Emotionally Charged by Selina Fenech Read Free Book Online

wanted to be part of the team, to be worthy of Jake’s smiles.
    “So, my lovely Livvy, the question is - what are you willing to do to be part of the team? If you can’t even handle some plastic surgery…”
    I drifted in the cold water. My parents had accepted my absence so easily. I had friends back home, but none of them understood me, or the craving inside me for something more. I’d never realized how lonely I had been until now. Something had to satisfy my yearning, and that something was Jake and his team. It had to be. What else was there?
    “Anything, I’ll do anything.”
     
    ***
     
    I moped up and down the shopping mall. My arms were loaded with fancy paper bags from deluxe boutiques. I should have felt like a star, out on a spending spree with a fat wad of someone else’s cash, but all I could think about was buying the right things to make myself look better. I didn’t know what I was doing and wished Emma was here to guide me, but she was off on some important lunch date. She had great fashion sense and wore everything so well. Or was that the plastic surgery? Just how much did she have done to look that fantastic? I wondered how she looked before.
    Jake said he wouldn’t rush me into anything major, it was all just something to think about for now. They wanted me in the team and were happy I was willing to do what I needed to be with them. There were so few people like us that maybe they felt they couldn’t leave me out. But I had to step up and be valuable to the group. Maybe I could do that without going under the knife. My shopping choices better be amazing in that case.
    Whether it was my thoughts or the swag weighing me down, I was exhausted. I needed fuel, and stepped out of the mall onto the street to find a coffee shop.
    That’s when I saw him again. He sat across the street in a park. His eyes were down, reading, but I didn’t need to see them to know their exact shade of gray.
    A snarl built on my face and I marched across the road. He owed me a thank you. I tried to relax my face and smile, think better of him. It had been a rough situation. Maybe he just forgot or was too stressed at the time. But I was about to give him a second chance.
    Few people were in the park, and if they were they rushed through rather than lingered in the neglected property. A wooden play fort dominated the central area. This kind of relic play structure wouldn’t get built these days for being too dangerous to kids, but was the kind kids loved. I saw one boy look longingly its way before being dragged the other way by his dad. The lawn throughout was uneven, spotted with dandelions and longer than it should be. I shuffled through it to the bench where the guy I’d saved sat.
    I stood still in front of him and he didn’t move. Ignoring me, or absorbed in the dog-eared paperback, I didn’t know. The same weird, cold, emptiness I felt when I first saw him crept into my bones. I cleared my throat and he looked up.
    He looked better in the daylight, less pasty and more ivory skinned. I spaced out for a moment wondering how my olive skin would look pressed against it. Where did that come from?
    “Hi?” He sounded confused, but I couldn’t get an emotional read. There was a slight rosiness to his cheeks and under his eyes, almost like he’d been crying. But of course he hadn’t been crying. He was some kind of emotionless robot that couldn’t say thank you.
    “Do you remember, the other night? I was, uh, the alley, and those guys, and, uh, I’m Livvy.” My inability to sense any hint of emotion from this guy threw me. It was just like watching TV. I could see the movement and angles of his face and body but couldn’t sense anything real. Almost as though he wasn’t even really there.
    He nodded slowly and a tiny smile emerged. Or maybe it was a nervous tic. I couldn’t tell either way with this blank slate. Even Donnie showed mountains of emotion in comparison.
    “I remember. I’m Dean.”
    Okay,