Play The Part (Player Next Door Book 3)

25 | This Isn't Algebra

Buckle up and get your detective hats on!  We're READING THE TEXTS....

Chapter 25: This Isn't Algebra

~4 Hours Earlier in Millie's Bedroom~

The blackmailer's box sat on top of my bed. A Pandora's box of evil on my clean bedsheets.

"Luke, why don't you take this and read each one?" I suggested to him, pointing at the box.

Luke was standing on the opposite side of my bed, facing me. He looked at me, a serious expression on his face, as he leaned forward to pick it up. He looked as willing to do this as I was.

I'd rather eat my own toenails.

Maybe not actually. The more I think about that, the grosser it sounds.

"Ok," Luke said solemnly, and opened the box.

I'm glad he's paying attention.

I breathed in loudly. I don't know why I always do that, as if I expect a demon child to crawl out of the box and attack us. Nothing happened.

Luke dropped the box onto the bed, and, in his left hand, he held the stack of printed texts. Even just the fact that it was a stack sickened me.

"So-"

"Wait! One second!" I exclaimed, turning around, and running to my desk.

Luke lowered his hand and watched me, unimpressed by my delay. I'm childish and I don't want to face the difficult moments in life. Sue me. Or blackmail me.

Oh wait- ha.

I shoved my red chair out of the way and rummaged through the math notes on my desk, frantically searching, "I need my notepad."

"Your what?"

"This," I turned around and held out my lemon colored notepad.

"Millie, this isn't algebra. We're not going to compute-"

"Detectives have notepads and so do I," I replied, not underestimating how scientific this was going to get, "Go ahead. I'm ready now."

Luke's eyes stayed trained on me for a moment lower before he lowered his gaze back to the papers in his hand. I watched him intently to see how he was going to do this.

"I need a minute to read through these," he said, sifting through some of the pages, "Unless there's somewhere in particular you'd like to begin?"

I shook my head and settled down into a comfortable position in the red chair, "We are going to go through every one of these in extreeeeeme detail, so I don't mind where we start."

"Lucky us," he replied sarcastically.

I clicked my pen and waited, hand hovering over my notepad.

As I watched him over the next couple of minutes, I saw his face gradually become more and more angry. The blackmailer had fully invaded his privacy and I would love to see that blackmailer when Luke gets his hands on them one day.

And suddenly, without warning, Luke just started talking.

"I was with Tamara during summer camp. You remember that?" he asked, as if I wouldn't remember the gorgeous, model camp counsellor who slept in our cabin and ate my cereal for half of camp before she started at Miami Dade in the fall.

"A little," I lied.

"At the end of camp, you and I were on OK terms. You were a kind of... chaos I was starting to enjoy, but we were not together, right?" he said, looking like he was treading every sentence very carefully.