“Okay, thanks,” Sarah said, knowing perfectly well she wouldn’t.
When she got back to her laptop, Leonardo was still sitting there, looking through his phone again. “Sorry about that,” she said and he looked up.
“It’s okay.” He smiled. “So your cousin is still going to Havasu?” Sarah nodded, pulling her hair back and sticking a clip through it to hold the mess together. “If Angel’s gone all weekend, why don’t you go with her?”
“Because,” she said, making the screen he was on smaller and opening up a second one for Facebook. “I have a paper I really need to get done.”
She wouldn’t mention that since Angel hadn’t called her last night she’d pretty much finished it. She just needed to tweak it now to make sure it was as perfect as it was going to get. Still, she was not about to start playing the games Alex and Valerie played. That was the last place she wanted to take her and Angel’s relationship. There was no way she’d be able to deal with what Valerie did.
“Is your cousin just coming for the day or all weekend?”
“All weekend, I think,” Sarah said without even looking at the screen he was on.
Her eyes were already focused on some of the posts people from her school were commenting on. There was a headline from a local Waikiki paper talking about the disturbance at the hotel caused by the rowdy college kids. Sarah scanned the story, but there were no names mentioned. It did, however, point out that it was almost one in the morning when things were finally settled and the football players were sent on their way with the coach.
She then clicked on another link someone posted from the party. They were saying it was totally worth the trouble they’d gotten in.
Then boom. There it was: the ruthless blow to her gut.
Hearing about Angel’s photos with Dana was one thing, but seeing it for herself made her ill. The smile on Dana’s face alone was sickening, but seeing her arms wrapped around Angel so tightly made her skin crawl. She clicked on the rest and saw photo after photo of the party. The ones of Dana and Angel seemed to be of the same instance with just slight differences as if someone had just snapped away as she wrapped herself around him. Even though Valerie was right, he didn’t look nearly as pleased as some of the other guys in the photos, hearing about the photos and seeing them were two different animals. She knew exactly what Valerie meant about wanting to throw the damn thing across the room.
“Something wrong?”
There was no way she was going to be able to concentrate on anything now until she heard from Angel. She glanced back at the phone to check if by chance she’d missed a call or text. She even picked it up and scrolled through the texts from him, hoping maybe somehow she’d missed one.
Nothing.
“Baby girl.”
Sarah finally looked up. The term of endearment still felt weird, but at that moment she was too worked up to give it much thought.
“What’s wrong?” Leonardo asked, the look on his face genuinely concerned. “You seem upset—”
“I’m not.”
“Okay?” he said, making her feel a little stupid because obviously she was.
Her eyes were back on the photos, and she thought about the real partying starting tonight. The way the two girls were sitting on Alex’s lap reminded her of something Valerie had said once—something about Angel having to be a saint to pass up the skanks offering themselves up so easily and sucking them like p**n stars. She wondered if by chance Alex had invited these two girls back to his room—a room he was sharing with Angel.
Standing up abruptly, Sarah shook her head. She would not do this. Angel would never betray her that way. Of that she was certain.
“Hey.”
Sarah shook her head again, trying in vain to shake off the ugliness she felt just thinking about the possibility of what may’ve kept Angel too busy to even text her last night. Practically lunging at her laptop, she X’d out of Facebook.
“Not another glance,” she muttered through her teeth.
“What?”
Suddenly she snapped out of it enough to realize Leonardo was still on the screen, staring at her. “I’m sorry,” she said, bringing her hand to her mouth.
“What happened? What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” she assured him. “I just . . . I have to make another call. I don’t wanna keep you waiting. I’ll call you back, okay?”
She barely gave him a chance to nod before shutting down the window and picking up her phone. There was a two-hour time difference between La Jolla and Waikiki, which meant it was still only a little after seven in the morning there. There was still a good chance she could catch him on the bus or at the very least still in the locker room getting suited up for warm ups. She hit speed dial, but it went to voice mail.
Inhaling before texting him, she knew once she sent it she couldn’t take it back. She didn’t want to text anything she’d regret, but she certainly wasn’t in a mood to be sweet. She texted the four words she wanted to say and sent them.
We need to talk.
With her heart beating erratically now, she hit speed dial again. As soon as Sydney answered, she started talking a mile a minute. She needed him to calm her—to assure her she was just jumping to ugly conclusions—to remind her that Angel would never do any of the things she was envisioning.
“All right, Lynni,” Sydney said. “First of all, slow down. I caught most of what you said, but some of it blew right by me. So Angel went to a party last night with Dana. He never called you or texted you. He took lots of pictures with her, and now you wanna go party in Havasu with Valerie?”