Sinfully Ever After, page 15
part #4 of The Escort Series
“Yeah, Jace texted me at some point in the middle of the night, or early morning I guess I should say. I still don’t know what he was trying to say.”
“Oh, and Garrett, Nico, and Kade never came back to the hotel room. Linc says he doesn’t think Marc is aware yet, because he was still passed out. Hopefully they’re okay and find their way back soon.”
“Jesus, is this some sort of Hangover movie situation?” I say.
“It better fucking not be,” Adrienne says, slipping on her shoes. “They all better make it to the wedding and not be all fucked up.”
I shake my head. “I’m sure they’ll be good to go by tomorrow.”
“Well, they’re supposed to be heading back this afternoon,” Thalia says. “As long as we have eyes on them come tonight, we should be fine.”
“Is Jace still staying with us tonight?” I ask.
“Yeah, if that’s cool. I know things have changed,” Adrienne says, eyeing my flat stomach.
“No, it’s fine. I know you don’t want to see him until you’re walking down the aisle,” I say with a grin. “You and your rules. I’ll still be able to talk to Troy, even if I have to drag him out of the house.”
“If you’re sure.”
“Yep, totally fine.”
“Okay, well, who’s hungry?”
“I could eat,” I state.
“Me too.”
“Okay, let’s go grab some food and then we’ll head back to my house for a special surprise.”
Adrienne’s face lights up, and I wonder what she’s up to.
“What did you do?” I question.
“Me?” she says with faux innocence. “Nothing.”
I look at Thalia and roll my eyes. “Mmhmm.”
“Let’s go girls,” she says, basically skipping out of the room.
TROY
I try to open my eyes, but I’m instantly assaulted by the brightest light on the planet. I raise my arm in an effort to block the sun from my eyes, but it doesn’t work. In my drunken state last night, I left the curtains open, and instant regret sets in.
The window is about ten feet away, and I’m almost certain I can’t get out of bed. I glance around with squinted eyes, looking for the clock that I’m almost positive was on the end table last night. I roll over slightly, feeling the alcohol swishing around in my stomach, and spot it on the floor flipped upside down. Great.
I stretch my arms out and pat the bed, looking for my phone. Wherever it is, it isn’t within arms’ reach, and right now I don’t care to even look for it. I know Em texted me earlier, but I don’t know how much time has passed since then.
Based on the silence outside my door, I assume nobody else is up and about. I think Marc and Linc went to their own room at some point, but I’m not one hundred percent sure. They came to our room so we could continue to drink from the bar we have in the suite, and we were up until at least five in the morning. That’s the last time I remember looking at the clock, anyway.
When Nico announced that we had free liquor, none of us thought it would be in good taste to just let that go to waste, so amongst us seven, we finished the two free bottles, and ended up buying another one. And that one was also finished.
In our defense, the girls Garrett and Nico were trying to hook up with were also drinking from them, so we had a little help.
I can’t remember what time it was once we left there, but at that point we weren’t ready for the party to end, so we made sure it didn’t.
Most bars and clubs close down around two or three in the morning, but Nico being Nico found us another place to go. There was a party being thrown at a hotel by one of his clients. The woman, who he was pretty familiar with, was celebrating something. Maybe a promotion. I can’t really remember, but they had plenty of liquor in a suite where her and her friends were partying.
Nico talked to his client almost the whole time we were there, and Garrett found one of her friends to flirt with. The more Marc had to drink, the less concerned he was about what his brother was doing, and the more interested he became in Lincoln. I’m surprised those two didn’t dip out earlier to go be alone.
We left the three musketeers at the party, and me, Jace, Linc, and Marc went and spent nearly seventy-five dollars on fast food, then came back to the room.
My bladder encourages me to get out of bed, so I slowly roll to my side and gently push myself into a sitting position. Fuck. I haven’t had this much to drink in a long time. My head throbs and I feel queasy and lightheaded. I don’t know if I’m still drunk or just hungover. Maybe a little of both.
