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“No,” she said, moving toward a window. “I can barely see three feet in front of me while standing inside, Blaise. You’re not going to be able to drive in this. And besides, you’re not driving me home tonight. I’ll call Maddie.”
“The fuck you mean, you’ll call Maddie?” I snapped, trying so fucking hard not to get pissed at her. “I’m here with you now. You’re really going to call Maddie to take you home in this kind of weather?”
Truthfully, I just wanted to be the one who brought her home. I hadn’t ever felt like I had last night with anyone else. We hadn’t even had sex. The only time I felt anything anymore was when I fucked, and even then … it was becoming mindless and meaningless.
Another crack of thunder rumbled through the library. Vera moved closer to me, her brows furrowing. The corner of my lips curled up. “You’re not still afraid of thunder and lightning, are you?”
Vera began rummaging through the closet again. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“You used to be.”
She paused. “How do you know that?”
“Because we used to be friends.”
“Friends?” She seemed to linger on the word, or maybe it was all in my head. “We were never friends, Blaise. Maybe acquaintances. But that was until your parents fired my mom for no reason at all and left us with no source of income.”
But my parents had had a reason—me.
They didn’t want me to be friendly with kids poorer than us. They thought Vera and her family were dirty and disgusting people for me to play with. They wanted me to loathe my fucking life so much, like their sorry asses did.
And it’d worked.
Still, I didn’t want to tell her that it was all my fault.
“Not friends?” I asked, spotting the candles on the top shelf. In the cramped space, I moved closer to her and reached over her short frame to grab as many candles as I could. Hearing her say that stung like a motherfucker.
With her back still turned, she tensed and glanced up at me. The dim light of her phone’s flashlight slightly illuminated her face. She puckered her lips and swallowed hard, staring up at me. I placed the candles down behind her, our bodies still close. Fuck, I didn’t want to move.
“No,” she whispered, not moving either. “Not friends.”
I clenched my jaw and stared down at her, wanting nothing more than for her to take it back. How could she fucking think of us asmaybe acquaintances? What the fuck did that even mean? She’d loved visiting, fucking loved it.
“You’re lying,” I growled.
Vera didn’t say anything.
Instead, she shifted her body, so she faced away from me and grabbed the candles. Still, she didn’t move away and back into the library. I stepped closer to her and placed my hands on the table on either side of her body, trapping her.
“You’re lying,” I murmured, dipping my head to her ear. “Tell me you’re lying.”
She sucked in a breath and tensed, crossing her arms and trying to make herself smaller, as if that would stop me. Thunder cracked again, and she jumped back against my chest, a soft whine coming from her mouth.
I inhaled the scent of strawberry shampoo lingering in her hair. “Tell me.”
“No,” she whispered.
“Tell me,” I said, moving my lips closer to her neck. They were millimeters away now.
I wanted to kiss her. God, I wanted to kiss her so fucking badly.
She didn’t move away from me, like I’d expected. Instead, she seemed to move closer to me, touching me more, making my heart race like a motherfucker. She clutched the candles and stared down at the small space between her and the table.
Unable to stop myself, I pressed my body against her from behind. I wanted to be even closer to her. I couldn’t stop the feeling that I had last night, in my room, watching her type away on my keyboard. Fuck, she did something to me, and I didn’t know if I should like it.
“No.” She suddenly squeezed her eyes closed and tensed harder. “N-no, Blaise, I can’t. I can’t. I … I can’t stop thinking about what happened during school today.” She pulled away from me and hurried toward the front again. “We’re … we’re not friends. We can’t be.”
ChapterTwenty-Five
