20
D
on’t move,” I ordered Shaun as I trapped him in the living room of the frat house. I didn’t spend much time here as I preferred to stay at Ronan’s apartment. He was alone playing Xbox, and Callum was nowhere to be seen, allowing me to confront him alone.
“Riley,” my nostrils flared as his hand automatically went to his mouth, where I’d knocked his tooth out. “Tell me what happened yesterday.”
“She’s bad news, bro,” he stated, twitching and playing with the collar on his polo neck shirt.
I screwed my face up, annoyed at his bullshit statement. “Why didn’t you leave her alone? I told you to keep your dirty fucking hands off her and you defied my orders. You keep pushing me to the edge.”
“She’s bad fucking news, Gunner,” he repeated and I rolled my eyes. Was this the road he was going down? To make up some bullshit to turn me against her. I could see through his little act and ignored it.
“Then after I punched your fucking head in, you defy me again by confronting her and breaking her phone,” I leaned back in the couch and laced my fingers together in no hurry to go anywhere until my job was done.
“Let me show you something,” he said slowly, holding his hand up like he was trying to calm me down. I was calm. This was me being calm.
“Were you trying to fuck her? You already fucked her when I told you not to. Were you trying to touch her again?” I pressed as tiny beads of sweat gathered on his forehead by his hairline.
“No,” he replied, but I didn’t believe him. “Look, let me show you something.”
“Sit the fuck down,” I spat as he stood up over me. “You’re not going anywhere.”
He sat back down and wiped the sweat off his forehead with his sleeve. “I found a bug in her phone. I’m telling you she’s bad fucking news.”
“You found what?” He had my attention now, but I wouldn’t believe him on his word.
“A bug in her phone. She entered the basement, walked in uninvited, and recorded our conversation. I’m telling you she’s fucking trying to screw you over,” he explained in a trembling voice.
“Why were you in there? I thought I told you to stay out and return your key?” I demanded an answer.
“I followed her there, curious to see where she was going. I saw her going down the stairwell into the basement and figured she was up to no good, so I followed her.” I shot him a scathing look. “It’s true.”
“That’s some messed up shit there,” I half laughed at his terrible story telling. “How do you know she wasn’t meeting me?”
“I didn’t know. That’s why I followed her. Anyway,” he exhaled and wiped his forehead again with his sleeve. “I kept the phone with the bug in it. Let me,” he slowly stood up again, “get it and I’ll show you.”
“No. I’ll follow you up, so you don’t think about escaping,” I challenged him as he glanced up when the front door opened and closed.
I bet he thought he could slip away or ask for help from our roommate, who just walked in. Nope. Not with me here. Either we sort this out now, or we sort it out later.
He ran up the stairs, uncomfortable with me on his tail. Any sudden move or silent communication with roommates, I’ll be on him like a shot. I gave him a warning when I knocked his tooth out and yet he still fucked me over by touching Riley. The prick had better have a good excuse this time because my patience was running out.
We came to his bedroom, and he sauntered inside and grabbed a phone lying on his desk in three separate parts. I stood at the doorway so no one could enter, and he couldn’t exit.
“Is that her phone?” I grabbed the dark purple cover and peered closely at it. I’d seen her phone several times, and it looked like hers.
“Yes. You can see the bug there,” he pointed out the tiny device slotted into the back of the phone. “I disarmed it by drowning it in water, so I have no idea who put it there and who she was recording the conversation for.”
“So, you haven’t had anyone knocking on your door wanting their device back?” I asked him.
He shrugged his shoulders. “No. Not yet.”
“You’re still alive, so it can’t be that bad,” I argued, struggling with this piece of information. I didn’t want to believe she was spying on us when we were spying on her. That’s a fucked up thought, but when I break it all down it didn’t make her look innocent by any means. I told her I was out of town, yet she went to the basement knowing I wouldn’t be there. She had a bug in her phone, and according to Shaun, she was recording their conversation.
“You still haven’t told me how her phone broke?” I asked again.
