Page 79 of Holding On To Good

Her eyes widened. Holy crap, was he trying to give her some sort of warning?

She scrolled up. Reread their last few comments.

And dropped her phone like it’d just burst into flames.

A wave of humiliation washed over her.

Oh. My. God.

All that crap about not dating and only hooking up and no strings…

He was warning her.

Forget other people thinking she was chasing him.

He thought she was.

Worse, he thought she was using him as some sort of last-ditch attempt at high school rebellion.

I’m the guy a girl hooks up with in the dark.

Was that how he really thought of himself?

Was that all he really thought he was worth?

Verity: I’m not using you.

Verity: Not for anything.

Verity: I just wanted to thank you.

That was only part of the reason why she’d texted him, but as she couldn’t say with certainty what the other part entailed, she wasn’t going to try and delve too deeply into finding out.

Verity: So… thank you for helping me last night and for sticking up for me with my brother.

Reed: Your welcome.

Okay, she was pretty sure that your was misspelled on purpose just to mess with her.

Seemed like something he’d do.

And as this was the perfect natural ending point to their very surreal, slightly enlightening, shouldn’t-have-even-happened conversation, she set her phone aside, scooted to the edge of the bed and stood up.

“Come on,” she told Bella as she padded barefoot to the door, “before I get any other bright ideas and start posting thirst comments on Jacob Elordi’s Insta.”

They went downstairs where she let Bella out the front door, locked it behind her then crossed to the office. Urban usually did paperwork until nine or ten most nights and tonight was no exception. He sat behind his huge, tidy desk, scowling out the dark window.

She tapped lightly on the doorframe so as not to give him a heart attack—you couldn’t be too careful with people his age, after all. “Everything okay?” she asked when he turned her way.

He shook his head, but more in a clearing all thoughts from it way than a negative response. “Yeah. All good.” As if to prove it, he smiled at her. “Going to bed?”

She nodded. “Kat signed Ian up for some junior science camp that starts at the ungodly hour of seven a.m. so she’s picking me up at six fifteen. Also, she’s not too thrilled with you taking my car for the next two weeks.”

Luckily, this first camp was at the community center downtown. She and Ian could walk to it easily enough from his house. And by the time swim lessons started in the middle of the month, Verity would once again have access to her own vehicle.

Urban shrugged. “She’s never thrilled with anything any of us do.”

“Not true. She thinks I’m amazing.”

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