Forever Yours (24 page)

She pulled out her overnight bag and started throwing a few things in it. She concentrated on what she’d need out there. As chilly as it was beginning to get out here near the beach, Valerie said it was still in the low hundreds in Havasu. She even told Sarah to pack a bathing suit—more than one.

A couple of hours later, she had showered, packed and was waiting for Valerie. She still hadn’t heard a thing from Angel, but she figured he was likely in the middle of warm-up drills for the game. It’d be at least a few hours before she heard anything from him. She’d be halfway to Havasu by then.

Suddenly she remembered how rudely and abruptly she’d cut Leonardo off. Not wanting to fire up her laptop, she decided to text him instead.

So sorry about this morning. I just had a few things going on all at once. But that was really rude of me. Anyway, I decided to go to Havasu after all. I’m waiting for my cousin to pick me up now. =)

Unlike the rest of the times when she emailed or texted him, he didn’t respond immediately, and she wondered if maybe he was mad about her rudeness.

Valerie and Monica arrived to pick her up. Her mom was back from shopping with her aunt and walked them out, asking all the usual mom questions. Where were they staying? Did they have enough money? Had they packed enough clothes? And she then gave them all the usual warnings about not drinking too much or drinking and driving and watching out for crazies, etc. Finally, a few minutes later, they were on the road.

“Hey,” Valerie said, and Sarah looked up from her phone in the back seat, meeting Valerie’s eyes in the rearview mirror.

“Huh?”

“Road trip rules.” Her eyebrow went up before bringing her attention back to the road. “No checking Facebook for annoying photos. No talk of those two infuriating brothers unless either of them call or text us directly. And no sulking all weekend no matter what. We’re going out there to have fun. I know you’re not single, and I don’t expect you to act as if you were, but I
do
expect you to have fun, okay? No fuddy-duddies. That’s not why I invited you.”

Sarah frowned, glad Valerie was looking straight ahead and not into the rearview mirror anymore. She didn’t care for her cousin lumping Angel into the same category of infuriating as Alex because he was far from it. But the last photo she’d just seen of him and Dana on her phone’s Facebook app was pretty damn infuriating. She threw her phone in her bag and looked out the window.

“Agreed,” she said. “No Facebook, no talk of the Morenos and no fuddy-duddies. I will have fun. I promise.”

“Good,” Valerie said, turning up the music, and did a fist pump.

Taking a deep breath, Sarah had a sudden thought. She and Angel had been inseparable for so long. In all the times she’d been with him, she’d never even gone out to a local party without him. Not only was she doing so now she was doing it out of state in a major college crowd party resort and for the whole weekend. Before she could start feeling bad and let the unease in her stomach manifest, she reminded herself that Angel was in Hawaii without her. For as much as he said he wished she was there before and even though she didn’t have all the facts yet, one fact was clear. He’d be out there all weekend, and he hadn’t even been able to wait to get started. His first night there he’d gone out to party and to none other than Dana’s party. The reminder was enough to snuff out any guilt she’d started to feel about doing this.

Chapter 15

Sarah

A little over six hours later, they arrived at their hotel in Lake Havasu just off the London Bridge strip. It was already six p.m. there, and Sarah couldn’t help doing the math. That would make it just after three in Hawaii. It was still too early for Angel to be calling or texting. The game likely wasn’t even over. If it was, he still had a least an hour of after-game strategy talk in the locker room.

Before Valerie could notice Sarah checking out her phone, Sarah slipped it back into her purse. Valerie walked out of the bathroom, wearing a snug little white skirt, a denim-colored bikini top, and ridiculously high denim wedges.

“Oh, that’s the cutest outfit,” Monica said.

Valerie looked back at Monica with a smirk. “Thanks, but I was going for hot.”

“Well, hot too.” Monica laughed, grabbing a wine cooler out of the small ice chest they’d brought into the hotel room. “I don’t think any guy out there will argue with that.”

Monica, who was the tallest of the three, pulled out a bright orange bikini from her bag. “I’m wearing this with my black mesh sarong.”

“That’s cute,” Valerie said.

Sarah gulped, thinking about what she’d packed. “Are we going in the water tonight?”

Monica shrugged, looking back at Sarah. “Doesn’t matter. You saw how all the girls are dressed out there. It’s
hot.”

Sarah
had
seen as they’d driven through the strip full of partying college kids. She was already regretting it, but she’d agreed to not be a fuddy-duddy, so she dug through her bag. She was already wearing a short skirt. It was an army green camouflage summer thing. She pulled out the black cropped top she’d shoved into her bag at the last minute and went into the bathroom where she replaced the tank she was wearing. She wouldn’t be showing nearly as much skin as Valerie and most of the other girls out on the strip, but her midriff was exposed now as was the navel ring Angel said drove him nuts, so it was good enough.

After having several more beers and wine coolers in the room, they freshened up their makeup and hair and headed out. It was the oddest feeling to be out there in the crowd of single people all looking to hook up. Sarah had to keep reminding herself she’d agreed to have fun anytime any of the guys smiled at her or made a comment about her eyes. Talking to or maybe even smiling at some of the guys flirtatious remarks didn’t mean she was doing anything wrong. She couldn’t possibly point out to all of them that she was in fact in a relationship—very taken. It’d be silly, so she did her best to partake in the giggling and hair twirling Valerie and Monica did. There were moments that worried her such as when four guys decided to kick it with them for a while and offered to take the photos when they saw Valerie trying to do group selfies of all three girls. Later, one of the guys took photos of the whole group. The three other guys had immediately posed with them, and they looked like three couples. Sarah leaned into Valerie as she looked at the photos over her shoulder. “Please
do not
post that one anywhere.”

