Uninvited (Fate #7) Page 24

  “That stupid machine. The other day it spit out a hundred-dollar bill that, I guess, someone tried to insert to pay his bill. I took it, fully intending to give it to my supervisor. Then we got swamped and I forgot all about it. The customer called to complain that his bill didn’t get paid and insisted he’d made his payment on the machine. They pulled the video and saw me taking it from the machine.” Sam’s lips began to quiver and her face crumbled. “Anna, they wouldn’t even let me explain. That stupid hundred-dollar bill is probably still in the pocket of whatever pants I was wearing that day. They made me feel like such a lying thieving piece of shit.”

  “Oh honey!” Aiyanna hugged her, and Sam fell into her arms, crying.

  Scott walked into the kitchen, and Aiyanna pouted at him over Sam’s shoulder. “At least you two have the same favorite ice cream.”

  Sam pulled away and turned to Scott, wiping her face with the back of her sleeve. “I got fired.”

  She rushed Scott and he hugged her. Aiyanna thought fast and pulled the sour cream and black olives out of the bag. “Well, we’re having a hell of a night tonight. The enchiladas will be officially ready in a few minutes and then popcorn, Star Wars, and ice cream.”

  Scott kissed the top of Sam’s head before she pulled away. “And don’t forget the tequila,” Sam said with a pout. “Just the thought of having to move back in with my mom makes me wanna cry.”

  “We’ve got you for a few months until you get another job,” Scott said, making Aiyanna feel guilty about how seriously she’d been considering moving in with Nathan.

  “Thank you, Scott,” Sam said, pulling away from Scott, then turned to Aiyanna. “This sucks so bad!”

  “I hear you, Sam,” Scott said, picking up the bottle of tequila Sam brought. “Get me a shot glass. Fuck Josh and fuck your job. It’s on tonight.”

  Chapter 23: Fuck This Shit!

  Aiyanna

  “Okay, so let’s hear it,” Sam said then put her hand up because Aiyanna was already giving her a warning glare. “I’ll be open-minded. What did he do this time? Or what’s he claiming he didn’t do? Like when he snuck around behind your back with his ex for weeks but supposedly never slept with him.”

  “Sam,” Aiyanna said cautiously.

  “No, no.” Scott nodded, pouring three shots of tequila.

  “I’m not having any,” Aiyanna said.

  “Yes, you are,” both Scott and Sam said at the same time.

  They laughed, giving each other a high five; then Scott went on shaking his head. “No. It’s okay. You guys can be as blunt as you want from here on. I’m an idiot for thinking he’d changed. The entire two years we were together he never once broke his ties with Bryce. It’s like he’s obsessed or something. He went a whole what? Three weeks, according to him longer, and now here we go again. I’m fucking done.”

  Scott took the shot without waiting on Aiyanna and Sam to take it with him. “Hey!” Sam said. “We’re supposed to be doing this together.”

  Aiyanna plated the enchiladas with the rice she made on three separate plates. Then she poured herself a soda, hoping they weren’t serious about making her take shots with them.

  “So what exactly happened?” Aiyanna said, placing the plates in front of him. Sam then brought hers over to the table and sat down.

  “That convention I told you he’s going to be at for the next three days?”

  “Yeah.” Aiyanna nodded, slicing into her enchiladas. “In Seattle somewhere, right?”

  “Some obscure city just outside of Seattle,” Scott said, digging into his food also. “It’s not like it’s this popular destination or something. Well, guess who else just so happens to be there this weekend, staying in the same hotel?”

  “Of course,” Sam said just before she stuck a fork full of food in her mouth.

  “Alright,” Aiyanna said, glaring at Sam again, only she was too busy eating to notice. “That could just mean Bryce showed up because he knew he’d be there.”

  “How would he know, Anna?” Scott’s expression was partly annoyed, but underneath the anger, Aiyanna could see how incredibly hurt he really was. “According to Josh, he has no contact with him anymore. It was part of our agreement. The only way I even considered trying to work things out was if he didn’t so much as socialize with him online. It’s bullshit. He’s claiming the guy is out there on business and just so happens to be staying at the same shitty hotel Josh was put up in. Mind you Bryce is a fucking snob. He’d never stay at a place like that. Josh is nowhere near as snobby as that asshole is, and even he was complaining about the hotel.”

