Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

" W hat was that about?" Dante asks with a raised brow.

"Fuck if I know." I shrug. I'm tempted to run after her. I want to know what the hell is wrong with her. I don't, though. I stay planted in my seat, moving my food around on my plate.

"You had a thing with her, right? When she was here before?" Josie asks me.

"A thing?" I repeat.

"You were dating each other. What happened?"

"She ghosted his ass after giving up her?—"

"Dante, shut it," I growl while pushing up from my chair. I have no doubt he'll tell Josie everything the moment I'm gone, but the whole fucking school doesn't need to know my business.

I storm out of the cafeteria. I didn't plan on chasing after Aleeka, but when I see her leave through the front door of the building, I follow her.

"Aleeka, wait up," I call out when she's halfway through the parking lot.

She spins around and straightens her shoulders. My lips tip up at the corners. I've seen her do this so often. It's her don't fuck with me pose. Her I am woman, hear me roar stance. She does it whenever she's nervous. We only dated for three weeks, but we were friends for years before that. Well, friends is probably a stretch. But we knew of each other.

"What do you want, Orlando?" she asks, her arms folding across her chest and pushing up her tits. Tits that are bigger than they used to be.

"I… ah… Where are you going?"

"Home."

"School's not finished," I tell her, like that makes a difference.

Aleeka tilts her head. "I think your mom is right. Stay in school, Orlando. You need the education."

"You wanna skip? Come with me. I wanna show you something." I pull my keys out of the front pocket of my jeans.

"Where?" she asks.

"You'll see when we get there," I say, taking her hand as I lead her over to my car.

"I need to be home as soon as school's out," she tells me.

"I don't remember your dad being that strict with your curfew before." I open the passenger door to my Range Rover.

"It's not that… I just have things to do."

"I'll make sure you're back here in this lot before the last bell," I assure her.

"Promise?"

"Promise." I make a point of drawing a cross over my heart with my finger. Aleeka rolls her eyes at me. She does get into my car, though. I jog around the front and climb into the driver's side. "Buckle up, princess," I tell Aleeka while pressing the button to start the ignition.

"Why am I doing this?" she asks. I don't think she's asking me exactly.

"Because you have the hots for my old man, and since he's married, I'm the consolation prize." I grin.

"You're nobody's consolation prize, Orlando. You'd be more like the Grammy or Oscar or something," she says, and I almost want to believe her. But then, if that were true, she wouldn't have fucking ghosted me.

"Just not yours, right?" I ask her.

"You don't want to be my Grammy," she says quietly.

"You sure about that?" I fire back and then turn on the radio. This conversation is getting too fucking serious. "So, Chicago? How was it? Did you make any remarkable friends? Boyfriends?"

"It was different. I didn't go to school there. I homeschooled. So, no, no new friends and no boyfriends. What about you? Any great loves?" she asks me.

"Great loves? No." I shake my head. "Why'd you homeschool?"

"I just did." She lifts a shoulder. "What was it like being on tour?"

"You been stalking me, Aleeka?" I smirk at her.

"No. Your face was in the headlines, on news channels. It was hard not to notice," she says.

"Why didn't you tell me you were leaving?" I ask as we pull onto the highway.

"I… I don't know," she says.

The rest of the drive is silent, neither of us filling it with chatter. I pull up to my house. This wasn't where I was going to bring her. But then, something came to me. We need a reset. I need a reset.

"Why are we here?" Aleeka asks. She looks nervous.

"Ignore the security. My pops… ah… got a promotion," I say. "Come on." I get out of the car and Aleeka follows me up the front steps. Taking her hand in mine, I push through the doors and lead her upstairs to my bedroom.

"Orlando, I shouldn't… I can't be here," she says.

"Relax. I'm not going to do anything to you, Aleeka," I tell her. "Well, not anything you don't want me to do anyway."

"I need to go," she says.

"I want a reset," I tell her.

"What?"

"That morning. I woke up and you were just… gone. I want a reset. I want to wake up and you still be here."

"We can't undo the past."

"We can reset it, though."

"Why would you even want to do that? So much time has passed," she says.

"Because you're my fucking ghost, Aleeka. I can't live another sixty years with you haunting me. So I want a reset. I want to know what would have happened if you didn't disappear," I admit.

"We can't just reset, Orlando. Too much has happened. There are things… There's something… I need to tell you," she says, her voice shaking.

I'm about to ask her what she's talking about when my bedroom door opens and my father fills the threshold. "Orlando, there a good reason you're skipping school again?" he asks me.

"I… ah… I should go. I'm sorry. It's my fault, Mr. Valentino. I asked him to give me a lift home. I just meant my home, not his," Aleeka tells my father.

I don't correct her. He knows she's lying to try to cover for me. The question I have is why? Why would she care enough to try to cover for me?