Page 10 of Secrets That Bind Us
"This was a mistake." She says, snapping her textbook closed and rising from her seat beside me on the plush beige carpet underneath us. The pain in her voice is crossed with humiliation, and all I wanna do is make it better.
Dean Carson, forever the fuck-up.
I get closer to her, but her head turns to the side, and she uses her textbook as a fuckingshieldwhen I reach up to touch her shoulder. Her eyes close, and alarms blare in my head. My stomach and heart drop to the floor. I back off and lower my hands. "Shit. Verity, I'm sorry."
"Everything okay in here?" Mrs. Huntington's voice comes through as she peeps in the door, a basket full of laundry on her hip.
"Yes ma'am." I reply, not taking my eyes off of Verity, face pink with embarrassment.
"Good. Dean, honey, your daddy called saying he'd be late to pick you up. I'm making dinner. I don't know what growing quarterbacks eat, but I'm making baked chicken, macaroni and cheese, green beans, and mashed potatoes if you'd like to stay for dinner."
"Dean was just leaving, Mama."
I turn my head and smirk at Verity, whose cheeks are still flushed. "Actually, ma'am, that all sounds delicious. I haven't had a home-cooked meal since I came back from my mom's before summer vacation was over."That’s a lie. My mom doesn’t cook.
Verity grimaces. Her mother's smile falters, but she picks it back up. "Great. Dinner will be ready shortly."
"Thank you, Mrs. Huntington."
She nods and I hear her footsteps trail down the hallway and the creaks from every loose floorboard.
"What the fuck was that?"
"Mama bein’ a good Southern woman."
"You know what I meant."
Her eyes lower to the ground. "Can we just... I have my biology and geometry homework to do."
I grab my textbooks out of my backpack. "What a coincidence, I need help with those too."
"That wasn't part of this deal."
"We canmake itpart of this deal,” I argue.
Her eyes shut. "Dean," I love the way she says my name– like it tortures her, but it always, always sounds like a plea. "You've already taken my entire afternoon. If I keep tutoring you, I'll have to drop everyone else-"
"Then do it. Just be my tutor. Nobody else's."
Her eyes widen. "I can't do that. They need my help."
"Ineed your help, Verity.Me. Everyone else can suck it."
"You can't afford me. Monday through Thursdays? Dean, that's almost two hundred dollars a month."
"I'd take your Friday nights, too– but those are game nights. You would know that if you ever came to my games. And you don't have anyone to tutor Friday nights. I know this ‘cause them and their mama's are all watching me play. Well, everyone except you and yours." I shrug, not giving her an excuse to tell me no. I don't know why but having her share her time with anyone else thatisn'tme, bugs the ever living shit out of me. It always has. Even when we were kids on the playground. I don't want anyone else to have her time. I already have to watch her walk the halls next toMicah.
She pushes her glasses up her face in that nervous Verity way, and her mouth twitches. "No, I don't think I could do that."
"What will it take?" I grab my wallet from my back pocket and throw ten twenty-dollar bills at her. "There's two hundred."
She stares at them as they land at her feet. She steps away from them, so I throw a hundred-dollar bill at her.
"Three different subjects, eight bucks an hour, four times a week-" I throw another two hundred. "Looks like I'm all paid up and then some."
She doesn’t sink to the ground and pick up my money, instead just ignoring it. But the thought does something to me. Like I’d own a piece of her. I want to monopolize her time, so she can focus on me andonlyme. Yeah, the thought of that? Well it feels fucking good.
"Dean-"
