27. Chapter 27
Chapter twenty-seven
Roman
“Where did you get this thing?” Lance asks as I shift into park.
“I have a debit card to the prison account.” I reply as I lean my seat back a bit. We’re gonna be here a while.
“You’re telling me that you have a debit card to Maven’s account and we haven’t been shopping yet?” He glares over at me expectantly.
I can’t help but chuckle at him, because I expected him to say exactly that. “I asked if I could take you to a bookstore, pretty boy. Ollivander said that you were on a very strict book allowance right now.”
The corner of his lip tilts up before he looks away bashfully. “Thanks, Roman.”
I glance down at my watch before looking back across the street. “We’re here early enough that the night guards shouldn’t be concerned when they start their rounds. We should be able to slip in and move those two cameras pretty easily, but we have about an hour before we can get in there.”
“Where are you going to put them?” He asks as he pulls out his phone.
“I think the front gates are going to be useless. We’ve got three pointed there, but we’ve got no coverage on that gate to the north of the dock, and we don’t have anything on the breach in the fence either.
I think I’m gonna try to focus them there.
The shipment is going to be here soon, so I want to have everything covered. ”
My new phone, which I hate, vibrates in my pocket, so I pull it out.
“And where did you get that?“ He asks, his voice laced with suspicion.
“At the pharmacy. I may or may not have smashed my phone with a hammer.”
His brows pinch together as he glares at me like I’ve lost my mind.
I just shrug my shoulders. “Someone demanded that I help them contact their brother and the most reasonable excuse to need a new phone is having one that doesn’t work anymore.
I needed one that wasn’t connected to the Blightridge network, so I had to do it right before we left.
Maven can’t be mad at me for safety concerns if I had no other option but to buy a phone here.
He can’t contact me if I don’t have a phone. ”
“Clever,” he replies with an impressed tone before turning back to his phone.
I glance back to mine, pulling up the program I had to install.
Since the phones in the states don’t have access to the same things we do on the island, I had to make a system that can transfer the data from my computer to my phone, allowing me to send messages with UnderneathItAll while we’re stateside.
Was it a pain in the ass? A little. Was it worth it? Absolutely.
UIA:
Busy?
Me:
Not even a little bit.
UIA:
First of all, when are you going to change my nickname?
I chuckle aloud as I click on his name at the top of the screen and change it just to be a smartass.
Username has been changed to: Mystery Man
Mystery Man:
Ha. Ha. Very funny.
Fix itttttt. Pretty please?
Me:
Tell me your name?
Mystery Man:
You have officially broken rule number one of fight club.
Me:
Fine.
I tap back on his name and change it to match his. I don’t give a shit what his name is on the app, it’s irrelevant. He knows how important he is to me.
Username has been changed to: BFF
BFF:
Much better.
A car door slams near us, so I glance up, trying to see where it was at.
I need to know who’s been close enough to see us, because if they show up again later, I want to make sure that they don’t run into us.
It’d be kind of odd for us to be hanging out around here for an extended period of time, so the less people that notice us, the better.
There’s an older lady that just got in her vehicle about three cars away from us.
She leans over and puts a paper bag in her passenger seat, so I assume that she just came out of the restaurant.
I doubt that we’ll be seeing her again today, so I turn back around.
My phone vibrates in my hand, so I glance back down.
BFF:
I guess I should get back to reality. Chat later?
Me:
Always.
I let out a sigh as I settle back in my seat, tucking my phone back into my hoodie. Lance has already tucked his phone away and pulled out something to read, so I do my best to get comfortable.
“I texted you,” Lance says without looking away from his book.
I don’t understand though, because I damn well know that he didn’t. I texted him a million times and never got anything back.
“What?”
“That night, before we came here. Well, that day, and night. I texted you.”
I shift in my seat, turning toward him. “You texted me?”
“Yes, Roman. I texted you, okay?” He replies as he tears his eyes away from his book and glares over at me.
“An embarrassing number of times, if we’re being completely honest. Am I proud of it?
Obviously not. But I thought you should know that I didn’t just show up to your door out of the blue.
I tried to talk to you, but you didn’t answer and I thought that…
I didn’t really know. When you didn’t answer, I wasn’t sure what to think. ”
His cheeks start to turn bright pink, so I know that he’s embarrassed by whatever he sent me.
