Chapter Eighteen
Tera
The next day, my only day off, I decide I deserve a treat for doing something on my list. It might be midnight, but I need some caffeine and chocolate, neither of which is in my place. I tightly grip my non-mace can as I make my way to my car. This neighborhood is sketchy, and I don’t want to take chances. I blame myself for what happens next.
I get into my car without checking the backseat and get scared spitless as a calm voice says, “Hi, Tera,” behind me.
I scream like I’m about to be murdered and then spray my handy can of fake mace all over him. As the silly string starts sputtering out, I realize I’ve just hosed down Shade with the sticky substance. His eyes are closed, but his mouth is open, so it’s filled with the stuff. I’ve never heard him talk, so I didn’t recognize the voice. It’s a flimsy excuse, but I’m sticking with it.
He spits it out calmly and asks, “Do you have some water so I can rinse the taste out?”
“Of course, I’m so sorry,” I fumble in the backseat for anything that could help. I end up handing him a quarter-filled bottle of soda.
“It’s all I have right now,” I wince in sympathy.
“All good. I did this to myself, really,” he mumbles and swishes it around in his mouth before he opens the door and spits it out.
“Why would you think it was a good idea to hide out in my car anyway?” I ask in exasperation.
I start it and begin my hunt for chocolate and possibly some alcohol now, too. Is it rude to gloat to Dr. Robinson about being wrong for not using my bank account? It took this jerk less than 24 hours to get to me. It’s a good thing I’m not hiding from the law or anything.
“I figured you would take one look at me and run for it. You’d have to come back for your car eventually. You wouldn’t let it get towed.”
“How would you know?” I ask suspiciously, glancing at him from the corner of my eye.
“Because you freaked out about how people can track your last known location from being towed a year ago. So far, you’re working under the assumption that only I know where you are, and you’d be likely to come back for it if I left, thinking I was calling in backup. It’s not easy to rent or purchase a vehicle if you aren’t using any form of identification.”
Touché jerk.
“You have a cash-only job that doesn”t require any paperwork, and your apartment is being sublet to you, so it doesn’t have any info either. You’d need a place to sleep as you travel.”
“Ok, stop it,” I snap at the super genius sitting behind me.
“Tell me honestly, is subletting such a run-down apartment common?” He doesn’t sound mocking. He’s curious.
I glare at him, refusing to answer. Stupid rich jerk.
“Who else knows I’m here?”
“Nobody,” he answers with a smirk. “Where are we going?”
“I’m finding myself some chocolate and a soda that doesn’t have your rude germs on it. You are getting on a bus or whatever and going home.”
“Nah. I like it here,” he settles back in the seat as if he’s gluing himself to it.
“Really,” I deadpan. “Which apartment are you going to rent? I heard the second floor has a roach problem.”
He can’t hide his wince, and I smile smugly.
I park at the first convenience store I find and tell him flatly, “Get out and go home.”
But no, he follows me into the store as if he has every right to be there.
“Go away,” I hiss at him, which draws the lone cashier’s wary attention.
He shrugs and beelines to the chip section. I collect a whole armful of candy bars and a single soda. When I get to the register, Shade rejoins me and tosses a bag of chips and a 12-pack of sodas onto my order while I glare at him.
“What? I’ve been on the road nonstop. The least you can do is feed me,” he defends.
I give in with a roll of my eyes. It’s not like I asked him to come here. He could have saved us both some trouble and mailed me a letter I wouldn’t open.
When it comes time to pay, he pulls out his card, and I slap it out of his hand.
“Are you crazy? They’ll track you using that!”
Both he and the cashier give me identical looks of surprise. I’m surprised at myself. I just smacked him. Why am I concerned about them finding him? It’s obvious if he knows where I am, then they do, too. I’m being dramatic and ridiculous again.
“Here,” I toss some cash at the guy, too much, really, and grab my bag to escape. My face feels like it’s on fire with how embarrassed I am.
I figured Shade would be weighed down with the 12-pack, so I could get to my car and lock the doors before he caught up.
No such luck.
He’s practically velcroed to my butt and snatches my keys to let himself in before tossing them onto the driver’s seat. I wish I had a second can of silly string or some actual mace right now.
