Sarah braced herself. “What?”
“The party was thrown by none other than Dana and her stupid friends, and before you ask, yes, there are photos of her and Alex and Angel and a bunch of the other guys on the team all over her and her idiot friend’s Facebook pages, but, of course, the ones of her and Angel were the first ones she posted.” Sarah could hear the venom in Valerie’s words, but she couldn’t blame her. Sarah was beginning to feel a little pissed especially given the fact that Angel hadn’t bothered to call or even text her last night. “There’s also a few disgusting ones of Alex with two whores on his lap, and he looks to be having a good ole time. I swear, Sarah . . .” Her voice finally broke, and Sarah’s heart went out to her.
Sarah hadn’t even seen any of the photos, and already she felt hurt that Angel would pose for them, knowing full well how she felt about Dana. Valerie had seen photos of Alex with girls on his lap. “Valerie hon,” she began.
She heard Valerie inhale loudly, and she cleared her throat. “No. I’m done, Sarah. He’s probably over there screwing every one of those whores who’d gladly spread their legs for him. Do you know what he said to me yesterday when I went to see him off?” She paused but didn’t wait for Sarah to ask and Sarah didn’t. She could already tell Valerie was going off on one of her tangents, the ones only Alex ever brought out of her. “He told me he missed me already and that he wished I were going with him. Ever since Max’s party, he’s been such a sweetheart. I actually believed him. I’m so stupid.” Her voice started to break again, but she held it together. “Anyway, I’m still going to Havasu with Monica. She’s just watching her older brother while her mom gets a few more hours of sleep. She worked last night and her brother’s autistic. He can’t be left alone, but as soon as her mother is up, we’re out. Are you still staying home with your paper?”
A million questions assaulted Sarah all at once. Why hadn’t Angel called or even texted her last night? Why hadn’t he called this morning? Were there any sickening photos of him and Dana or any of those other whores? Would he be hanging out with them again today—tomorrow? It all came down to one thing—the only thing that calmed her—Angel wouldn’t do this to her. She knew him too well.
Knowing Valerie was in near tears and there was no denying the photos of Alex with not one but two girls on his lap, she wouldn’t tell Valerie what she was thinking. She was certain Angel had a good explanation for being at Dana’s party and not bothering to call her. As much as it did stir the bubbles beginning to suds in her belly, Angel deserved the benefit of the doubt.
“Havasu does sound like fun,” she said, trying to sound as if she were actually considering it, “but, yeah, I still have to work on that paper.”
Valerie was quiet for too long, and Sarah wondered if she was crying or maybe mad at her for not wanting to go. “Val?”
“Hmm?”
“You okay?”
“Yeah,” she said, but she sounded distracted.
“Did you hear what I said?”
“About your paper? Yes, I heard you. I’m just. . . Ugh!!” she said suddenly. “I should just stop looking already. The more photos I see of him, the more I wanna fling this fucking iPad across the room.”
“Well, then stop,” Sarah said firmly. “Don’t let those sluts make you wreck your own iPad.”
“I am,” Valerie said. “I’m stopping right now, and not to get you all riled, but there are more of Angel and Dana this time. It’s like that bitch realized last year she should’ve gotten more than that one she posted all over all year, so she made up for it this time. But if it’s any consolation, he doesn’t look all smug and comfortable like he’s enjoying every moment of it the way Alex does.” She exhaled dramatically again. “That’s it. I’m done looking at these, especially because, from what I’m reading, that was just the pre-party. The real partying starts tonight. I’m not looking at my Facebook page until the weekend is over.” She laughed suddenly then added. “Who am I kidding, right? But at least I’ll be doing some partying of my own. I’m gonna jump in the shower now and get ready. In case you change your mind, we’re not leaving for another couple of hours, so let me know.”
“Okay, thanks,” Sarah said, knowing perfectly well she wouldn’t.
When she got back to her laptop, Leonardo was still sitting there, looking through his phone again. “Sorry about that,” she said and he looked up.
