, Maddie something, in the middle row.
Vera sucked in a sharp breath, cheeks flushing as she looked at me. She shifted around uncomfortably, tucking some brown hair behind her ear and shuffling her squeaky yellow rain boots on the tiled floor.
The graying science teacher cleared his throat. “Who are—”
“Wrong class,” I said, keeping eye contact with Vera and backing out of the room.
While she might’ve been in class alone—without João—I wasn’t going to let it go that easily. I wanted to know what they had been talking about, why she was so comfortable with João, and what the fuck he wanted with her.
Because Vera Rodriguez wasn’t going to give her attention to anyone but me.
ChapterNine
VERA
Ignore Blaise Harleen. That was my goal for today.
I closed my locker and glanced down at the tiled floor to ensure I hadn’t dropped another scene from one of my smutty stories. I didn’t need anyone else deciding to blackmail me, like Blaise was.
Piper pushed some pink hair over her shoulder and smirked at me. “I still can’t believe you dropped one of your stories yesterday and that Blaise picked it up. That’s some real romance-novel shit, Vera.”
“Okay, okay,” I said, glancing around the halls nervously. “Can you lower your voice?!”
Maddie looped her arm around mine. “We’re just excited for you, V.”
“How are you guys excited that I’m being blackmailed?!”
They looked at each other and grinned like psychopaths. Sure, my life wasn’tthatexciting, but I didn’t need a distraction. We had only six more months in Redwood Academy, and then we’d all be out of this shitty town. A few months I needed to survive andnotbe blackmailed.
When the first bell rang, signaling that we only had a couple more minutes to get to class, Piper waved us off and walked toward the science wing for Chemistry. I shuffled closer to Maddie and kept my gaze focused on the ground as we walked.
As we approached World History, I spotted Blaise talking to the school slut, Skylar. There wasn’t anything wrong with being a slut—hell, sex was what I wrote about in my stories all the time—but there was something about the way she touched Blaise that really ticked me off.
But I didn’t care. Not today.
Because, in my world, Blaise didn’t exist. Not until he threatened to tell all of Redwood about my word porn that I had been writing for what seemed like years now. Then, I’d entertain him for a few moments, and that was it.
When I walked past him, Blaise caught my eye and pushed himself off the red metal lockers, following me into the class and toward the back, where we both apparently sat now. And mybest friendtook her seat and grinned at me, as if she wanted all the details later.
Blaise pulled something out of his backpack and waved it at me. “Thought I’d make some edits to one of your stories. No need to thank me.”
Furrowing my brows at the object, I realized that it wasn’t one of the smutty stories that had fallen out of my notebook, but instead, it was the entire damn notebook. My eyes widened. “Where did you find this?”
“In your stack of books yesterday afternoon.”
Blaise set the notebook on my desk, cracked half a smirk, and sat down in the seat beside me, completely pissing off Skylar, who glared at me from across the classroom. She must’ve thought that I actually wanted him. I didn’t—let’s get that straight—and I definitely hadn’t touched myself last night either, thinking about what he had done to me.
Stomach tightening in knots, I looked down at the notebook to see my first-draft manuscript marked up with red pen, words crossed out and replaced with even filthier ones that I couldn’t read without blushing.
