Teenage Millionaire

Chapter 5: Home

By dismissal, I'm more than eager to get home and spend another weekend not thinking about him. It worked last time. Very well. It'll work again, and I'm sure he'll bring a friend to his classes on Monday. So he'll stop looking at me.

I walk as fast as I can without looking (too) conspicuous. It doesn't matter.

vrrRRRRR-VRR-VRR-VRRRRRRRRR-

My legs are starting to get a bit sore already. I tell myself to keep it up until I get out of view of the school, and then I can let up a little.

A flash of bright yellow in my peripheral, and then a moment later he's driven up in front of me. He does a U-turn (it's a school zone. It's illegal) and parks the car beside the curb only a few metres in front of me. I swallow and keep walking without looking at him. A moment later, there's a car door blocking my path. As in, his car door opened at an angle. Like, up. It pivoted up to open. What the heck- who even has a car like that? That's so unnecessary!

I look at him. He's pushed his racing sunglasses up onto his forehead, and he's grinning at me, teeth bared. I walk around the car door, fully intending to keep walking.

"Hop in."

I stop and turn, giving him an incredulous look. "Excuse me?"

He pats the passenger seat. "You're excused. Now get in."

"What- I- you- I- no!"

He cocks his head at me, still smirking, but with his lips closed now. Like he thinks my answer is amusing. "Why not?"

"I- I don't even know you! You tried to cheat off me! Why would I ever- I can't even- just no!"

He waves his hand dismissively. "You're over-complicating it. Just get in."

"Why would I ever do that?"

"Because I'm asking you to. And because riding in this car is automatically ten times better than walking."

I narrow my eyes at him. "Where do you want to take me?"

"Home. Where else?"

"I don't know. I don't know anything about you, other than you cheated off me and tried to convince me not to tell, and you just made an illegal U-turn."

He grins. "Neither of those things are exclusive to me. Even together. But fine, consider this a personal apology for trying to pollute your clear conscience with my immoral ways."

And now he's confusing me. Now I don't know whether it would be better to keep my distance from him at all times and just run away right now, or try and find out what he wants from me. Get some sort of reasoning for why he kept looking at me like that, why he didn't care that I saw when he attempts to be discreet with his other people.

He's grinning again. Probably figured that he's gotten me to consider it. I shake my head. This is such a bad idea. I should not, not if I want to keep my life the way I like it- simple and easy. So I do the smart thing: turn and walk away.

He reverses. Half onto the sidewalk. I shout and jump back.

"You lunatic! Are you trying to kill me?!"

"Of course not. You were just walking in the wrong direction." He gives me a cheeky smile. I huff.

"You're just going to drive me home."

"Yes."

"Promise?"

"Cross my heart. You have my word."

I don't take his word to mean very much. But maybe he just wants to talk? Maybe he just wants to try and convince me to let him cheat off me or something. Maybe knowing more about him will help me decide that he's boring and become apathetic to him. And I also don't want to try and walk away again, because he might actually run me over this time. And while it would be his fault, I'd still be the injured one.