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All of the guys.
My heart lurched. At the same time, my stomach dropped into my feet.
Ari, we need to talk.
I hadn’t heard from them all week, and now this? It was a bad text for sure. Maybe even the king of all bad texts. Especially since it came from all three of them.
I spent a full minute just staring at it before writing them back:
A good talk? Or a bad talk?
I already knew the answer, but I had to ask.
Neither, really.
But there are a few things
we need to go over.
Well fuck, I thought to myself. If it were something good they would’ve said so, which meant there had to be something seriously wrong. And if all three of them needed to see me, then that could only mean…
Don’t even say it.
I sank into the nearest of my shitty kitchen chairs without even looking. Hell, I almost missed it.
Come by. We’re all at the loft.
They couldn’t possibly know! Could they? And if they did, who would’ve said anything? Nothing made sense as I typed out a response:
I don’t know. It sure sounds bad.
It all made sense now; the lack of communication, the non-visits… the entire week of being pretty much ignored. They’d found out. They knew.
I felt suddenly very dizzy.
Trust us. This isn’t as bad as you think.
Relief washed over me as I read the words; a least a little bit, anyway. As I hammered out a response, I was becoming more intrigued than nervous.
Fine. But there’d better be wine.
Slowly, I forced myself to calm down. The best defense was a good offense, and if this was what I thought it was, I planned on going on the offensive. Especially since I hadn’t done anything even remotely wrong.
Emboldened by my innocence, I added one more message before reaching for my keys.
And there’d better be more
than one bottle, too.
~ 33 ~
ARIANA
I’d had the chance for a fresh start when my parents first moved to California. They offered me a free room; a place to stay and save money. The opportunity to begin an all new life, in a place where opportunity was apparently everywhere.
And yet here I still was in Seattle, quite literally living in the past.
I made a thousand excuses not to go. I liked my job too much, and I was good at it. More likely I was just too comfortable, but in my eyes that comfort was a bonus too.
