Page 51 of Clouded by Envy

“She’s inside your house?” Brenik was confused as to why Bray would be in his house.

“Yeah, she’s been waiting for you to come back. Also, she said you couldn’t change forms, so how are you like this?” The boy’s finger wiggled up and down at Brenik’s body, and he wanted to snap it off.

“This isn’t the place to talk about such things. Listen, kid, can you keep quiet about this for a few days? I’ll come by over the weekend.” He was going to chew Bray out for whatever was going on here.

“I’ll give you two days, since Bray’s my friend,” the kid said, holding up two fingers.

Brenik wanted to shove the kid away, but he nodded instead.Fucking Bray, apparently parading her secrets to the whole world.

“You know Luca?” Rana asked from behind them, causing Brenik to straighten with a jerk. He hoped she hadn’t heard any of their conversation.

“Hello, Miss Alvi, this is my brother’s girlfriend’s brother,” Luca said sweetly.

Brother’s girlfriend?Brenik’s brow furrowed in confusion, and Luca gave him a smirk. Brenik needed to get away from the kid before he blew a fuse.

Rana turned to Brenik and smiled. “I didn’t know you had a sister.”

“A twin sister actually,” Luca piped in. Brenik wanted this kid zip it up already.

“I wonder if she looks like you, Brenik.”

“She does.” Luca nodded one too many times.

“See you this weekend,Luca,” Brenik said with a flat tone, clenching his teeth a little too tightly, trying to get the kid to go away.

“Two days.” Luca hinted at their deal as he walked off, holding up two fingers again. Then he yelled, “Bye, Miss Alvi.”

Finally, the kid rounded the corner, and Brenik turned to Rana when she said, “He’s one of the sweetest kids in my class—and brightest, too.”

Of course he is.The blood in his body began to boil as he thought about how stupid Bray could be. Trusting Ruth was one thing because she was older and nurturing, but he didn’t trust that kid—not one bit. It didn’t bother Brenik that Bray was walking around human-sized, since he was mostly human now, too. But the fact that he didn’t know those people bothered him.

“What do you want to do now?” he asked, changing the subject. Rana was wearing a long skirt with a green blouse tucked in, pulling off the teacher look extremely well.

“We could go to the movies, and then maybe go to your place?” Brenik wished she would have said to go straight to his place but going to the movies would be better than throwing up shit at a restaurant again.

The last time he had gone to the movie theater, he and Bray were stuffed inside Ruth’s purse. It had been an early showtime for a movie that had been out a while, so they were the only ones in the theater. Nostalgia was a combination of good and bad for him, so he shut down that memory.

“I’m cool with that. I’ll even let you pick the movie.” Brenik grinned as he grabbed her hand. Rana intertwined their fingers and led him in the direction of her car.

“You have to admit the movie was ridiculous,” Brenik said as he held the exit door of the movie theater open for Rana.

“What do you mean? It was beautiful.” Rana let out a long, adoring sigh.

Brenik had let Rana choose the movie, and that had been a mistake. The movie poster forPowderhad looked terrible to begin with, but there was nothing in particular he really wanted to see.

“The ending made no damn sense.” He was still confused as fuck as to what even happened to Powder, and he had seen some disturbing shit in his life.

Rana gave him a light shove. “Do we need to watch it again?”

“No. Next time I’ll choose what to watch.”

“Deal.” She stood on the tip of her toes and kissed his cheek, making sitting through the shitty movie worth it.

Once they got back to Brenik’s place, he offered her a drink. “Soda?”

“Sure.”

He had gone to the store earlier to purchase some food and drinks for Rana in case she needed something. He wouldn’t be eating.

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