  “So it is possible that somehow Bryce found out he’d be there and showed up,” Aiyanna countered but wasn’t even sure why she was trying to defend the jerk. “It’s easy to find these types of things out, you know. Like say he knows who Josh is normally sent out to these conventions with. He might still be friends with them. If any of them happened to mention they’d be there this weekend, maybe he confirmed somehow that Josh would be too. You did say Josh asked you to go with him.”

  “Why are you sticking up for the guy?” Sam asked, pointing her fork at Aiyanna.

  “I’m not,” Aiyanna said, not sure who she was more annoyed with, Sam or herself. “I’m just playing devil’s advocate here. You don’t know Bryce like I do, Sam. From the stories Scott’s told me, he’s manipulative and conniving as the devil himself. I’m just saying I wouldn’t put it past him to have pulled a fast one.” She turned to Scott, lifting her chin. “But Josh was honest about this with you, right?”

  “No, he wasn’t actually,” Scott said, and Sam nodded knowingly as she continued to plow through her food. “He had breakfast with him yesterday when he first arrived then had a drink with him in the evening. We talked last night and he never once mentioned it. It wasn’t until this morning that he called to tell me about it because he said he’d hardly gotten any sleep just thinking about it.”

  “Nice,” Sam said, wiping her mouth. “So he called you in hopes of getting some shut eye if he came clean. What a douche.”

  As much as Aiyanna felt like killing Sam because they were supposed to be making Scott feel better not worse, her heart was too broken for him to be angry. Josh had sounded so sincere about regretting how he’d hurt Scott. Even Nathan had said he believed he was truly sorry. He had breakfast and then a drink with a guy who’d already caused so much damage to his and Scott’s relationship? How could he?

  Scott went on to explain that Josh begged him to believe this wasn’t planned. That he had no idea how Bryce could’ve known about his convention and that he had no intention of spending any more time with him there. “And then right when he was pleading his case on the phone, begging me not to be mad, I noticed he changed his relationship status on Facebook from in a relationship to it’s complicated. When I asked him about it, he fumbled all over his words and then pretended not to know what I was talking about. So I hung up on him and changed my relationship status to single. Fuck him.”

  He poured himself another shot and downed it. Sam got up and took both her plate and Scott’s empty one to the sink. “Time to catch up,” she said on her way back to the table. “You too.” She pointed at Aiyanna’s still full shot that sat in front of her plate.

  “You know I don’t do shots.”

  “You will tonight.” Sam frowned when Aiyanna shook her head. “Just a couple. Then you can switch over to wine. But you’re drinking with us tonight. We’re letting it all out right here: tears, sobs, all our heartache right here. One night of blubbering. Because after tonight we’re moving on.” She pointed her shot glass at Scott. “Tomorrow you’ll say, ‘Josh who?’ And I’m going out and finding myself a better job than that cushiony one I had with such flexible hours and all those hot guys.” She pouted then took the shot with a grimace. “You with us?” Sam strained the words out.

  Aiyanna took the wretched shot and both Scott and Sam high-fived her. They moved on to juicy gossip about two of the faculty membe
rs at Scott’s school who recently got caught doing it in one of the classrooms. Then the photo marathon started. First, they took photo after photo of Aiyanna holding a shot glass full of tequila because Sam said it may never happen again. They texted the photos to Heidi, who immediately called Sam’s phone, but Aiyanna answered.

  “You’re taking shots?”

  Aiyanna explained about Scott and Josh breaking up and Sam getting fired. Told her they were having themselves a pity party. Heidi warned her not to get carried away and reminded her of the only other time she’d done shots in her life. Aiyanna had ended up on the bathroom floor, hugging the toilet most of the night, then in bed the entire next day with the worst headache of her life. She promised her sister she would not be reenacting that night then passed the phone around so Heidi could console both Sam and Scott for a few minutes.