“It’s okay.” He smiled. “So your cousin is still going to Havasu?” Sarah nodded, pulling her hair back and sticking a clip through it to hold the mess together. “If Angel’s gone all weekend, why don’t you go with her?”
“Because,” she said, making the screen he was on smaller and opening up a second one for Facebook. “I have a paper I really need to get done.”
She wouldn’t mention that since Angel hadn’t called her last night she’d pretty much finished it. She just needed to tweak it now to make sure it was as perfect as it was going to get. Still, she was not about to start playing the games Alex and Valerie played. That was the last place she wanted to take her and Angel’s relationship. There was no way she’d be able to deal with what Valerie did.
“Is your cousin just coming for the day or all weekend?”
“All weekend, I think,” Sarah said without even looking at the screen he was on.
Her eyes were already focused on some of the posts people from her school were commenting on. There was a headline from a local Waikiki paper talking about the disturbance at the hotel caused by the rowdy college kids. Sarah scanned the story, but there were no names mentioned. It did, however, point out that it was almost one in the morning when things were finally settled and the football players were sent on their way with the coach.
She then clicked on another link someone posted from the party. They were saying it was totally worth the trouble they’d gotten in.
Then boom. There it was: the ruthless blow to her gut.
Hearing about Angel’s photos with Dana was one thing, but seeing it for herself made her ill. The smile on Dana’s face alone was sickening, but seeing her arms wrapped around Angel so tightly made her skin crawl. She clicked on the rest and saw photo after photo of the party. The ones of Dana and Angel seemed to be of the same instance with just slight differences as if someone had just snapped away as she wrapped herself around him. Even though Valerie was right, he didn’t look nearly as pleased as some of the other guys in the photos, hearing about the photos and seeing them were two different animals. She knew exactly what Valerie meant about wanting to throw the damn thing across the room.
“Something wrong?”
There was no way she was going to be able to concentrate on anything now until she heard from Angel. She glanced back at the phone to check if by chance she’d missed a call or text. She even picked it up and scrolled through the texts from him, hoping maybe somehow she’d missed one.
Nothing.
“Baby girl.”
Sarah finally looked up. The term of endearment still felt weird, but at that moment she was too worked up to give it much thought.
“What’s wrong?” Leonardo asked, the look on his face genuinely concerned. “You seem upset—”
“I’m not.”
“Okay?” he said, making her feel a little stupid because obviously she was.
Her eyes were back on the photos, and she thought about the real partying starting tonight. The way the two girls were sitting on Alex’s lap reminded her of something Valerie had said once—something about Angel having to be a saint to pass up the skanks offering themselves up so easily and sucking them like porn stars. She wondered if by chance Alex had invited these two girls back to his room—a room he was sharing with Angel.
Standing up abruptly, Sarah shook her head. She would not do this. Angel would never betray her that way. Of that she was certain.
“Hey.”
Sarah shook her head again, trying in vain to shake off the ugliness she felt just thinking about the possibility of what may??
?ve kept Angel too busy to even text her last night. Practically lunging at her laptop, she X’d out of Facebook.
“Not another glance,” she muttered through her teeth.
“What?”
Suddenly she snapped out of it enough to realize Leonardo was still on the screen, staring at her. “I’m sorry,” she said, bringing her hand to her mouth.
“What happened? What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” she assured him. “I just . . . I have to make another call. I don’t wanna keep you waiting. I’ll call you back, okay?”
She barely gave him a chance to nod before shutting down the window and picking up her phone. There was a two-hour time difference between La Jolla and Waikiki, which meant it was still only a little after seven in the morning there. There was still a good chance she could catch him on the bus or at the very least still in the locker room getting suited up for warm ups. She hit speed dial, but it went to voice mail.
Inhaling before texting him, she knew once she sent it she couldn’t take it back. She didn’t want to text anything she’d regret, but she certainly wasn’t in a mood to be sweet. She texted the four words she wanted to say and sent them.
We need to talk.
With her heart beating erratically now, she hit speed dial again. As soon as Sydney answered, she started talking a mile a minute. She needed him to calm her—to assure her she was just jumping to ugly conclusions—to remind her that Angel would never do any of the things she was envisioning.
