• 𝐃𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐲 𝐌𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐲 •

• 14 •

valerie

I eat with Eneaj in her bedroom, the laughter of everybody else including Yenvy able to be heard from up here downstairs.

"You sure you wanna watch Hulu? We could be downstairs if you want..."

I glanced over at her as I dug into my Panda Express.

"You don't have to stick around lonely ole me if you wanna be down there. Seriously. It's just hard for me to laugh with them when...they've stripped me of everything I've built really," I went quiet, my mouth resting on my knuckles as I frowned to myself.

They didn't need me. Jadyn was handling everything. I'll just have to find a job and...leave all of this behind. They don't want me with them. Not one of them has even came up here to check on me. I don't even think anybody noticed besides Jadyn, and that's because she saw Eneaj coming with me after we got the food Pey ordered off the counter.

"You alright?" Eneaj asked gently.

I snapped out of it, going back to my food.

"Whatever you wanna watch," I waved my hand around dismissively.

She turned the TV off and leaned towards me, pushing my food wrapped in a simple plastic bag away from me. "I wanna watch you," she whispered the rest into my ear.

My eyes widened as a little smile came onto my face.

"Wait til I'm done eating."

She said something else, and I went to put my food on the dresser, along with hers. We went to the bathroom to wash the sticky food off our faces and hands before I brought her over to the bed, legs wrapped around me.

"Val," she stared up at me as I laid her down.

"Mhmmm?" I took her in with my eyes.

"Sleep in my bed with me tonight," she mumbled, reaching up and pulling me by the shirt down towards her.

I looked at her for a moment. "Of course."

"Val...?"

"Mhm?" I started kissing on her, her arms wrapped around my upper body.

"Tell me about you and your friends...you promised."

I lightly kissed her lips, standing back up put holding both her hands as she laid there in front of me.

"I promise you I would...tonight. When everybody's asleep," I whispered.

"It's tonight now," she frowned, sitting up. "How can I know that I trust you if I don't know whatever you're involved in...?"

"Involved in?" I frowned too, "Who said I was..."

My eyes narrowed at her. "You looked through my shit, didn't you?"

"And did," she scoffed, "You're still a stranger, no matter how attractive," her voice went soft. "I know you guys do some wild shit, that much I can comprehend. But I wanna get to know you, Val, and that won't happen if I don't know everything. You guys are staying with me and my best friend for goodness' sake. We all just met today. You could at least," she waved her hand around, "Gimme sumin."

"Tonight," I repeated, letting her hands go. "Let's finish eating."

She sighed, obviously not pleased with my decision.

"Did you guys wash your wet clothes from today?"

"Yeah. Yenvy said it's all in the dryer now. Once it dries, we all can hit the hay," I shrugged, handing her over her food and sitting back on the bed with mine.