After I finish in the bathroom, I make my way towards the window so I can get the damn sun out of my face, and stumble across my phone. I don’t know if it fell out of the bed or if I just threw it. After closing the curtains, I sit on the edge of the bed and check my notifications.
There’s six missed calls and fourteen text messages. Jesus Christ, who was blowing up my phone?
A noise outside my door gets my attention. I hear a drawn-out groan followed by a cough, and then a knock on the door.
“Yeah?” I croak, my throat feeling a little dry.
The door opens slowly and Jace appears in the doorway looking as bad as I feel. His hand is on his head and his brows couldn’t be more furrowed.
“Hey,” he says, his voice sounding scratchy. “You check your phone yet?” he asks, holding up his own in his other hand.
“Nah. I was just about to. I have a lot of missed calls and messages, though.”
“Yeah.” He takes in a deep breath, like it’s taking all his strength to stand there. “I gotta sit down, man,” he says, making his way to a chair in the corner. “I got a voicemail.” He rubs his forehead again. “Just look at yours.”
I squint at my phone, because even that little light seems too bright right now. “Why did Marc call so much?” I ask. Jace just grunts.
I go to the text messages next. I have four from Marc.
Hello. We have ur friend’s phone.
Helloooo
Did you wanna come back and get it?
Call the phone.
I look over at Jace who has his eyes closed, so I don’t bother trying to talk to him. I check the text messages from numbers I don’t know.
Heyyyy
It’s Clarice.
Are you still up?
Where are you?
“Who the fuck is Clarice?” I ask, looking at Jace.
“Don’t know. Who the fuck is Alex?”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. I have messages from an Alex as well as someone who has Marc’s phone.”
I run a hand over my face. This is exactly what we don’t need.
A few other unread texts are from Nico and two from my mom. I don’t bother reading them just yet, choosing to check the voicemail.
The first message starts and now my ears are assaulted with music in the background as well as a lot of chattering voices. Finally, a high-pitched voice comes through.
“Troooooy. where are yooooou? Hey, it’s me. Clarice. Call me back.”
My heart starts racing. I play the next message.
“Hey. Call this number back.”
“Hey fucker. Why’d you just leave? Answer my texts.”
“Your friend left his phone. Call it and we can meet up.”
“Jace, what the fuck?”
He only shakes his head, eyes still closed.
I only recognize Nico’s voice, but the other two are female voices that I don’t recognize. How did they get my number? Why are they calling? What the fuck actually happened last night? I know we were all fucked up, but I didn’t think we were black out drunk, where pieces of our night are missing.
“Do you remember a Clarice from last night?” I ask him.
“Fuck no. Don’t remember an Alex either.”
“Alex,” I murmur, trying to see if it rings any bells. “What did your messages say?”
“Someone letting me know Marc left his phone with them. Some girl just saying my name and telling me to call her back, and Nico texting me a few times.”
“Seems about the same as me. But you said someone named Alex called you?”
“Yep.”
“There were a lot of people at that hotel party. I imagine that’s where Marc left his phone, and it was just people who were there that were calling us.”
“Sure,” he says, shrugging his shoulders. “Nico could’ve told them our names. They got our number from Marc’s phone. It makes sense.”
“Well, it needs to make sense. We don’t need fucking random chicks calling and texting our phones when we get back to Vegas. The girls would kill us. I definitely don’t think anything crazy happened.”
“Nah,” he agrees. “But we need to find Marc’s phone, and let these girls know that they can’t be calling us anymore.”
“Okay, so first things first. Let’s touch base with Linc and see if he got any similar calls. Maybe they’re already taking care of this phone situation. If not, then we’ll call one of these numbers back and see who answers,” I say.
“Let’s call Nico before we call one of these chicks. Maybe he stayed over there with them. Then we can eliminate a trip to go meet some people we don’t know.”
“Yeah, okay.”
