Page 93 of Distortion
They look at each other again.
Blake sighs. ‘Look, I know what I said before but ... We aren’t going to tell anyone. No one saw anything.’
‘You need to be better prepared for class, though, okay?’ Mav says almost gently. ‘You can’t do the work without your laptop.’
I put my head in my hands and heave a breath. ‘I don’t have one.’
‘One? One what?’ he asks.
‘A laptop.’
‘You don’t have a laptop?’ Blake sounds incredulous.
They’re both silent for a moment.
‘It’s okay,’ Blake mutters. ‘We’ll figure it out.’
‘Why are you being so nice to me?’ I blurt.
‘We just ... we like you, okay? You’re with us, now.’
For a second I believe them, but then I remember that I need to stay on my guard. They say things they don’t mean all the time, and they’ll trick me if I let them. My heart sinks oddly.
‘You don’t like me.’ I make myself bark a laugh, so they don’t feel sorry for me. ‘You’re just stuck with me because Applegate made me your lab assistant.’
Mav chuckles. ‘Maybe that, too.’
Blake doesn’t laugh, instead he just looks at me with aweird expression on his face that makes me think he can see right through my act.
I don’t like it.
The last thing I need is an opportunist like him seeing the ways he can hurt me.
I force myself to stand.
‘I have a shift at Grinder,’ I say.
‘I thought you didn’t have any for a couple days,’ Mav says with a frown.
Shit. I did say that.
Keep it together.
‘They called me. Someone’s out sick. They need cover.’
‘We need your number, beautiful,’ Blake says from behind me.
Beautiful?
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Your cell. We don’t have it. Now that we’re ... we need to be able to contact each other.’
‘I ... don’t know my own number,’ I say with a rueful chuckle. ‘I have to go. I’m sorry. But I’ll give it to you later.’
I leave the lab, my lies weighing heavily on me. I’d rather stay with them, surprisingly, but I also don’t want to sit there with them while they start dissecting my words and actions and realize things aren’t marrying up.
It’s bad enough that they know I don’t have a computer. Why did I have to mention a phone call?
