This Is War - Chapter 42 – Looking Like an Absolute Snack #2
Shit! This sounded serious. And I was almost certainly going to be late.
Which was like…one of my greatest fears.
Right up there with getting my liver punctured.
“I’m on my way. If I’m not there on time, do whatever you can to stall for me.
” I ran downstairs and tore into the kitchen.
My mind was going a million miles a minute thinking about what Mr. Frost could possibly want to talk to us about at 5 pm on a Sunday.
Whatever it was, I was sure I wasn’t going to like it.
“Everything okay?” asked Cole.
“We have to go.”
“What?” asked Cole and his mom at the same time.
“A work thing just came up. Can you get me back to the city by 5?”
Cole glanced at the microwave clock. “It’s gonna be close.” He popped up and grabbed his keys.
***
We pulled up to my office with about 3 minutes to spare. The only reason we weren’t super late was because Cole had sped like a madman…but only after making me promise that I wouldn’t blow any cops to get him out of a speeding ticket.
“Thanks for the ride,” I said. I gave Cole a quick kiss and jumped out of the car.
“Wait,” he said. “You almost forgot this.” He tossed me the flash drive. I snatched it out of the air and ran towards the building.
Chastity was waiting for me by the elevator.
“For someone who doesn’t like to be late, you’re really cutting this one close,” she said, handing me a bag of work clothes as she jammed her thumb against the UP button.
After the elevator incident a few months ago, I’d promised myself that I’d never change in an elevator again. But desperate times called for desperate measures, so I broke my promise and stripped down on the way up to our offices.
I held my breath practically the entire time, just waiting for the doors to ding open at the most inopportune moment.
Somehow, though, we made it up to our office without stopping at a single floor.
Probably because no one else’s boss sucked enough to make them come in on a Sunday. Stupid Mr. Frost.
Chastity tugged on my hair.
“Ow.”
“Take your wig off. It feels like it’s glued to your head or something.”
I almost screamed. Glue and hair were not a good mix. But then I remembered it was just Tanner’s fancy tech. I slid off the bracelet and my hair immediately turned back to red.
“What in the hell was that?” Chastity lifted a strand of my hair.
“Fancy CIA tech. There’s no time to explain.” We dashed off the elevator a second before the clock struck 5.
I let out a sigh. I expected Mr. Frost to be sitting right by the elevator counting down the time on his watch, but he wasn’t.
“Uh, where is he?” I asked, looking around the office. The cubicles were all empty. And so were the offices.
“Of course he’d come late,” said Chastity. “What a dick.”
Our phones both buzzed. We pulled them out and looked at them.
One new email. From Mr. Frost.
Good evening ladies,
I’m running a little late, but I’ll be there soon. Sorry for the inconvenience.
-Xander Frost
What a dick indeed.
“I can’t believe him,” said Chastity. “What do you think the odds are that he’d planned to be late the entire time?”
“Extremely high. He’s the worst.”
“Whatever,” she said. “Honestly, the joke’s on him. Because I need to hear so much more about this prank!” She jumped up and down with excitement. “How surprised were you when it turned out to be Dr. Lyons?”
“Pretty surprised. What exactly did you tell him to do to me?”
“All I told him was that you were looking for more of a bad boy.”
Wow, really? “So he came up with all of that on his own?”
“Yup. Are you sure the video got deleted? I’d love to see him in action.”
“Yes, I’m sure. I promise I’ll give you all the details you want, but first…” I pulled out the flash drive that Cole had given me. I couldn’t wait any longer, even if there was a chance that Mr. Frost would come interrupt at any moment.
“Right. The pictures!” She grabbed it from me and hurried over to her laptop. A zip folder popped up.
I took a deep breath and hit extract all files. And we waited. And waited. And waited.
Whatever camera Kat used must have had a bajillion megapixels, because we were only 10% done extracting over 100 GB worth of data.
It felt like the universe was purposefully torturing me.
And if having to wait wasn’t torture enough, the universe went and made Tanner call me again. I glared at his name on my phone.
“Oh geez,” I said. “Tanner’s calling again.”
“Aren’t you going to answer it?”
“Why? So he can give me some lame excuse about why he left? No thanks.”
“He’s far too hot and far too rich for you to not at least hear him out.” She swiped her finger across my phone to answer the call.
“What the hell?!” I mouthed angrily. What had happened to Chastity being #TeamDrLyons?
“Hello?” said Tanner.
“What do you want?” I asked.
“Oh thank God. I’ve been looking for you all day.”
“Why? Clearly you don’t like me. Why would you be looking for me?”
“I’m so sorry about running off last night, but when I tell you the reason, I think you’ll understand.”
“You have…” I looked at the screen to see how much time was left on the transfer. “Four minutes and thirty-two seconds to explain yourself.” Damn it. I hadn’t expected for it to be so much time. It would have been much more effective for me to give him like…twelve seconds or something.
“Can we meet up? It would be better to show you.”
