"Give me your phone so that I can insert my number," Maria said to Rudy.

  Rudy took out his phone from his pocket and handed it to Maria after unlocking it.

  "……" Maria was baffled after seeing Rudy's phone's condition.

  'The phone's screen has so many cracks, and it is so unresponsive! How does he even use this?' Maria wondered. 'And even the phone model is outdated and eight years old.'

  Maria opened the contact list to add her number. While adding her number, she thought, 'Does he not have enough money to buy a new one? Come to think of it, his starting bet was also only 5$.'

  Maria handed Rudy his phone back after entering her number.

  'I can buy him a new phone with the latest model, but maybe there is a reason he is using this old one?' Maria thought. 'Like maybe it was given to him by someone close to him? Maybe brother or sister? Or perhaps his parents?'

  Maria inspected Rudy from head to toe and thought, 'Even his clothes look old and short for him. Is he from a poor family?'

  'But his luck is super! And he earned decent money tonight. Wait… he didn't even know the rules of betting. Could it be that it was his first time here?' MAria uttered inwardly.

  Maria was watching Rudy play as she had said to Rudy when she approached him with an offer to play with her, so she could hear his conversation with Matthew.

  'I don't think I should mention it, though. It might be a sensitive topic for him.' Maria smiled at Rudy and thought, 'I don't want to lose my only friend in the world.'

  'Wait…' Maria raised her brows and thought, 'We are friends… right?'

  Maria wanted to ask Rudy if they were friends, but she was afraid to hear his answer.

  Maria had spent her entire life at home. She wasn't allowed to go out, and even her education was home tutored.

  Rudy was the only person around her age that she had talked to outside her household, and she felt a weird feeling in her heart after spending time with Rudy.

  'Should I ask him?' Maria asked herself.

  However, she was worried for nothing.

  Rudy could hear every word Maria had thought because of his telepathy ability which was randomly activated for some reason.

  However, Rudy had a faint idea why it was triggered.

  'It's because she was thinking about me and wanted to ask me something. Just like how it was triggered when the principal wanted to tell me to take rest.'

  'But…… it was already triggered when the taxi driver asked me to give 500$ as a taxi fare. And I highly doubt he wanted me to hear it…'

  Rudy wanted to think more about the sudden trigger of his telepathy, but he had something else to take care of first.

  He cleared his throat and moved his hand towards Maria to shake hands with her.

  "……" Maria shook hands with Rudy with a confused look on her face, but she didn't say anything.

  'I thought she would say it if I took the initiative, but I guess I will have to say it now…' Rudy sighed.

  Rudy looked into Maria's eyes and said, "Let's hope our friendship gets deeper the more time we spend with each other."

  "……" Maria's face flushed a little. But she nodded with a grin on her face and said, "Yes."

  'I tried to copy the line someone said to me in my past life, but I think I fucked it up a little…' Rudy uttered inwardly.

  Angelica hugged Rudy from behind and said, "You know, that looked more like you were trying to make your relationship more than that of a friend. Like, you said you wanted to deepen your friendship, but that could easily be misunderstood as a proposal.'

  'What the fuck are you talking about?! No matter how I look at it, it's obvious that you are trying to pull my leg here.'

  Rudy tried to shrug off Angelica from his back. But instead of moving back or making some distance with Rudy, Angelica moved her hand down to Rudy's crotch and stroked his snake from the outside.

  '……!' Rudy took a deep breath and slowly exhaled to act normal.

  "What's wrong?" Maria asked.

  "Nothing." Rudy shook his head and pointed his gaze at the money on the counter after saying, "How about you have that money deposit in your bank account?"

  "There is no need for that," Maria scoffed. "I spend that amount of money on homeless people."

  "Oka……y…"

  Maria turned around and walked to the counter to take the cash.

  At the same time, Rudy turned around and squeezed both of Angelica's breasts to calm her down. And it worked, but not the squeezing.

  She stopped because of the glare in Rudy's eyes.

  It wasn't as though she was scared of Rudy, but she realized that she had crossed the limit.

  However, Rudy wasn't truly angry at Angelica. The only reason he acted like that was that, as with any normal male, if their snake was stroked regardless of where they were, they would get hard.

  Rudy wanted to avoid getting a boner in front of Maria, especially when they became friends and shook hands.

  Maria walked back to Rudy while placing the cash in her purse. She stood in front of Rudy and stared at him with a smile on her face.

  "……"

  "……"

  They both stared at each other without saying anything because neither of them knew what to say. While Angelica glanced back and forth between Rudy and Maria.

  "Uhh…… I should leave now…" Rudy said with an awkward smile on his face.

  "Yeah. Wait…" Maria closed her distance with Rudy and said, "How do you plan to go back?"

  'Teleporting, of course. But as if I could say that.'

  "I am going to take a taxi…" Rudy responded.

  "Then how about I drop you off?" Maria offered with an innocent smile on her face.

  ===

  Author's Note- Guess the car.

  An extra chapter on 1000 powers stone. Or 200 golden tickets!