Chapter 5 – How Could I?

What was I thinking? Am I an idiot? He's so much older than me and he works with my dad! I'm so stupid. I think I'm so mature and then I go and do something like that?

Kissing Weevil was a mistake. Getting it into my head that playing games to preoccupy me thinking about Lilly and that whole mess was a big mistake.

I acted like a child and I am ashamed of myself. From now on, when I go into the office I won't talk to him. I'll act like nothing happened and he's just my dad's employee.

At least Weevil has enough sense to stop the kiss. Ugh, and I had planned to get him to kiss me. That would've been insane! I can't believe how stupid I am.

Also I'm not calling him Weevil. That's too personal. I shouldn't even know that's what people call him. He will be back to Eli. Eli who works at Mars Investigations.

Dad came back and he hadn't suspected a thing. Good. We went into work and Eli didn't talk to me. Good. Things might be getting back to normal… or well, the Mars' version of normal.

It was two days later. I was supposed to go into work tonight. I defiantly wasn't looking forward to it. Seeing Eli was embarrassing. It made me feel like such a child for what I did. I was convinced that he thought I was stupid as well.

School hadn't been any tougher than usual, which was good. The bad was that every day at school had been a nightmare for me, ever since I took my dad's side in things. Just today I found that someone had written the word SLUT on my locker. Sadly, it wasn't the first time.

I opened the door to Mars Investigations and went upstairs. I braced myself for seeing Eli in my seat and feeling totally humiliated. Unbelievably, he wasn't there. I looked in dad's office. He wasn't either. They must be on a job, or something, I told myself.

I sat down at my desk and started flipping through my history textbook. I had a test tomorrow and even though I'm pretty sure I know everything, it's always good to prepare oneself.

After I finished reading chapter 5 of the textbook I heard the door open. I expected to see a client. Unfortunately it wasn't

It was Weevil – I mean, Eli. I gulped. We hadn't been alone together since the stupid, stupid kiss had happened. I looked down to my feet, trying not to make eye contact.

"What are you doing here?" Eli asked. His voice was like a stranger's. There was no warmth or friendliness to it like there had been previously.

"My dad told me to come in. I don't know why, probably to watch over the lace while you two were off doing whatever you were doing. Where is he, anyways?"

I looked up. Bad mistake. Eli was looking straight at me and for a moment I thought I would faint. I was extremely light-headed. This was the type of feeling I would get with my old boyfriend, Duncan Kane. This feeling should not be surfacing after just looking at Weevil – Eli! Damn!

"We weren't together," Eli told me, "I guess he's still out spying on some guy I guess."

I nodded and quickly went back to looking at my history textbook. I say looking because there was no possible way I could read it, not when Eli was standing right in front of me.

He sat down in the seat in front of my desk. I could feel him staring at me. Don't look at him, Do not look at him Veronica. Whatever you do, make sure that you do not look at him.

I couldn't help it though. I took a peek. The peek turned into a glance. The glance turned into a look. The look turned into a stare.

He made the first move. "We should talk Veronica."

I shook my head and laughed nervously. "No, we really shouldn't."

Eli sighed. "Well I think we should. So you can sit there and not say anything, but I have something to say."

I didn't say a word, but I kept looking at him. He has really long eyelashes, you know.

He continued, "What we did… it was really wrong Veronica. I know you hate it when people tell you that you're young but I have to say it. You're young. Fifteen, sixteen… it doesn't matter. I'm twenty-six. It was very stupid of me to allow that kiss to happen. It wasn't your fault. You're a teenager. I'm the adult and I should have never allowed that to happen. I'm not saying it wasn't nice, but it shouldn't have happened. It can't happen again, you understand that, right?"

I nodded. "Yes." I said it softly. I didn't even know if Eli could've heard me or not.

"Good. I hope we can be friend though. I think being friends would be nice."

Friends would be alright. I could live with it. Especially since Eli was taking a lot of the embarrassment off of me by blaming himself.

"Friends would be nice."

Eli smiled.

"So," I teased, "The kiss was nice?"

Eli gave me a nervous smile. "I shouldn't talk about my friends like that."

SO I know this chapter is really, really short. If it was an iPod it'd be a shuffle. But there was a very serious and tragic death to someone very close in my family and I have just gotten back into things. So I am very sorry for the long wait on this chapter but I hope you understand.

I appreciate all the reviews. Thanks goes out to all my reviewers, I have read all of them and I am so happy that so many people are interested in this story.

I will try to update soon but I have a lot of catching up to do. I will try to have another chapter up (which will be a lot longer, I promise) in less than 2 weeks.

Also, don't give up hope. There will be definite romance in the next chapter. This chapter was just to get me in the swing of writing again and to explain that Veronica wasn't such a ditz when she kissed Weevil.

Also, thank you SO much to all the reviewers, you have no idea how much it means to me with all your kind words. I hope you guys are still following the story after my long (almost a year :O) of absence.