Valerie winked at her, but it still made Sarah nervous. By that time, it was late enough that Angel should’ve called or at least texted her, and he hadn’t done either. It was so unlike him Sarah was beginning to worry. Either something was wrong, or he was afraid to talk to her. Both scenarios made her stomach churn. The former worried her most because deep in her heart she knew the latter just couldn’t be true. She stuck to her secret mental rule of keeping the checking for possible missed calls or texts to half-hour increments, no more than that.

The giant clock on the bridge served a good purpose. She couldn’t use the excuse of needing to check the time to pull her phone out, but it was that time now, so she checked.

Nothing from Angel.

The disappointment was overwhelming, but at the same time, she felt a little spoiled. Valerie went through this all the time with Alex. He’d disappear on her for days, sometimes
weeks
at a time. Here it hadn’t been even a full day since Sarah had last heard from Angel, and she felt ready to cry. She took a deep breath and shook it off.

There was a text from Leonardo. She almost felt bad that she’d been so concerned about hearing from Angel she hadn’t even given any thought to the fact that Leonardo hadn’t responded to her text earlier. It was sent almost twenty minutes ago.

Where are you?

She responded simply with the word “Havasu” then slipped the phone back in her pocket, making note of the time. That first evening in Havasu went by fairly quickly and trouble-free. The only real unease Sarah felt all night was each time she checked her phone and found no messages from Angel.

They grabbed a pizza and headed back to their room. Valerie thought it’d be better if they took it easy tonight since she was kind of pooped from the long drive and because tomorrow they were going to hit the lake early and be out there all day and night.

Sarah’s heart sputtered when she checked her phone as they walked into their hotel room and saw she had a missed call from Angel and a text. The flurry in her stomach was unreal. It felt almost like when she’d first started going out with him and she saw him or got a call from him. She clicked on the text, and her heart nearly stopped.

I’m SO SORRY. Call me please.

Her expression must’ve shown the horror she felt at seeing those two words in all caps, because Valerie asked her what was wrong. “Is that something from Angel?” she asked then gave her a scolding look. “Or are you checking Facebook?”

Sarah shook her head, already feeling an unreasonable knot in her throat. He could just be sorry he hadn’t called all day, but then why hadn’t he? “It’s a text from Angel,” she whispered.

Valerie’s expression eased up, and she looked worried too. “What did he say?”

“That he’s
so
sorry and to call him,” Sarah said, already heading towards the door because she had a bad feeling this was a call she didn’t want to make in front of Valerie or Monica.

“Sorry about what?”

“I don’t know,” Sarah mouthed the words as she walked out the door with the phone already at her ear.

“What did you do?” she asked the moment she heard his voice.

“Nothing,” he said immediately. “Well, aside from going to that stupid party. But I had no idea it was Dana’s party, and then some idiots started fighting and security was called.”

He explained about the coach keeping them after the game today and running them until half the team was throwing up then about how both he and Alex had forgotten their phones in the room because they’d gotten up late and had to run downstairs. Her heart and nerves calmed with every word he spoke, but still one annoying fact remained. “Why’d you go out in the first place? I thought you said you were going to call it an early night, and why didn’t you call or at least text me last night? Did you forget your phone then too?”

She heard him exhale loudly. “Look, babe, I’m not gonna blame anyone else. I thought about it all night last night and all day today. In hindsight, I could’ve walked back to our hotel if I’d had thought of it then. It wouldn’t have gotten me out of the hell the coach put us through today because even the guys who weren’t there last night are paying for our fuck up. But at least I wouldn’t have had to worry about what you were thinking all day.” He inhaled and Sarah could hear it in his voice. He was sincerely mad at himself. “I’m sorry, baby. I really am. We were all in one hotel shuttle, and some of the guys decided they wanted to stop by this party they heard about. I swear to you I had no idea Dana was gonna be there. I spent no time alone with her
at all
.”

Sarah smiled as her heart began to swell. Her heart never had accepted even for a moment that he’d betray her. “I was so worried,” she whispered.

“I know it looks bad, and I haven’t even had a chance to see all the shit people have been posting today. But I heard about it on the bus from some of the other guys checking their phones. I heard it even made the paper, but you know me, Sarah. I hope you didn’t spend the entire day worrying and looking through all the posts. I’d never do anything to risk losing you. Ever.”

The lump in her throat was suddenly replaced with a feeling of dread. Now it was her turn to come clean about where she was and how long she’d be there. No matter how nicely she’d try to describe this place, it was a meat market, and she knew Angel knew it. It was a place where people her age went there for two major reasons: to party like crazy and to hopefully get lucky. No two ways about it. He’d never been there on one of these weekends, but Alex and plenty of his friends had, and he knew all about it.

“I was mostly worried something might’ve happened to you. It’s so rare, especially under circumstances like this, for me not to hear from you all day, a
nd
,” she added because he still hadn’t explained that part, “because, regardless of what happened today, I didn’t hear from you last night either. That’s what bothered me the most.”

“I know,” he said a bit defeated. “I fucked up.”

“What?” she gripped the phone, not liking how that sounded at all.

“I mean. I didn’t wanna call you from the party; it was too noisy. I thought we’d be out of there early because it’s what we all agreed on and I could call you once I was back in my room, but then the fighting started. The cops kept us there until they could get a hold of the coach, and then the coach had to get the driver of the bus up. It was just one huge clusterfuck, and when I finally got back to the room, it was too late. With the time difference, I would’ve been calling you like at three in the morning.”

Biting her lip, she tried to think of how best to just come out with what she had to say. She was quiet for too long, so he spoke up again.