“You messaged me what, exactly?”
He narrows his eyes at me. “A lot of things I would rather not repeat. Namely, that I might’ve been wrong about us, and that I was sorry. The same things I said at dinner the other night. Which is when I realized that you no longer had a phone and likely hadn’t seen anything that I sent you.”
“Wrong about us? What do you mean?”
“Not like—” He lets out an exasperated sigh. “I want to be friends. That’s what I want.”
My brow arches accusingly. “Only friends?”
He starts to blush again as he clears his throat and turns back to the e-reader in his lap. “Yes,” he replies quietly.
“For now,” he adds after an extended pause.
That’s what I thought.
I scrape the tomatoes I just chopped off the cutting board on top of the chicken before carefully placing a couple of pieces of lettuce and pouring on some sauce.
I carefully wrap it all together and then push the plate across the tiny island to Lance.
He’s been watching me from the moment I started cooking, but he seems a little more leery now, and I’m not sure why.
“It’s good. I promise. It’s just a buffalo chicken wrap. I didn’t poison it, I swear.” I offer with a chuckle as I turn to make one for myself.
“Well, now I’m worried that you did poison it.“ He replies as he picks it up and takes a bite.
“We’d be dying together, because I’m eating the exact same thing.” I reply as I point at the plate I made for myself.
Once he finishes chewing that bite, he puts the wrap down and takes a drink of water. His eyes meet mine as I finish getting my wrap ready, and I tilt my head quizzically.
What’s going on in that brain, pretty boy?
“Do you cook for everyone?” He asks as he looks away and picks the wrap back up.
“Mmm. I don’t cook for anyone, actually.” I answer honestly as I walk around the counter to sit beside him.
“Is there any specific reason why you cook for certain… people.”
I smirk to myself, knowing that he’s being vague on purpose. “We both know that you’re talking about yourself, Lance. You can say it.”
He nods sarcastically before turning to me, “Talking about our feelings. Rocking the mature man vibes today, huh? Why don’t you try being a gentleman and not deflect my question? Hm?”
I chuckle before taking a bite of my wrap. He’s got me there.
“I only cook for people if they deserve it.”
“So… you’d say that you only cook for people that you care about?”
I narrow my eyes at him in suspicion. “Are you fishing for compliments today, Lance?”
“Nope. Nope,“ he replies as he shakes his head and looks away. “Not even close to that, actually.” He murmurs before shoving another bite of food in his mouth.
I can’t help but smile as I continue eating.
Being here with Lance reminds me of all the nights we use to share meals with one another.
How we would laugh and joke across the island as I cooked and then come together to enjoy whatever I created.
It was one of the many things I missed over the last few weeks.
Even when we aren’t talking, just being in the same space as him is relaxing.
Existing without him, it was the loneliest I’d ever felt in my entire life.
Both of our hearts beating in the same room as one another, that’s how it’s meant to be. How it was always meant to be.
“I think— I’m gonna turn in for the night,” he announces as he abruptly hops out of his chair and tosses his plate in the trash. I watch, my thoughts in complete disarray, as he starts walking toward his room without a single glance in my direction.
“Night!” He yells before slamming his door behind him.
“Goodnight, pretty boy.” I whisper to the four empty walls surrounding me.
I sneak through the hallway as quietly as possible.
The sun has barely lifted on the edges of the horizon, leaving the kitchen hidden in darkness.
I flick on the light over the stove before starting my morning routine.
I flip open the coffee maker and pour in some water, waiting patiently for it to do…
anything. A few seconds later the gurgling of the machine whirs to life and I feel an instant wave of relief wash over me.
I suck in a deep breath before letting out a sigh.
I ran out of sugar yesterday, so I had to get some from the convenient store last night.
Even though it’s only been a day, it feels like an eternity since I’ve had a good cup of coffee.
Not that I expect this cup to be excellent or anything, but I’m at a point where just about anything will suffice.
“You’re an actual addict. You know that, right?”
I spin around to find Lance glaring at me over the top of his e-reader from the tiny sofa across the room. I was certain that he would still be asleep, but then again, he doesn’t ever really sleep, does he? I haven’t the slightest idea how I didn’t notice him when I walked in here.