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I pressed my lips together, wallowing in my own insecurities. “Nothing.”
After rolling his eyes, he grabbed an extra pizza box that nobody had touched, stood, and grabbed my hand. “See you later, Mateo and Ms. Rodriguez,” he called, tugging on my hand to the doorway. “I want to bring you somewhere.”
ChapterThirty-Four
BLAISE
“Where are we?” Vera asked, staring out the window at the brightly lit skatepark. A couple of kids that I didn’t recognize walked to their beat-up ’99 Nissan next to us with their boards, and Vera’s eyes widened. “You brought me to the skatepark?”
“Yeah.”
“I thought we were going back to your house,” she said, staring in awe at a guy riding, doing flip tricks on the concrete.
I pulled the key out of the ignition and tapped the pizza box in her lap so she’d know to pull it out of the car with her. “Yeah, well, it’s boring there,” I said, wanting to avoid the conversation.
Truthfully, I didn’t want to bring her back to my place right now.
It wasn’t anything like her house. Sure, her place was smaller, but at least it was homier, instead of dark and sleek and uninviting. At least her family lived there with her, and she had people to talk to, instead of talking to four bland-ass walls. Hell, I’d barely fucking spoken a word to any housekeeper that my parents had after Vera’s mother got fired.
“Am I going to watch you skateboard?” she asked, following me out of the car.
“Maybe.”
I opened the trunk to retrieve my skateboard, a helmet, and kneepads.
Vera giggled over my shoulder, the sound making my chest light. “Wow, I didn’t pin you as the type of guy who uses a helmet or kneepads while skateboarding.”
“These aren’t for me.”
Clutching the pizza box, she furrowed her brows and looked around the nearly empty skatepark. “There’s nobody else here. Who are they …” she started. When my lips curled into a smirk, she backed a foot away and shook her head. “Oh, no. I don’t think so.”
I snatched the pizza box from her hand and tossed her the helmet and kneepads. “Put them on. You’re going to need them. You can barely walk on your own two feet without stumbling.”
She grasped the protection gear in her smaller hands. “Which is exactly why I’m not getting on a skateboard! You think I’ll be able to glide on that thing?!”
“I’ll help you. Put them on.”
“Blaise!” she cried, shaking her head and staring at the black helmet. “I can’t do this. I’m going to fall over and get hurt.”
Because I knew she wouldn’t put the helmet on willingly, I set the pizza box down on top of my car, grabbed the helmet from her, and fastened it on her head. As I buckled the strap under her chin, she frowned up at me.
“You’re not going to get hurt. I’m going to teach you.”
“Knowing you, you’ll let me fall and laugh.”
I roughly clutched her chin in my hand and pulled it up, so she looked directly at me. “Do you really think that I would let you get hurt, Sunshine?” I asked, taking the kneepads from her hands and staring down at her.
She didn’t really think I would intentionally hurt her, did she?
She crossed her arms over her chest and mumbled, “Well, maybe emotionally.”
After I playfully rolled my eyes at her, I crouched down and strapped the kneepads on her. I didn’t know if I had fucked up or if Vera was speaking from insecurity or if it was both. But I loathed the fact that she thought I would hurt her.
All I wanted to tell her was how I really felt.
“I don’t know how I feel about this,” she whispered, nervously playing with her fingers.
I opened the trunk back up and scrambled through the shit in there for the elbow pads because I knew that I had them somewhere in here. If Vera hurt herself, she wouldn’t ever let me take her back here.