He cleared his throat and shuffled his feet. “She dropped it, and the cover flew off the back of the phone when it smashed on the floor, and that’s when I noticed the bug.”
I didn’t entirely believe him, but I couldn’t deny the evidence that this was her phone and that it was a bug. Whether or not she was recording the conversation with Shaun remained to be seen.
“Did she say why she went down there in the first place?” I asked him.
“She said she was looking for you,” he replied dryly.
That was a lie. Her lie.
“Did you see her record you?” I asked, still struggling with piecing it together.
“Yeah, I noticed the phone was on while she held it in her hand, and I thought she was calling someone at first,” he reflected.
She was calling Ronan. I knew that much because he went down there to find her, worried that something terrible had happened. But it looked like she was playing all of us.
Suppressing my frustration, I pressed on, “Why would she want to record a conversation with you? Why you? What did she ask that raised your suspicion?”
She swallowed nervously, and Adam’s apple bobbled in his throat. “She asked where you were. We didn’t get to a point where we were talking about anything.”
I frowned as that didn’t make sense. She was allegedly recording a conversation, yet there was no conversation. Yeah, that didn’t add up. “Anything you want to tell me? Anything else that happened that you might’ve forgotten to tell me about? How about you tell me how she accessed the basement in the first place?”
His face burned red as he flicked about in his empty skull as if he were trying to think of a reason.
“It was supposed to be locked, so how did she get in?” I pressed again because he wasn’t giving me an answer.
“Someone must’ve left it open or something,” he answered vaguely. “I don’t know.”
“Anything else you want to tell me?” I questioned because I still believe that he was trying to fuck her.
Riley wouldn’t tell me the truth because she’d be terrified that I’d do something drastic about it. So I understood why she’s keeping quiet about some details, but keeping quiet about other information made no sense.
I collected Riley’s phone and turned my back to leave, then stalled and looked back at him, who seemed relieved I was going. “If I find out that you tried to fuck her-”
“I didn’t. I swear I didn’t,” he asserted.
“Fine,” I walked down the hall, and as I walked down the stairs, Callum the Hulk was coming up.
He hesitated when he realized it was me, and looked like he would run back down again. I liked that I made these two brainless fucks nervous, but it bothered me that they weren’t being straight up with me. It also fucked me off that I couldn’t trust them anymore because they once were good friends, but now they’re my enemies.
I couldn’t contact Riley because she had no phone, so I drove to her dorm once I climbed back into my car. When I discovered she wasn’t there, I went to the Science Library and found that weird girl there. What was her name? Katerina or something.
Unsurprisingly, she was sitting alone. She opened the book on the table, jotting down notes, and was startled when I approached. “Do you know where Riley is?”
She sighed and glanced up briefly from under her glasses. “You need to get off her back,” she answered coldly, making it obvious she didn’t like me—like I cared.
“You didn’t answer my question. It’s important. Do you know where she is?” I pressed, annoyed at her defiance.
“I’m not her babysitter,” she barked as if exhausted, her eyes low, as she looked at her book.
“Someone broke her phone. Do you know who did that?” I had Shaun’s version and now wanted hers. Eventually, I’d get to the truth.
Again, without looking up, she answered, “I already spoke to your friend. Byrne. I don’t know how she broke her phone and glasses because I wasn’t there.”
“Glasses? Her glasses broke, too?” Rage slithered down my back, and as an automatic response, my hands clenched into fists.
“Didn’t Byrne tell you that?” she stated sarcastically. “I thought you two were best buds. Partners in crime, shall we say.”
Man, she was a weirdo. “Look, I know you hold contempt for me-”
“No, I don’t. I have no feelings toward you at all. Numb. That’s it. Numb,” she interrupted.
“I genuinely don’t care, however, if something happened between Shaun and Riley, I want to know,” I snarled at her.
“It has nothing to do with me. Speak to your friend about it,” she hissed, shooting me a black scowl.
“It’s Riley I care about here. So whatever information you have about what happened to her, you’ve got to give it to me,” I asserted, hoping she’d believe me.