“All right, Lynni,” Sydney said. “First of all, slow down. I caught most of what you said, but some of it blew right by me. So Angel went to a party last night with Dana. He never called you or texted you. He took lots of pictures with her, and now you wanna go party in Havasu with Valerie?”
Just like that Sarah was yanked out of her near frantic mood, and she laughed, feeling like a drama queen. “No!” She laughed even more thinking about what she must’ve sounded like to Sydney. Taking a deep breath, she tried again only this time a lot calmer. “He went to a party last night. One Dana threw at a hotel. Not with her. But there are all kinds of pictures of him with her online now. Since he never called or texted me last night like he said he would, it’s just making me crazy. And, no, I don’t want to go party in Havasu because of this. You know that’s not like me. It’s just that this is already making me insane, and I know I won’t be hearing from him at least until this afternoon when his game is over. I’ll be losing my mind by then, so I was thinking since I’m pretty much done with my paper maybe I should get out. Get my mind off all this. It’s what Valerie’s doing.”
“You should,” he said simply, “even if he hadn’t gone to a party or taken pictures with Dana. Why not? It’s a three-day weekend. Go enjoy yourself.”
“But you don’t think because this did happen he’ll think I’m being petty, trying to get back at him?”
“He might,” Sydney said then chuckled. “Actually, it’s probably exactly what he’ll be thinking, but unless he has a damn good reason for not only going to Dana’s party but hanging out with her when he knows how you feel about her and then not even bothering to call you, I’d say he doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on and argue. Besides we know he has nothing to worry about. It’s not like you’re going out there to get crazy.”
Smiling weakly, Sarah still debated whether she should go or not. She really didn’t want Angel to think she was playing games because it wasn’t about that. It just scared her how quickly she’d gone from staying calm and giving Angel the benefit of the doubt to nearly losing it. She knew now the longer she sat around all day waiting and possibly more photos resurfacing—photos she’d be too weak to keep herself from looking at—the worse she would feel about it. She’d go nuts all day unless she had a major distraction.
As soon as she got off the phone with Sydney, she called Valerie and told her she was in. Valerie was beyond ecstatic. Fortunately, she didn’t mention any more about the happenings in Hawaii. Sarah really didn’t want to hear anymore, not from Valerie or anyone else but Angel. Anything she heard from anyone else would be hearsay and only serve to piss her off for possibly no good reason.
She pulled out her overnight bag and started throwing a few things in it. She concentrated on what she’d need out there. As chilly as it was beginning to get out here near the beach, Valerie said it was still in the low hundreds in Havasu. She even told Sarah to pack a bathing suit—more than one.
A couple of hours later, she had showered, packed and was waiting for Valerie. She still hadn’t heard a thing from Angel, but she figured he was likely in the middle of warm-up drills for the game. It’d be at least a few hours before she heard anything from him. She’d be halfway to Havasu by then.
Suddenly she remembered how rudely and abruptly she’d cut Leonardo off. Not wanting to fire up her laptop, she decided to text him instead.
So sorry about this morning. I just had a few things going on all at once. But that was really rude of me. Anyway, I decided to go to Havasu after all. I’m waiting for my cousin to pick me up now. =)
Unlike the rest of the times when she emailed or texted him, he didn’t respond immediately, and she wondered if maybe he was mad about her rudeness.
Valerie and Monica arrived to pick her up. Her mom was back from shopping with her aunt and walked them out, asking all the usual mom questions. Where were they staying? Did they have enough money? Had they packed enough clothes? And she then gave them all the usual warnings about not drinking too much or drinking and driving and watching out for crazies, etc. Finally, a few minutes later, they were on the road.
“Hey,” Valerie said, and Sarah looked up from her phone in the back seat, meeting Valerie’s eyes in the rearview mirror.
“Huh?”