  In the time it took for Heidi to talk to her friends, Aiyanna sat there, sending Nathan photos: First of her enchiladas, promising to try and save some for him. Then of their set up with the giant bowl of popcorn, all the fixings to make ice cream sundaes, and then the bottle of tequila and shot glasses.

  At first, Nathan sent playful responses to her texts then warned her about drinking too much. As the night went on, she sent more photos of their pity party: selfies of her with Sam pouting, then her and Scott holding shot glasses, then selfies of all three of them. She remembered finally getting the ice cream out and all three digging in straight from the carton and being completely silly. Until at one point Scott started crying. Just like when she’d seen him get choked up at the cabin when he first arrived, Aiyanna was immediately choked up too. She rushed over to where he was sitting and hugged him. Then Sam came over, and they were crying all over each other.

  Thankfully, Scott cracked a joke about them being the weirdest threesome ever, and then they were all laughing. The photo-taking continued and so did the shots; though Aiyanna had brought out the half bottle of wine they had in the fridge and switched over. They never watched Star Wars, but they turned music on and were dancing. Through it all Aiyanna continued sending photos to Nathan and Heidi. Scott warned her she may want to slow down sending them to Nathan. “The more we drink, the less flattering those photos are getting.”

  “What are you talking about?” Sam said, putting her arm around Aiyanna’s neck and holding up her phone. “We look fabulous!”

  She snapped a few shots then proceeded to upload them to one of her social media sites. As they always did, they forwarded each other the photos each took since they always wanted plenty to choose from so they could upload the best ones to their social media. Everything after that slowly became a blur. There was a lot of dancing, laughing, and photo-taking. So much so Aiyanna had to charge her phone because the battery was getting low.

  Exactly how the food fight started she couldn’t be sure, but they made a mess. All Aiyanna remembered was a lot of screeching and laughing and then Scott picking her up over his shoulder and running out of the kitchen with her as Sam continued to throw popcorn at them.

  Sam chased them into the bedroom where a pillow fight ensued, and soon afterward, the room started spinning. The last thing she remembered was Scott stopping to read something on his phone, then him smashing a lamp against the wall. She hugged him—wanted to console him so bad—only she could barely see straight. Then it was lights out.

  ~*~

  Nathan

  Nathan had continued to open Anna’s photo texts even after everyone was out for the night. The last one she’d sent before he put his phone on the charger and passed out, was of the three of them eating ice cream. She’d promised to stop taking shots because he could tell just by the texts she was sending she was getting pretty shit-faced. But from the looks on all their faces as they plowed into the ice cream, they all looked equally wasted.

  The station had a couple of runs in the middle of the night but nothing serious or that took too long, and Nathan had been able to get right back to sleep soon afterward. Of course, the call for the multi-vehicle accident came at just after four in the morning. With his luck, he’d be stuck there for hours. He’d told Anna he’d pick her up first thing when he was out and they’d go get breakfast. Although by the look of those photos last night she probably wouldn’t be up for it.

  This was the first run where he’d actually grabbed his phone from where it’d been charging and taken it with him. As engineer, Nathan drove the quint, so there’d be no checking his messages until he was done driving. The multi-vehicle accident was a mess as expected. The Jaws of Life had to be brought out to extract two of the victims from their mangled car. It was hours before Nathan even had a chance to glance at his texts. He smirked when he saw how many he had from Anna and how late the last notification a message from her was stamped. Yep, she’d be out of it this morning. So it didn’t really matter that he might be here past his eight a.m. clocking-out time; though he was still hopeful.

  He scrolled back to read them in the order they came, starting with the one just after the ice-cream-eating one he saw last night. He started to scroll through them faster since so many of them were almost the same until he got to the one with Anna sitting on Scott’s lap, kissing his forehead. Then both girls were on his lap, kissing either side of his face, and Nathan pressed his lips together, staring at it.

  The next couple of photos were of her and Sam covered in popcorn and chips. Then there was one of Anna and Scott in what looked like her bed. He had her pinned down with a pillow, and she was laughing her ass off. In the next one, all three were on the bed, and the top two or three buttons on Anna’s blouse had popped open. You could see all of her lacey black bra. And Scott was right next to her. Nathan had to wonder just how out of it she’d been to be sending that one.

