watch.
“The two of you will be okay?” Mom glanced between us dubiously. “There’s money on the counter to order in and I left some snacks out.”
“I think we’ve got it, Denise.” Jason’s lip twitched earning him a stiff glare from his father. He ushered Mom from the kitchen, leaving the two of us alone.
“Why?” I wasted no time asking.
“Why what?” Jason went to the refrigerator and got a beer for himself.
“Why did you agree to come to New York?”
“Do I need a reason?” He unscrewed the bottle, leaned back on the counter, and took a long pull on it.
“The Met is—”
“You think I actually plan on going to some stupid art exhibition?”
“But Mom said—”
“Let your mom and my dad think whatever they need to think to breathe easier. We can ride together and when we get there, we can do our own thing.”
Of course, that was his plan.
Asshole.
“And here I thought you might actually have a decent bone in your body.”
He stepped forward, his lip curved in an arrogant smirk. “Just because I’ve had to tolerate you over this shit with Thatcher doesn’t mean we’re friends. That’s never going to happen, Hailee.”
“Fuck you, Jason,” I ground out, feeling my jaw tense.
His eyes sparked with something, but I didn’t stick around to find out what because I was over his shit.
So over it.
When Sunday morning rolled around, my mood wasn’t much better. Thanks to Mom and Kent, I was stuck with tickets to an exhibition I desperately wanted to see. But now they came hand-in-hand with Jason. God, he’d looked so smug last night when he revealed his grand plan. He had basically hijacked my birthday so he and his friends could go live it up in New York for the night because while Mom had gotten four tickets, I was under no illusion there wouldn’t be five of us making the journey.
I was toweling off my hair, when a notification pinged on my cell phone. I ignored it since it was probably Flick. But when it pinged again… and again, I finally reached over the desk and grabbed it. Unlocking the screen, I frowned when I saw the number of texts I had from my best friend. Opening the most recent, I felt the blood drain from my face.
Flick: Call me. Now!
My stomach sank, but before I could reply, Flick’s name flashed up on the screen, her ringtone cutting through the silence. “What the hell?” I murmured as I hit receive.
“Hails?” she sounded a little breathless.
“Yeah?”
“I’m outside.”
“Outside?” I went to the window and sure enough, pulled up alongside the sidewalk was her yellow Beetle. “Why are you outside my house?” My voice trembled as my subconscious slowly began to wake up, alarm bells sounding in the back of my mind.
“Just grab your stuff and come on. Oh,” she added. “And promise me you won’t look at Snapchat.”
“I don’t have Snapchat, you know that.”
“Good, that’s good,” she said, sounding distracted, as I shoved my feet into some ballet flats.
“I’ll be right down.” My heart crashed violently in my chest.
“Okay.” Flick breathed a sigh of relief. “And Hails?”
“Yeah.”
“I love you and I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.” The line went dead, and I stared down at my cell phone, my fingers shaking. Before I knew what I was doing, I’d opened up the App Store and found the Snapchat icon. Promise me you won’t look, she’d said. Letting out a frustrated groan, I shoved my cell phone in my pocket and grabbed my purse.
Whatever it was, it couldn’t be any worse than Thatcher’s last photoshop prank.
Could it?
But as I left the house and saw Flick’s grim expression, I knew I was wrong.
I just didn’t anticipate how wrong.
Cameron
Xander crawled over my legs, running his little car up and down, making all the noises to go with it. “Hang on, buddy,” I said, feeling my pocket vibrate. I managed to retrieve my cell phone without interrupting his game.
Asher: You need to see this.
It was a nondescript weblink. I hit open and my world fell away.
“Ameron?” My brother’s voice startled me.
“Hmm, sorry, buddy, I need to…” I swallowed over the huge fucking lump in my throat, moving him off my legs so I could stand. “I’ll be back, okay?”
“Kay, o,” he said. He’d learned a new word thanks to Asher, but since Xan couldn’t say his b’s or r’s very well yet, ‘bro’ became ‘o’.
I walked to the far end of the den and called Asher. “What the fuck am I looking at?” I hissed