“Where to now?” He asks innocently, and I ignore him as if he would disappear.
When I get back to my place, he follows me up the stairs to the fifth floor and puts his foot in the door so I can’t close it in his face. I give up on physical force because it’s not really my specialty and go back to ignoring him.
“No computer?” He sounds disappointed as he makes himself at home on my thrift store couch.
“No,” dang it, all I had to do was stay quiet.
“No TV?”
Obviously, jeez.
“What do you do all day?” He pops open one of his soft drinks and holds it because there isn’t a table to put it on. I work hard to keep the roaches out of here, but at this point, I wish just one would leap onto his pants or something. He would leave like his butt was on fire.
“I work, and I sleep, ok? No different than anybody else.”
“Are you eating?” He looks my frame up and down with a frown.
Shade saying that triggers an anger that overwhelms me every time I hear that phrase. So I lost some weight, so what? I’m eating more now. When I can.
“I eat when I want to!” I yell and throw a candy bar at Shade like a knife thrower. My aim proves true, hitting his forehead with a satisfying thwack.
“I owe Alec twenty bucks,” he mutters, promptly opening the wrapper and taking a huge bite. “Abuse tax.”
“Why do you owe Alec twenty bucks,” as suddenly as the rage came, it leaves, making me feel hollow and a tiny bit guilty. It isn’t like he knew it was my trigger phrase. Or did he?
“He said your aim was spot on, and I refused to believe it. Have you ever trained with knives? Or gone to a shooting range? I’d pay to see that.”
I’m a little proud of myself for assaulting someone with chocolate but losing the candy tempers it. The stupid bars are one of the only things I’ve been able to eat without too much of a struggle.
“I threw axes with my brother when we were little,” I confess, and he chokes on his drink. “What? We were young, and the neighbor kept leaving it out. We had our tetanus shots.”
“You’re telling me you were an ax thrower as a kid?” He asks with disbelief.
“Not professionally,” I roll my eyes. “We did a lot of stupid stuff as kids. Didn’t you?” Am I really asking this jerk about his life? Ugh.
“No.” His flat response makes me frown.
“You hatched as an adult?” I mock, and he glares at me. The remorse is instant. Regardless of his status, he drove a long way to see me. I shouldn’t be mean just because I can.
“I’m sorry. That was mean.”
He looks at me like I’m crazy. “You’ve literally never been mean to anyone. If you were mad, I never knew, and you’ve never said a word.”
“Yeah, but I thought it really loud. That counts.”
He blinks slowly, “Do you have an interpreter? Or a translating Tera app?”
I give him a half-hearted glare and open a candy bar. “Where’s my abuse tax?”
He pulls a can from the 12-pack and hands it to me.
“I’m really surprised you don’t have a computer,” he breaks the silence as he looks around.
“Why?”
“Because the one you left at the bar was a sweet machine. Did you put it all together yourself?”
“Of course,” I scoff, offended. Then I add in a bitter tone that’s becoming too familiar to me, “Surprised?”
“Yes and no,” he shrugs. “You’re smart, Tera, I’ve always known it. You just hide it really well.”
“If that’s your idea of a compliment, you need to resign yourself to being single,” I grumble the words and lower my eyes to hide that his comment made me a little happy.
He actually laughs at the taunt as if we’re sharing a moment. I guess we kind of are? Does he like it when people are mean to him? That’s a kink I don’t understand, but to each their own.
“So, what are you doing here?” I break and ask. I know he’s here because he found me, but what’s next? Am I getting kidnapped? Do I have to make a ransom call to Andi for release?
“I’m on vacation, and I wanted to catch up.”
I raise a suspicious eyebrow and deadpan, “Really.”
“Not really,” he shrugs, and I tense up again. “I am on vacation. Kind of. I had an alert to notify me if you did anything with your bank account. I figured what the hell, I like Tera, I’ll go see her.”
“You don’t like me. You want me to call Andi,” I glare.
“If you call her, that’s up to you. I know she misses you and cried a lot when you vanished. Don’t be a … jerk and give her a call. Let her know you’re alive.”
