Betrayed in Blood

Chapter Eighteen

DISCLAIMER: This chapter contains assault, language, and mentions of murder.

"Hold on," Camilla said, "I need to post on my Instagram story."

She raised her phone up to take a picture and plastered on a fake grin. André leaned down to her height, resting his chin on hers as the camera snapped. The picture was cute; the perfect couple at a nice cafe date, smiling happily. It would not only fool her 6,000 followers, but André would fall for it too. 

And with a tender hand squeeze, André led Camilla to the cafe doors, and once she entered, it was more than obvious that the restaurant wasn't very popular. It was quaint, but only two other couples were there—both much older. They took a seat and were served soon after, one of the benefits of an unpopular restaurant.

As they began eating, Camilla asked, "So, what school did you go to before? It was in Chicago, right?"

"Yeah," André replied, "Lincoln Park High School. It was a pretty big school, and we had a good football team too. We had a great season last year."

"Because of you, I take it?" She raised an eyebrow.

He smiled. "I'd like to think so." His grin faded, and he looked down. "They weren't very happy about me moving."

"Why did you move, then?"

André squeezed his eyes shut and sighed. He glanced back up at her for a moment, only to look away again. Having taught herself what emotions looked like—to boost both her acting and her manipulating skills—Camilla knew that, whatever his response was about to be, he was going to lie to her.

"I was just... tired of going to a big public school, you know?"

She sucked her cheek, but before he looked back up at her, she relaxed her face and nodded. "I get that. I mean, I've never been to a big school like Lincoln Park, but I understand why."

He eventually made eye contact again, but it didn't last long. Of course, that was a typical sign that somebody was lying. It also meant that he felt guilty about it, which made sense; after all, he cared about Camilla.

But she wanted the date to go well, so she moved on, inquiring, "Your parents wanted to move, I assume? Because you don't seem very happy about it."

He blinked and scratched the back of his head. "Uh, yeah. Well, my mom did. She's a single mom."

"Mine practically is too. My dad's never home, he's always working."

André's face relaxed. "Do you have any siblings? I don't."

"Me neither," she responded, "just my mom, and every so often, my dad will show up. Only around twice a month, though, and my parents always seem to fight about something whenever he's back."

"Jesus," he muttered, reaching for her hand and brushing it with his fingers. "I'm sorry, that's gotta be tough."

She frowned. She knew he was being empathetic, but her dad's absence didn't bother her. It wasn't as if she cared about him anyway, so whether he was present or not made no difference.

"It's fine," Camilla assured him.

Then, they went quiet. She had no idea what was going through André's head. Was he uncomfortable talking about that kind of stuff? Or did he find her relatable?

Interrupting the silence, Camilla stood up and stated, "I'm going to go to the bathroom." André sent her a concerned gaze, but he didn't stop her.

She found the restroom with ease despite being in a foreign restaurant, and she was surprised to find out that it had stalls. However, nobody else was inside, so it was completely silent. And Camilla used the space to think about how the date was going and how she wanted it to go from there.