I pull up Nico’s number on my phone, but it goes straight to voicemail. “Fuck!” I wait for the beep. “Nico, call me back, man.”
I press end and then find Lincoln’s number and hit send. It rings twice before he answers.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Linc. Quick question.”
“Okay,” he replies.
“Did you get any calls or texts from anyone about Marc’s phone?”
“No,” he answers, sounding confused. “Should I have?”
I let out a long breath. “Well, me and Jace have some messages from some people we don’t know. They told us they had Marc’s phone.”
“Oh, so he left it at the hotel?”
“That’s my guess.”
“Well, that’s better than at the club or in a cab. Just call them back and see when and where we can meet to pick it up.”
“Yeah. All right, man. I’ll hit you up later.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
“Linc didn’t get any calls,” I tell Jace. “We’re the lucky ones. He just wants us to call them back and figure out when we can get it back.”
“Call Marc’s number and see who answers.”
I click on Marc’s name in my phone, but instead of ringing, his voice message instantly starts playing.
“I think it’s dead. Or turned off. It went straight to voicemail.”
“Great.”
“So, you don’t happen to wanna call Alex, do ya?”
Jace groans. “No.”
“Ugh. Fine. I’m not calling Clarice though. I’m gonna call the other one who seemed sober when she left a message.”
The phone rings a few times before a female voice picks up.
“Hello?”
“Hi, this is Troy. I got a message from this number.”
“Oh, hey. Yeah, your friend left his phone at the party last night. A few people tried getting in touch with you guys.”
“Yeah, we’re just now seeing the messages. Do you happen to still have it?”
“One second,” she says. I hear some noise and then her voice sounds muffled when she talks again. “Hey, do you still have that phone? The one from last night. Clarice, do you still have the cell phone?”
So, she’s not Clarice, but she knows her.
“Hey, yeah, we have it here.”
“Okay, great. Where are you?”
“We’re still in the same hotel room. Some of us just crashed here.”
“Okay, and you’ll be there for a little while?”
“Yep. We’ll be here.”
“Great. Someone will be by to pick it up soon. Thanks.”
“No problem,” she says.
When I hang up, I breathe a sigh of relief. “She says the phone is still at the same hotel room from last night. Some of them just spent the night there, so I can tell Marc he can get it from there.”
“Okay, good.”
I call Lincoln and tell him where the phone is, and then he invites us to meet up downstairs at one of the restaurants for a late lunch.
“We’re meeting them in about an hour, so I guess we should shower and get ready. Food’s probably good for us right about now,” I tell Jace, who’s slouched further into the chair.
He groans. “I can’t even think about food right now.”
“Just have some toast and coffee.”
“All right. I’ll go get ready.”
He drags himself out of the room, and I make my way into the shower, hoping the scalding hot water will make me feel more human. I feel like I can smell the alcohol seeping through my pores.
Good thing we had the forethought to have a late checkout today. We’ll have plenty of time to go eat, come back and grab all of our things, then get back on the road to Vegas.
With a towel wrapped around my waist, I down a bottle of water and feel only about ten percent better. Hopefully the food will help.
Once I’m ready, I head towards Jace’s door, ready to knock and tell him to hurry up, but I stop short when I hear his voice.
“Mom, it’s Jace. I’ve been trying to get in touch with you. My wedding is tomorrow. Are you really gonna miss it? I want you there. I’ll pay for the ticket and everything. You won’t have to worry about a hotel either. You can stay with us. Please just call me back. I want to make sure you’re okay. I love you. Bye.”
My heart breaks a little for him. I step away and decide to wait for him on the couch in the living room. I send a text to Emilie in the meantime.
Hey baby. I’m sorry I couldn’t talk to you earlier. I hope you had a good day. Apparently we all had a little too much to drink last night, but don’t worry, we’ll be on the road in a little while, and I’ll see your beautiful face again soon. I love you so much. I’ve missed you.