“No, I don’t,” she snarled at me. “I don’t have to give you anything.”
“So, she just dropped her phone on the floor and it smashed into three pieces? She wasn’t pushed or hit?” I challenged her because I thought the worst, and the truth was important. “And her glasses miraculously splintered on her face?”
“I don’t know because I wasn’t there,” she snarled.
“Tell me what you do know then,” I pressed again because she knew more than she was letting on.
Evidently, everyone involved was lying about some details or holding back information. The only way to get to the truth was to weigh up the information given to me. It was starting to do my fucking head in.
“I told you,” she exhaled, glanced over my shoulder when two students walked our way, spotted me, then walked down another aisle.
“When did you see her?” I was giving her the third degree. Since she knew Riley’s glasses were broken, Riley either confided in her or saw it happen.
“After she walked out of the library,” she replied after hesitating for several seconds, deciding how much she would tell me. “She looked shaken up.”
I nodded slowly as the fury flooded into my fists. “Anything else you want to tell me?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“Right,” I mumbled. “Thanks. And if you see her, tell her to…” I trailed off because she didn’t have a phone, so she couldn’t contact me. “Forget it. I’ll see her tonight.”
I started walking away, then glanced back as she seemed interested in the shelves nearby. When she noticed I was watching her, she dropped her eyes again. Curiously, I peered down that aisle and saw no one, so I could only guess she was daydreaming or something.
I returned to her table and confronted her: “You have a habit of turning up at exactly the right moments. It almost seems manufactured.”
She was taken aback by my comment and tried to dismiss it. “We’re roommates, share some of the same classes, so we’d be in the same circles,” she clarified, unconvincing me.
Persistent ringing in my ears almost distracted me as I ran down the stairs and stepped into the large foyer. I had a class to attend and an assignment to finish, but my head was raging with anger. Once back into my Mustang, I took out a fat blunt from my glove compartment, lit it, and let the weed relax my body and mind.
Me: Did u know Riley’s glasses were broken?
It took ten minutes until Ronan answered me and I was high as fuck and the words danced off the screen off my phone. “This was some good shit.”
Ronan: No. Just her phone. How did her glasses get broken?
Me: dint jnow
Ronan: What?
I swiped to call him, and he immediately picked up the phone. “I’m high.”
“It’s early. How did her glasses get broken?” cutting to the chase.
“No one is speaking,” I slurred, but trying not to slur made me slur more.
“Did you confront Shaun?” he asked carefully, worried he might be missing an ear or half his head.
“Yeah,” I replied, zoning in and out of reality as the colors and spaces between solid objects seemed alive and vivid. “I didn’t do anything.”
“What did he say?” he quizzed.
“Not much…” I looked at her phone, broken into three pieces, sitting on the seat beside me. “Her phone was bagged.”
“Bagged? Do you mean bugged?” His voice sounded steely as if he was clenching his jaw in anger. “Gunner, are you for real? Her phone was bugged?”
“According to Shaun, she dropped her phone, and the back fell off. That’s when they discovered the device there. Shaun reckoned she was recording the conversation between them. B-but wasn’t she calling you? This is fucked up, man.”
“Jeezus fucking christ. Bro, you’re not driving while blitzed, are you?” I knew Ronan worried about me, and Mikael told him to watch my back, so I didn’t lose the plot and do something stupid that I might regret.
“No,” I groaned. “I’m sitting in my car, hoping Annika will appear like a ghost from my past…”
“Alright, bro,” his voice waved in and out down the line. “Don’t go anywhere while blitzed, okay?”
“Sure. Whatever. But…Rone, remember someone broke her glasses. How did that happen?” I raised my voice in anger.
“I don’t know,” Ronan retorted.
“You can bet it’s got something to do with Shaun,” I proclaimed.
“Yeah,” Ronan faded out. “I gotta go, but you’ve given me plenty to think about.”
“Bugs and glasses, bro,” I slurred.
“Yep, bugs and glasses,” he declared. “The plot thickens.”