“No thanks. Just tell me.”
“Okay. You’re going to want to sit down.”
“Just tell me already.” I didn’t need to sit down to hear his lame excuse.
“I think I might have found a picture of your sister.”
What? Another one?
“Ash?” he asked when I didn’t respond. “Are you still there?”
“Yeah.”
“That was why I ran off. I saw that photographer leaving the spit roast, and I realized that I’d seen her there every time I’d ever participated in Society Wars.
So I ran after her and asked if she’d saved photos from past years.
She drove a hard bargain, but eventually she gave in when I agreed to give her photography company exclusive rights to take all the Odegaard product shots for the next year.
I was up all night drafting the paperwork. ”
My mouth dropped open. He’d run off to get me the photos too? And then I’d spent all night on a date with Cole? And blowing Dr. Lyons? What the hell had I done?
“I’m really sorry I left so abruptly,” he added.
“Usually I would have made Nigel do it, but I couldn’t find the little bugger.
When I texted him he replied with a voicemail where all I could hear was bubbles and him mumbling something about scheduled time off.
Anyway, I didn’t want to wait to get you those photos, so that was why I ran off so quickly. ”
Damn it, Tanner! Why couldn’t he have told me where he was going?
Or taken me with him? But no…he just had to run off.
So then I went on a date with Cole. And blew Dr. Lyons.
And now my stomach was twisted into knots.
Tanner was the one who should be pissed at me, not the other way around.
I put my face in my hands. Fuck my life.
“Did you look at the photos yet?” I asked.
“No. I was waiting to look at them with you. But when I went to your suite this morning, you weren’t there. And you weren’t answering my calls. Where have you been all day?”
With Cole. I lifted my face out of my hands.
I’d messed everything up. Cole was a freak and was able to forgive me for what I’d done with Dr. Lyons.
But Tanner would have to forgive me for all of it.
There had to be a way to explain all this.
I liked Cole and Dr. Lyons, but I loved Tanner.
No matter how much I tried to deny it, I did.
That’s why it had hurt so much when he left.
I needed to fix this. “I got called into the office.” It wasn’t a total lie.
“On a Sunday?”
“Yup, courtesy of Mr. Frost.”
“Man, that guy sounds like a real dick. When will you be done? I’ll come pick you up and we can grab a late dinner. How about some Gochujang Palace?”
“That sounds amazing.” Shit! Could I ever tell him that Cole got the photos too? Or about what happened last night? How could I ever explain that to him? I thought you left, so I went out with that guy you hate. And then I let him watch me blow Dr. Lyons. And then I met his parents.
My love life was a total mess.
Chastity waved toward the computer. The transfer had just finished.
“Hold on,” I said. My love triangle - or was it a square? - would have to wait. It was time to finally see who Rosalie had been hanging out with at the Society.
I leaned over Chastity’s shoulder as she clicked on the first thumbnail. A photo of last night’s spit roast filled the screen. I was sitting in the throne, my face flushed courtesy of Tanner’s fingers. The rest of the red team was all around us. But Chastity was only focused on one thing.
“Jesus lord have mercy,” said Chastity, fanning herself. “I look fucking hot!”
“What did Chastity just say?” asked Tanner.
“Nothing,” I said. “One sec.” I put myself on mute so that Tanner wouldn’t hear anything else. “See?” I said. “There’s no reason to take sex tapes of me. You’re for sure gonna win the Onyxies with that one.”
“If it was a gif, definitely. But alas…this is just a still image. So it’s not eligible. That’s okay though. I’ll just have to do it again and make sure I get a gif.”
“Sure. Let’s stay focused, though. We’re trying to find a picture of Rosalie.”
“Got it.” Chastity saved the photo to her desktop and then went back to the list of files.
“It should be from early 2020,” I said.
She sorted by date and then scrolled back and back and back.
“Here it is,” she said. “Do you want to do the honors?”
I took the mouse and double-clicked the first photo from early 2020. Here we go.
A photo filled the screen of another spit roast. I looked away just as it came up. “Please tell me she’s not the one getting spit roasted,” I said.
Chastity laughed. “She’s not. And she’s not the winning princess either. I don’t know if I see her at all…”
Damn it.
Chastity clicked to the next picture.
“Ash?” said Tanner.
I took myself off mute. “Sorry about that.” I looked back at the screen.
My eyes immediately gravitated to a couple in the back row.
The girl had an awesome blonde braid and was smiling up at the guy like she was totally smitten.
I was sure it was Rosalie. The only question was…
who was the guy with his arm around her that looked equally as smitten?
The way he was turned made it hard to get a good look at him, so I clicked to the next photo. I rolled the mouse wheel to zoom in.
“Is that…?” I gasped. No. It can’t be. My jaw dropped and the phone slid out of my hand. I didn’t even hear it shatter on the ground.
“Yeah,” said Chastity as she pointed to the guy next to Rosalie. “That’s definitely Tanner.”
That son of a bitch!