Zenon's Game Chapter 72

I have never been threatened before.

But I make one new friendship this year and I'm being forced to drop it. It's laughable. I honestly didn't realize I had an enemy out there. Heck, I barely have any friends.

"Excuse me Miss, you asked for a size 4?" I asked, holding a dress the customer had requested.

I was almost through with my shift at Lola Rae, treating today like any other. Life goes on, whether you've been blackmailed or not. The letter was in my backpack by the cash register. I'd held onto it all day, thinking I would confess to someone.

But I didn't. It stayed hidden, like a dirty secret. My burden.

"Yes, I did," the customer retrieved the dress out of my arms, "Are the changing rooms that way?" she asked, pointing to the sign that said 'changing rooms'.

A for effort.

I nodded and watched her go, foolishly thinking I was now alone in the store.

"Does this dress match my eyes?"

My heart froze. I recognized the deep, charming voice and I slowly turned around.

Zenon Albert stood in front of me, raising a blue dress by the hanger.

He held it in front of his actual clothes and smirked, "What do you think? Does it bring out the color in my eyes?"

It did. His blue eyes were sparkling like diamonds.

But I grabbed the dress out of his hand and tried to push him away. "I know your life is about basketball, but not everything is a game."

He let me take the dress away, but my shove did absolutely nothing to deter him. His muscular body didn't even flinch. He followed me to the counter.

"I thought we had a good thing going between us," he sighed, leaning casually on the counter. He picked up my pen and twirled it between his fingers, "I put myself out there. I asked you to be my friend and now we're interacting even less than we did before. It's confusing to me."

It's confusing to me how he doesn't just give up.  At this point, he's done some things and I've said some things and yet he keeps coming back.

"What are you doing here, Zenon?"

"I just told you, Candy. Were you listening?"

I gulped. I hadn't heard him call me that in a while.

"I haven't seen you in a while," he said, putting in words what my mind was thinking. "You pushed me away, and I'm not the type to sit back and wait. Not like Jakey."

I ignored his diss at Jake.

The truth was that I felt disrespected. He was too cocky sometimes, he played games with so many people and I worried he'd been playing the biggest game with me. Saying nice things to me, and still seeing other girls behind my back.

If I don't hold standards for myself, no one else will.

Maybe now was the right time to tell him about the letter. It may not be safe for us to interact anymore. The letter targeted him too. 

But then again, if I do tell Zenon, I could just sit back and watch him take everyone down. 

That's not my style, though.

Suddenly, the customer in the changing room screamed. I spun around, worried that the threat was coming through. Had the blackmailer been following me and saw us talking? Was (s)he sending a warning?

The customer screamed again, running into the main part of the store. I ran towards her and we heard a male voice laugh. 

Axel Thomas emerged from the changing room, wearing one of the Lola Rae dresses.

He twirled in front of us and struck a pose, "TADAA!"

My jaw dropped. I turned from Axel to Zenon. My eyes glaring daggers at Zenon. This had to be his idea.

Zenon shrugged, defending his innocence, "What, you thought I came here alone? I need backup."

"He needs a wingman," Axel gave us a salute, wearing his own clothes under the dress he was stretching.

I hope the store cameras weren't recording this. I'd be so fired. The customer threw her dress in my face and stormed out of the store.

"I'm closing up early today," I mumbled, picking up the store keys. "Any more surprises I should know about?"

Zenon and Axel glanced at each other. Neither admitted anything.

Boys.

"I'll confess," Axel exclaimed as we walked through the mall after I closed down the store, "Bryce came with us too. Operation Candace didn't go down as smoothly as we expected-"

"What were you expecting?" I asked.

What exactly was their plan? Zenon thought he could just stroll up to me with his charming megawatt smile and get me to... what?

Axel thought about it, "Maybe I shouldn't have said that. Anyway, Bryce's somewhere in here getting food."

"Want to go find him?" Zenon suggested, "Candace and I can hang outside."

Zenon was already holding the door open for me with one hand. Instinctively, I stepped towards him.

He wanted to finish the conversation we started, in private. So I exited the mall with him behind me. The car park was half empty, but a cluster of cars gathered in the same area mine was parked in.

We smelt weed and heard a heavy bass through one of the car windows.

All my jewelry's splash, seafoodSay he got a bag, me too

"Shout out my BM, that's Mimi," I sang the next part.

I decided to open up to Zenon.  He came here to talk to me.  He's always been trying to talk to me...  I remembered how he opened up his feelings to me on my birthday or on the day I got stung by a wasp.  It's about time I confess my side.

I looked back and saw Zenon at a standstill in front of a silver Hyundai. 

He stayed fixed. I paused, squinting to see who in the driver seat caused him to stop.

I recognized the driver. It was Christopher Hayes. Zenon's basketball rival. The car window rolled down and Layton leaned out.

"You two still a thing?" he pointed at us, "Shiiit, I don't think any of us expected that."

"We're not a thing," I clarified.

"Whatever you say," Christopher let it go... until he added, "But if we recycle the way Zenon cycles through girls, we'd solve global warming."

I didn't pay attention to Zenon's response. It was a sensitive subject that I didn't need reminding. It looked like we had been interrupted, yet again.

So, I listened to the music coming from the group smoking weed. It was a good song.

He touch me, he gon' die on the sceneI'ma pay me a lawyer and sit in the countyYou ain't built how I'm built

"They ain't seen what I seen," I sang again.

Christopher's friend interrupted me, "You listen to this? For real?"

He was getting out of the passenger seat at the same time Christoper got out of his. They wanted to face Zenon two-to-one, but Christopher's friend got distracted by my 'rapping'.

"Underrated song," I said, "Taking it Out."