“Road trip rules.” Her eyebrow went up before bringing her attention back to the road. “No checking Facebook for annoying photos. No talk of those two infuriating brothers unless either of them call or text us directly. And no sulking all weekend no matter what. We’re going out there to have fun. I know you’re not single, and I don’t expect you to act as if you were, but I do expect you to have fun, okay? No fuddy-duddies. That’s not why I invited you.”
Sarah frowned, glad Valerie was looking straight ahead and not into the rearview mirror anymore. She didn’t care for her cousin lumping Angel into the same category of infuriating as Alex because he was far from it. But the last photo she’d just seen of him and Dana on her phone’s Facebook app was pretty damn infuriating. She threw her phone in her bag and looked out the window.
“Agreed,” she said. “No Facebook, no talk of the Morenos and no fuddy-duddies. I will have fun. I promise.”
“Good,” Valerie said, turning up the music, and did a fist pump.
Taking a deep breath, Sarah had a sudden thought. She and Angel had been inseparable for so long. In all the times she’d been with him, she’d never even gone out to a local party without him. Not only was she doing so now she was doing it out of state in a major college crowd party resort and for the whole weekend. Before she could start feeling bad and let the unease in her stomach manifest, she reminded herself that Angel was in Hawaii without her. For as much as he said he wished she was there before and even though she didn’t have all the facts yet, one fact was clear. He’d be out there all weekend, and he hadn’t even been able to wait to get started. His first night there he’d gone out to party and to none other than Dana’s party. The reminder was enough to snuff out any guilt she’d started to feel about doing this.
Chapter 15
Sarah
A little over six hours later, they arrived at their hotel in Lake Havasu just off the London Bridge strip. It was already six p.m. there, and Sarah couldn’t help doing the math. That would make it just after three in Hawaii. It was still too early for Angel to be calling or texting. The game likely wasn’t even over. If it was, he still had a least an hour of after-game strategy talk in the locker room.
Before Valerie
could notice Sarah checking out her phone, Sarah slipped it back into her purse. Valerie walked out of the bathroom, wearing a snug little white skirt, a denim-colored bikini top, and ridiculously high denim wedges.
“Oh, that’s the cutest outfit,” Monica said.
Valerie looked back at Monica with a smirk. “Thanks, but I was going for hot.”
“Well, hot too.” Monica laughed, grabbing a wine cooler out of the small ice chest they’d brought into the hotel room. “I don’t think any guy out there will argue with that.”
Monica, who was the tallest of the three, pulled out a bright orange bikini from her bag. “I’m wearing this with my black mesh sarong.”
“That’s cute,” Valerie said.
Sarah gulped, thinking about what she’d packed. “Are we going in the water tonight?”
Monica shrugged, looking back at Sarah. “Doesn’t matter. You saw how all the girls are dressed out there. It’s hot.”
Sarah had seen as they’d driven through the strip full of partying college kids. She was already regretting it, but she’d agreed to not be a fuddy-duddy, so she dug through her bag. She was already wearing a short skirt. It was an army green camouflage summer thing. She pulled out the black cropped top she’d shoved into her bag at the last minute and went into the bathroom where she replaced the tank she was wearing. She wouldn’t be showing nearly as much skin as Valerie and most of the other girls out on the strip, but her midriff was exposed now as was the navel ring Angel said drove him nuts, so it was good enough.
After having several more beers and wine coolers in the room, they freshened up their makeup and hair and headed out. It was the oddest feeling to be out there in the crowd of single people all looking to hook up. Sarah had to keep reminding herself she’d agreed to have fun anytime any of the guys smiled at her or made a comment about her eyes. Talking to or maybe even smiling at some of the guys flirtatious remarks didn’t mean she was doing anything wrong. She couldn’t possibly point out to all of them that she was in fact in a relationship—very taken. It’d be silly, so she did her best to partake in the giggling and hair twirling Valerie and Monica did. There were moments that worried her such as when four guys decided to kick it with them for a while and offered to take the photos when they saw Valerie trying to do group selfies of all three girls. Later, one of the guys took photos of the whole group. The three other guys had immediately posed with them, and they looked like three couples. Sarah leaned into Valerie as she looked at the photos over her shoulder. “Please do not post that one anywhere.”