Page 49 of The Sidekick

“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.

---