She doesn’t respond right away, but Jace comes out, and the both of us head down to the lobby.
“You good?” I ask him.
“Yeah, of course,” he says, forcing a smile. “I get married to the love of my life tomorrow, and I had an amazing couple of days with my boys. I’m glad we did this.”
I can still see the pain he’s trying to hide behind the happiness. I don’t doubt for a second that he’s actually excited to marry Adrienne, and that he enjoyed his time here, but I also know he’s unhappy about his mom not answering his calls and more than likely missing his wedding.
I put my hand on his shoulder. “I’m glad we did, too.”
“Still kinda feeling like shit, though,” he says, rubbing his head. “I’m gonna have to grab some Tylenol from the gift shop.”
“Yeah, I’m hoping this food is a cure-all.”
We meet up with Marc and Linc at the Cabana restaurant. It’s the most casual of the other restaurants in the hotel, with the most variety.
“You guys look like hell,” Linc says with a smile as we approach.
“Fuck you,” I say as Jace says, “Thanks.”
“Don’t worry. You don’t look worse than this guy,” Linc says, gesturing to Marc who’s leaning against the wall with a pair of sunglasses shielding his eyes.
“Looks like you’re about to fall out, man,” I say with a laugh.
“Fuck off,” he groans.
“Ooh,” I laugh. “Someone’s grumpy.”
“I blame you guys for this. I never drink this much.”
“Well, you won’t have to do it again until someone else gets married.”
“Well, nobody get married for a while,” he says, rubbing his head. “Have you heard from my dumbass brother at all?”
Me and Jace both shake our heads.
“He’s not answering his phone,” Linc says.
“Might still be asleep,” Jace says. “I wish I was.”
“Well he needs to wake his ass up. We need to be on the road soon,” Marc grumbles.
“We’ll find him,” I say. “Now let’s eat before we all die.”
EMILIE
When we get to Adrienne’s house, she rushes upstairs and tells us to sit and wait for her. Thalia and I look at each other and shrug, doing as she says.
“What do you think she has up her sleeve?” Thalia asks.
“Who knows? With her, it could be anything.”
It doesn’t take long before Adrienne’s coming back down the stairs, giant gift bags in each hand. One is white with glitter falling off of it with each step she takes, and the other is a light yellow with little animals on it.
“So, I got you guys some gifts,” she says through a big smile.
“Why did you get us gifts? It’s your wedding!” I tell her.
“I know, I know, but you two have been helping me so much through this whole wedding planning process, and I owe you so much. I know I’ve been calling you both like crazy, stressing out, and you guys have been amazing. Plus, I love you, so here you go,” she says, extending the bags in our direction.
I take the yellow one, while Thalia accepts the white one. We yank out the tissue paper like kids on Christmas, and start pulling out gifts. Thalia pulls one out first—a white tank top that says Kiss the Bride. She pulls out a small canister that holds a one-hundred-dollar gift card to Victoria’s Secret.
“For the honeymoon,” Adrienne says with a smirk.
“Thank you,” Thalia responds with a grateful smile.
I reach into my bag and pull out a set of baby onesies. They’re all a variety of light green, yellow, and white, because we don’t know the sex of the baby yet. I hold them close to my chest and try not to cry as I look over at Adrienne who seems to be holding back tears, too.
“Keep digging,” she says. “Both of you.”
I end up pulling out a pack of the tiniest little socks I’ve ever seen, and several bibs. One says I drink too much, and I bust out laughing. There’s some gender-neutral blankets and bath necessities as well as a gift card to Buy Buy Baby.
Thalia gets a bracelet with several charms. One is a heart that reads Happily Ever After, and there’s a little diamond ring charm, as well as the number three, which is perfect. Thalia slips it on her wrist right away, and then pulls out a box that says Bridal Survival Pack. Inside is a couple small bottles of alcohol, some spa-like items like bath bombs, eye masks, essential oils for stress and anxiety, and a small bottle of Tylenol.