I didn’t think about that. She has to have a lot of mental scars from her attack. This couldn’t have helped. Man, I’m a crappy sidekick.
“Crap. I’m horrible,” I mutter as my shoulders slump.
“Nah, you just needed some time.” He’s so blasé about it.
“How the heck are you so understanding? Are you really Shade, or is this a robot?” I poke his arm, but the evidence is inconclusive. He’s hard as a rock, but his flesh has give.
“Tera, I’m genuinely sorry for all the shit I’ve said about you. I mean crap, sorry. I came to Andi with a giant chip on my shoulder that had nothing to do with you. Maybe a little to do with you. How are you so good with computers?”
“You can curse if you want to, you know. Just because I don’t like doing it doesn’t mean you have to hold back. My ears are not virgin at this point in life.”
“Stop avoiding the subject. I really want to know,” he gets up to throw his empty can away and opens my fridge to peer inside. “Damn, you really like hot dogs.”
“They were on sale, jerk.” I need to grab another candy bar to throw at him. “And I taught myself. I thought I might be able to get a cool job by learning about nerdy stuff.”
“You taught yourself,” he turns back to me with an eye twitch that concerns me.
“Yeah, there are a lot of For Dummies books out there. You should try one. Some of them read like stereo instructions, though.”
“Right,” he narrows his eyes on me as if he’s waiting for me to say just kidding, I’m a super spy.
“Anyway,” he says slowly as if he’s giving me a last chance to confess. “I hacked your computer.”
I gasp in dismay. “You molested my baby?”
“Do not ever say it like that again!” He yells back and slams the fridge shut.
“What did she ever do to you? Huh? She was innocent!”
“Stop!” He holds up his hands as if I’m attacking him. “You weren’t with your little brother, so I had to start from scratch. I was trying to see if there were any clues about where you could have gone.”
“I would never go to that jerk,” I cross my arms as he returns to sit down. “He stopped talking to me because I got arrested. For a dare that he gave me!”
“He just wanted to tell your mom he was innocent. He confessed to me. He sounds a lot like you. And your mom sounds like she was terrifying.”
“When did you meet with him?” I ask warily.
“After your report came back. I covered all the bases.”
“You’re a jerk.”
“Pretty much,” Shade readily agrees.
There’s a small silence, and I’ve just relaxed back when Shade throws me another unwanted surprise.
“I read your diary.”
I stare at him wide-eyed as he blushes and rubs the back of his neck in discomfort.
“You broke two sacraments that day,” I whisper in anger.
“I figured out your password is Max is a grump all one word with a winky face, and I read your diary. When am I getting buried alive?” He smirks at me.
“Do not joke about this. Who have you told?”
“No one, I swear.” He leans forward as he makes the emphatic statement.
“I don’t believe you. You’ve lost all my trust, you dirty diary reader.”
“You trusted me before?” He smirks.
“That is beside the point,” I sputter out defensively.
“We’re practically best friends. I know so much about you.”
“Best friends don’t read each other’s diaries!”
“Best friends don’t have blackmail material on each other? In what universe?”
“Shut up, Shade! I don’t have any blackmail on you!”
“You do, actually,” he lifts his chin and crosses his arms as he blushes.
I throw my hands up, “You’ve got me. What do I know?”
“That I have a crush on Blaze and Felix,” he gives me a bullheaded look as I stare at him blankly.
“Other people don’t know that?”
“What? No!” He looks a little flustered and panicked. I wish I had a camera right now. This is so far removed from his usual closed-off expression it doesn’t seem real. But it’s hilarious.
“How? You’re so obvious.” It’s unbelievable that he thinks it’s a secret. He stares at them all the time like an emotionless, lost puppy. “Why have you never done anything about it? They’re hot for you, too.”
He stares at me with his jaw dropped.
“Are you shy?”
“Do I look shy to you?” He says belligerently.
Based on the fact that his face has become as red as a tomato, I would say yes, but he seems defensive about it, so I switch gears. “Is it because they’re guys?”
His eyes narrow as his lips thin. “I’m bi. I’m not ashamed.”