  “Are you Romero?”

  The police officer holding a notebook startled Nathan; he’d been staring so hard at the photo on his phone. “Yeah, that’s me.”

  Nathan put his phone away and answered the guy’s questions regarding the details of the accident and what all had been done so far. The moment he got the chance he pulled out his phone and scrolled through her photos again, starting with the one where she was flashing her bra.

  With each one, he could feel his insides lighting up, not just because she’d begun stripping in the next few, but because no matter how drunk she was, he couldn’t see her being that stupid to send them to him. He thought of the night he’d nearly stabbed Scott. How he still had a bad feeling about the guy. Was his ass the one that sent the photos or encouraged her to do so? Then he froze at the photo of the three of their tongues nearly touching. “What the fuck?”

  As he scrolled through more of the near three-way kissing and then one of just her and Scott’s tongues nearly touching, the ugly thought crossed his mind that maybe these three besties did a lot of this. Maybe they’d done even more. He shook his head as his mind raced for other possible explanations. Then he saw it, the photo of Scott on top of her. One hand was on her leg and the other held her hand over her head. From the angle, he couldn’t be sure, but it looked like he was sucking her neck.

  Nathan hit the speed dial without even thinking. He wasn’t supposed to be making personal calls while out on a run, but he didn’t give a shit. The victims had all been transported already, and all they were doing now was cleaning the mess up. Nathan glanced at his watch, heart hammering away, as he waited for her to answer. It was close to seven now. The crew was already packing it up. Eight or not, he wouldn’t be waiting around to get the hell out of there and down to Anna’s to get to the bottom of this, especially because the call went to voicemail.

  He didn’t bother leaving a message. Instead, he rushed to help get everything loaded onto the quint so he could get back to the station ASAP. The damn photos kept flashing through his head. What the fuck could she be thinking? Whatever it was, Nathan was done biting his tongue about Scott. Things were changing, starting today. Fuck this shit!

  Chapter 24: Betrayal

  A
iyanna

  Whenever Aiyanna had a dream where something horrific occurred, she was rendered voiceless. As much as she wanted to scream, any sound was stuck at her throat, suffocating her. She felt that way the moment she awoke and realized she was lying in bed with Scott, naked from the waist down. His shirt was on, but he wore no pants or underwear either. What had she done?

  Her head throbbed so badly it hurt to just glance around the mess of a room. Sam was on the floor, shirt on but sans panties. What the hell happened? As she wracked her brain, the last thing she remembered was the pillow fight on the bed—where she was fully dressed.

  Bringing the sheet up to her neck, she called out to Sam in a loud whisper, but Sam didn’t even flinch. Glancing around again, Aiyanna brought her hand to her head, willing the horrendous pain to subside. She grabbed a pair of socks out of her top nightstand drawer and threw it at Sam. This time she moved a little and then moaned. “Samantha!” Aiyanna called out again in a loud whisper, hoping Scott wouldn’t wake.

  Aiyanna prayed Sam could shed some light on what exactly happened last night and why all three of them were now half-naked. Sam finally began coming to life. Aiyanna watched as she opened her eyes and glanced around like she had no idea where she was; then their eyes met.

  “What happened last night?” Aiyanna whispered loudly, feeling her throat constrict as she glanced back at Scott, who still appeared to be dead to the world.

  Sam glanced over at Scott too but looked as lost and in as much pain as Aiyanna was in. She shook her head with an indignant expression; then her hand was at her mouth as she scrambled sloppily to her feet, grunting in pain. Aiyanna watched her hobble out of the room in a panicked rush, nearly falling. A few seconds later, she heard the heaving. Sam went on for a while until Aiyanna heard the toilet flush and then the water running in the sink.

  Scott still hadn’t moved, and Aiyanna leaned over to make sure he was breathing. He was. Sam’s loud hurried footsteps then her bursting into the bedroom startled Aiyanna.