INSTALOVE

Chapter 35: Playground games

Chapter 35: Playground games

M A D D O X

Enough's enough.

I've known for a while that I need to man up. Make a choice. Stop playing games. Looks like today's the day. Ready or not, here I come.

Eleanor just caught me red-handed. I'm standing three inches from Ellie with her palm pressed against my chest. Not exactly a business-like position... but I'm done caring. I let go of Ellie's hand. My eyes skim past Eleanor and land on Reese. "Oh good. You're here. Lowercase needs you to look over something."

"I do?" Ellie and I lock eyes. I raise my brows, hoping she'll understand what I'm trying to communicate. I'm not playing. Not right now. I need to have it out with Eleanor. The time has come.

"Ohhhh," Ellie says slowly. "Right. I need to show Reese that... that thing." She spins away from me and grabs her laptop before heading to the double doors.

Reese isn't looking at Ellie. She has her eyes cast sideways toward her roommate. Eleanor still hasn't moved a muscle since she stepped into the room. Her stillness feels more menacing than any movement she could make. She tilts her head and casts her eyes upward toward the ceiling. "Go ahead," she says to Reese. "Moxie and I need to have a chat."

My thoughts exactly.

We stare each other down from opposite ends of the room. She has her hands on her hips. I draw myself up to my full height and mirror her position. The moment the doors swing closed behind Reese and Ellie, she reaches into her shoulder bag for her visor.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm placing a call."

"Eleanor—"

"Call mother," she says aloud, directing the visor. She drops her hands from her hips and saunters toward me. "It's ringing."

I move a few paces toward her. "Eleanor, can we please talk about this."

She whips the visor off. Her eyes shoot daggers from behind the lenses. "You knew what would happen, Moxie. We had an agreement, and you've obviously chosen to disregard it, so—"

"I didn't do anything!"

She stands at the far end of the makeshift platform and rests her hip against it casually. Ellie's backpack sits beside her. She pushes it away, wrinkling her nose in distaste and replacing it with her own designer bag.

"That's not what it looked like from my angle," she says.

There's no point arguing. I'm done trying to smooth things over. She wants to call her parents and tell them what a terrible person I am? Go ahead.

"Maybe I should call your parents for you." I glower at her, reaching for my own visor. "I'm sure they'd be fascinated to hear how their precious offspring has taken up a new career in blackmail."

She lifts her chin and laughs her tinkly laugh. I can't believe I ever found that sound attractive. Now, it only sets my teeth on edge.

"Blackmail?" she says sweetly. "That's a strong word."

She looks calm on the surface, but I know her hidden depths. There's a tension at the corners of her mouth that wasn't there a moment earlier. I just called her bluff—threatening to go to her parents—and I think it might be working.

Her parents...

I blink, suddenly seeing everything she's done this summer in a different light. The whole pretend-we're-still together thing... All this time, I thought her whole game was driven by jealousy, but maybe that's not it. She doesn't care about Ellie and me. She's using our fake relationship to cover something—something she doesn't want her parents to know about until after this program ends—and her whole scheme will fall through if they catch on that we broke up.