Good! We’re making progress. “Is it because there are two of them? It could work if you used proper communication-” I cut myself off with a wince. The last person he needs advice from is me. I’m a crazy mess.
“Andi isn’t the only one interested in multiple partners,” he gives me a judgy side eye and a smug smirk.
This absolutely proves that he read my diary. I wrote about both of my crushes even before one of them started speaking to me. I feel my face burn with embarrassment at getting busted, but the color quickly passes when I remember those were pipe dreams that got flushed.
“You’re emotionally invested and afraid they won’t feel the same. It might be just physical attraction.” I was speaking about my own experience, but from his reaction, I hit the nail on the head. His eyes lower to the can held loosely in his hand, and he swallows hard.
I want to give him the same speech I gave Andi when she started having doubts about each of her guys. Just go for it and see where it leads. Don’t waste time on doubts and grab onto it with both hands. That didn’t work out so well for me, and I’m afraid if I tell Shade the same thing, I might be giving him the worst advice possible. Yeah, it worked for Andi. But she might be the main character one in a million.
It suddenly hits me that Shade might be a sidekick like me. There’s always a chance he could get his own series of adventures and graduate to main character status, but in the meantime, we’re in the same boat.
“What do I do?” He lifts his chin and faces me again with determination lighting his eyes.
“Why are you asking me?” I ask weakly, trying to fend off any chance of interrogation.
“Because that’s what best friends do? That’s what Andi said to somebody, anyway. I’m supposed to vent and get advice. She said you were good at it.”
Oh, no.
“She told you to ask me for advice?”
“No. She doesn’t know that I found you, and she doesn’t know I read your diary either. I felt closer to you after reading it and thought, what the hell?” Shade looks so flustered and let down by my lack of reciprocating best friend feelings that I feel a little bad. A microscopic speck bad, but still. “You’re not the only person they’ve treated like a verbal pi?ata. It’s hard to find my way through that.”
And he wants to be in a relationship with them? Who’s the crazy one here? I guess he really likes people to be mean to him.
“What if my advice doesn’t work though? I’d be setting you up to get hurt. I won’t do that to you, jerk or not,” I frown, trying to work my way out of this conundrum.
“Is that what happened? You took your own advice, and it backfired?” He doesn’t sound smug about the idea that I messed up again. He actually seems concerned. So much for trying to distract him with a ton of questions.
“Yeah,” I confess and bite my lower lip to control the sudden tremor that started there.
“What did they do?” Now he sounds really mad, and I meet his translucent gray stare with surprise. I don’t want to answer that if I can get away with it.
“We aren’t talking about me right now.” Try ever. “I’m not sure if my advice will work in your case.”
“Because we’re all guys?” He gives me a scowl and abruptly stands to start pacing.
“No,” I scoff. “Because I think you’re a sidekick, like me.”
That gives him pause, and I nod at him emphatically. “I think my advice didn’t work for me because I’m not main character material. I mean, you have potential, so maybe it will work? It worked for Andi because she’s a main character, I know it.”
“Are you telling me not to take risks because you think my life isn’t filled with drama?” His tone is a mixture of surprise and exasperation.
I huff in frustration. No one ever gets it.
“Why aren’t you a main character? Can’t you graduate and get there?” His sarcasm is not appreciated.
“Good night, Shade,” I glare at him and begin putting the candy and sodas in the fridge to make it clear that the night is over. I walk to the door and unlock it to gesture him out.
“I’m broke.”
I blink at him in surprise with his blurted confession.
“What? What happened?” The words fall out of me, filled with concern, as I close the door and lock it again.
He stands in the living room, looking at everything but me and rubbing the back of his neck again.
“Don’t be embarrassed. Stuff happens. I’ll help you. What do you need?” The reassurance blurts out without my permission. I shouldn’t care what he’s going through. He tracked me down and hid in my car. Wait, what if he was sleeping in there? Oh my gosh.
I rush to the closet in the bedroom, dragging out a blanket and pillow. I toss both items into his surprised arms and tell him sternly, “One night only. We’ll figure something out for you tomorrow after my doctor”s appointment. Just try and get some sleep. You’ll be ok.”
I head to my room and firmly close the door.