AllFreeNovel
Share Us
When we boarded the plane, I was strategic in picking my seat on the plane. I was waiting to see where Marcela was going to sit. She sat down at a seat that faces another with a table between them, and I see King moving towards that seat.Oh, hell no.I bolt forward and wedge myself in the small space between him and the seats.
I plop myself down in the seat and look up at King. He looks at Marcela, then back at me, and smiles. He knows what I’m doing. I turn myself to face Marcela, who is looking at me with her arms crossed.Yeah, she knows what I’m doing too.The flight is four hours, and this could be a great time to bond, or it could be a very long four hours.
As I look around the plane, I see BJ and Alexie in a very intense game of Connect Four which makes me chuckle a little. King is sitting in a recliner seat with his feet propped up as he sleeps. Conrad and Stryker are sitting across from us in a setup exactly like ours, but they are engaged in conversation about the location we’re going to as Conrad types furiously on his laptop. Marcela ignores me for playing a game on her phone.
One hour of silence, and I can’t take it anymore. “Hey, Marcela,” I say softly, “can we talk?”
Her body freezes up, and she looks up at me. She sets her phone on the table and leans back in her seat. “What do you want to talk about?” she replies, but her voice is very condescending.
“What do I need to do for us to move forward? I miss you, and I miss being your friend. I don’t know how many times I can say I’m sorry, but I truly mean it. None of this was meant to hurt you, and I tried to back out so many times. Telling myself that I should just leave, but I couldn’t abandon any of you.”Phew.I spit that out so quickly that I hope she caught everything I said.
“I believe you,” she says, and I feel an immense sense of relief. “But that’s the problem. I know you’re sorry and what you did is probably what any of us would have done, but trust isn’t something I can create from thin air and bring back on command. That’s where I’m struggling. My trust in you is gone, and it’s just not something you can get back with an ’I’m sorry’.”
She’s right. I broke her trust. “Tell me what to do, anything, to gain even a fraction of that trust back,” I plead with her.
“It’s going to take time, Nat,” she says, and her eyes soften, looking almost sympathetic. “Everything has happened so fast, and there’s no time to breathe anymore. I need time, and I need to see that I can trust you. As cliche as it sounds, actions speak louder than words,” she tells me.
“Okay. I will give you time.” Even though I feel a little defeated because I foolishly dreamed that we would be best friends after this flight, she has every right to feel this way, and I can’t force this on her.
She lets out a sigh. “I’ll admit…I can do better too.” I look at her with wide eyes.What can she do?“I’ll cut the bitchy comments and give you an actual chance to prove yourself,” he explains.
So not best friends, but a work in progress. Sounds perfect.
Marcela reaches for her phone. “Hey, Marcela?” She pauses and looks up at me before I continue, “Don’t stop with the bitchy comments. You’re just not you without them.” We both laugh, drawing attention from everyone awake on the plane.
We landed just under four hours after takeoff. I gather my stuff, which is just all my snack wrappers, and follow everyone off the plane. Two black Escalades are waiting for us, and we load up into the vehicles, taking off for our destination.
I hop into the front seat, despite the groans from King and Conrad. As we drive a little way, the songWhere the Green Grass Growsby Tim McGraw comes on. King reaches over to change the station. “No!” I shout.
Everyone goes quiet in the car. “I didn’t peg you for being a big country music fan,” King comments.
“I happen to be a music connoisseur,” I counter, hearing a few snickers from behind me. “My mom loved country, so I’ve always had a soft spot for it,” I say softly, closing my eyes and drifting away with the song.
Not much later, we pull up outside a beautiful, two-story house. We unload all the luggage from the vehicles and start hauling it inside. BJ and I roam around the house. There is a huge common area with light gray walls and two very large, crescent moon-shaped, turquoise couches that are facing each other.Those look like a perfect napping spot.
Next to them but off to the side is a pool table. I take a small step up into another large room.Each room is enormous.This must be the dining room with its twelve velvet green chairs, a long wooden table, and a massive chandelier that hangs down in the middle. I’m so entranced by the sparkling crystals on the chandelier, and I barely notice Conrad coming in to set up his computers and other techie things on one end of the table.
“Team!” I hear Stryker’s booming voice from the common area. Conrad and I walk into the space, and once everyone is gathered, Stryker gives out his orders. “Everyone, get your shit unloaded and relax, this will probably be your only chance while we are here. I’ll work on getting some food ready before we meet to get our plan going.” Everyone nods, and we head our separate ways.
“Before you go,” Stryker adds, and everyone turns back to face him. “Don’t bother getting too comfortable here. We’re getting this shit done and over with as soon as we can.” Stryker walks off towards the kitchen while everyone stands there for a moment, just looking at each other.
Conrad
Pullinguptoourtemporary Vegas home with a little convoy of all blacked-out Escalades, we look like the damn secret service. I’m in the first SUV since I set up the code for the gate. The house is astonishing. It’s on a slight hill which is rare for the desert, but I’m sure it will have amazing views because of it. It’s surrounded by a tall stone wall with a fancy wrought-iron gate at the entrance of the property.
I can’t wait to see this view at night, with the strip all lit on one side and the vast desert on the other. It’s going to be like night and day, depending on which side of the house you’re on.
We’ve all settled into our new place as much as we can for only being here an hour or less. Each of us took our bags to our rooms and tried to settle in. I just threw my shit on my bed to deal with later and made my way back down to the dining room. I need to set up all my equipment so we can get the ball rolling here.
This dining room is more like a dining hall. It’s so massive it echos the sounds of me clacking away on my keyboard. Locking all the screens, I pick up my main laptop, put it under my arm, walking to the other end of the house where everyone is gathered.
Most of the team is bullshitting around in the main living room on the enormous couches. This must have been where everyone landed after Stryker’s pep talk when we got here.
When I don’t see Stryker chilling with the rest of the team, I go to check and see if he’s in the kitchen. That’s exactly where I find him, putting all the groceries away and getting lunch prepared, so I keep walking through the living room to him.
“Hey man, do you want some help?” I ask Stryker while crossing the kitchen admiring it in all its glory. I must say I’m in awe of the home. The pictures my contact sent over to me yesterday didn’t do this place one ounce of justice.
The kitchen floor is comprised of large rectangular slabs of white and gray marble tiles that match the countertops. The island is huge, probably twelve feet long, with the same matching marble as countertops with the waterfall sides. It all has a beautifully intricate veining design.
