“Calm your tits. I’m getting my phone.” He drags it from the pocket, then frowns at the screen. “Let me guess. You don’t have those newfangled chargers, either.”
It looks like the same model as the one he gave me, and I point to my dresser. “Over there.” It occurs to me I should probably have given that to my sister while I was at it, but surely, she’s industrious enough to find her own.
The thought of me passing his present along so readily causes a little nip of guilt. A bite that intensifies when he plugs in the charger and returns to bed, asking, “Can I borrow yours for a sec?”
I tense and bite my lip. “Oh, I don’t—”
“Don’t worry,” he interrupts. “I’ve already seen your private photos.”
His smile does something extraordinary to my stomach, sending it on a private ride that swoops up and down and involves explosions of butterflies. Except I can’t enjoy it because I don’t know what to tell him about the phone. He deserves an explanation. It’s a lot of money, even if it doesn’t seem that way to him.
But I don’t want to talk about my sister. Not yet.
The good times with Zach are fantastic, but he’s also the boy who trashed my reputation at school. Who has intimate photographs of me that shouldn’t even exist.
“Lilac?”
My hand plucks at the bedspread. He’s the only person apart from my mother to call me by my actual name. With a lilt that makes it sound special rather than ridiculous.
“I-I don’t have it.”
He pushes me onto my back, straddling me while he scrutinises my expression so closely it feels like he’s about to pluck the thoughts straight from my head. “You lost it? Have you tried calling the number?”
I shake my head, another wave of guilt tightening the muscles of my chest.
“We can do it when mine charges a little more. Or trace it.”
“Trace it?” My voice is a squeak.
“Using the locator app.” He presses on my shoulders. “That’s what they’re for. Everyone loses their phone at some point. It’s no biggie.”
My tongue darts out to lick my lips, but my mouth is so dry it doesn’t do any good. “I didn’t lose it. I-I…” I scrunch my face up, fighting a battle for the words.
“You what? You sold it?” His eyes change colour. Instead of blue shot through with grey, they turn blank as stone. “There are easier ways to earn money, you know. You could sell this instead.” He reaches a hand behind him to cup my pussy.
“I gave it away.”
“You gave it away,” he echoes, a bemused expression on his face. “And who did you give it to, Lilac? Who needed a phone so badly that you handed over the one I specifically bought for you?”
I bite my cheek so hard that my mouth fills with the copper taste of blood. I try to turn my head to the side, but his gaze has me hypnotised.
Zach moves more weight onto my shoulders, sinking them farther into the mattress. “Who did you give it to?”
My mouth wants to spurt nonsense, anything to change him back to the lighthearted boy who teased me just moments ago. Who soaped me from head to toe in the shower, and makes my pulse race, even now.
“I can’t tell you. I won’t lie to you, but… please… I can’t tell you right now.”
He eases back, resting on his heels. My shoulders throb as his weight shifts away. “No worries. I’ll get you a new one.”
“You don’t—” my voice breaks and I swallow before trying again. “You don’t have to do that.”
“Oh, but I do, Lilac.” He cups my chin in his hand and I feel a nervous wriggle in my belly. “I still have plans for you.”
Before I can ask what, he jumps to his feet, grabs his phone from the dresser and steps into his shoes, tucking his socks into his pockets. He raises the window sash and tips me a wink before vaulting over the sill and disappearing around the side of the building.
Did that just happen? None of it feels real enough to have happened.
My head swarms with worry as I rethink his parting statement. Plans? If he hadn’t tied the statement to the phone, it might have sounded nice.
