Jealousy Kills

Chapter 3

Camille

The next morning I head into the office ready to face Tyler and lie to him about why I didn't show up yesterday and hopefully reschedule. I won't lie about how nervous I am to see him. What if he looks at me differently because I stood him up? What if he won't talk to me?

I bite my lip as I open the doors toward the back offices. Tyler is the first person I see as I walk into the room. He gives me a warm friendly smile and walks up to me. "Are you okay? Susan called me yesterday saying that your friends were looking for you." He asks.

I smile lightly at him, "I'm fine, I'm sorry for standing you up." He shrugs, "There's always lunch break today right?"

I nod, "I'd love to."

Susan rushes over to me giving me a big hug, "I thought you went missing!" She exclaims. I chuckle at her, "I'm okay."

"Thank god, don't scare me like that again okay?" I nod, "I promise mother."

A man walks into the office suddenly, "I'm looking for Camille Ali?"

I freeze, are they back? Is he going to kill me? Send my body parts to my friends? "Um, I'm Camille." I say weakly. 

"Can you show me where Mr. Louie's things are? He asked me to come get them for him."

"Um okay, right over here. What happened to him?" I ask. "He's in ICU right now, beaten pretty badly. A couple of broken bones and a fractured skull."

My eyes widen, "But he's alive right?"

The man nods, "Yeah kinda." He walks past me to collect Richard's things. "Wow, Richard was almost beaten to death?" Susan asks. 

I shrug, "I guess so."

Lunchtime rolls around quickly with Richard not around. I grab my purse and fix myself up in the bathroom before following Tyler out for lunch.

He took me out to a nice little cafe down the street called Tina's. We sit in a booth and a waitress approaches us, "Welcome to Tina's what can I get for ya?" She asks us.

"I'll take the turkey burger with extra cheese and a side of curly fries." Tyler says.

"And I'll take the sub sandwich with Swiss cheese instead of American, with a side of fries as well."

She writes it all down and looks back at us, "Drinks?"

"One sprite for me and a cranberry cocktail for the lady." The lady rights it down before taking our menus and hopping away. "How'd you know I'd order cranberry juice?" I ask.

"You have cranberry juice with you every day, I was just taking the chance. Was I right?" He asks. I nod, "Yes I was going to order cranberry juice. So you actually noticed I like cranberry juice?"

He nodded, "I noticed a lot of things about you."

"Like what?"

"You are a pen chewer, you always tap your foot when you're working at the desk, you're also a lip biter, and for lunch, you always bring a homemade quesadilla with salsa dip and cranberry juice. And for a snack, you have a pack of nutter butters."

I stare at him completely shocked that he had actually been paying attention to me this whole time. "I thought you barely knew I existed." He smiles, "You're hard not to notice."

I blush and look away, "You know I've had a crush on you since you started working here?"

"Really?" 

I nod embarrassed. "Well between you and I, I've had a crush on you since I got here too." My heart melts and I almost faint as the words I've only dreamt of hearing come out of Tyler's mouth actually come out.

"You're kidding."

"Cross my heart and hope to die." I smile at his cheesy remark.

The food arrives and the waitress places it down in front of us before walking away. We eat and occasionally talk about our interests, our lives, each other.

We split an ice cream sundae for dessert and I thought it was the most romantic thing ever. "So I was wondering if maybe you'd like to go out again sometime?" He asks. I nod, "I'd love to."

He smiles and continues eating his side of the sundae. After lunch break, we head back to work and Susan forces me to give her all the details of my "date".

"You share ice cream sundaes?! Awwww!" Susan cheers. "I'm so happy for you, your first boyfriend."

"He's not my boyfriend, we had one lunch date."

She rolls her eyes, "He will be."

After work is over Tyler offers to drive me home, although I've known Tyler for a while I'm still a little shaken up by last night's events and want to get to know Tyler more before letting him drive me home. I get a ride with Susan and she drops me off in front of the apartment building.

When I enter the house Mitchie and Rosa are chilling on the floor watching a movie and eating pizza. "I see dinner has been served." I say walking into the living room. 

"Ooh, how was your date?" Rosa asks immediately.

I begin blushing and Mitchie pauses the movie, "Spill." I tell them about everything from him ordering my drink to us splitting a sundae.

"Awwww!" Both the girls gush. I smile, "And he asked me out again for next Thursday night."

"We have to be home to get you ready for that." Rosa exclaims.

"My little girls all grown up." Mitchie sighs. "I'm going to get changed out of these work clothes, save me some pizza." The nod as I walk back to my room to get changed.

After changing into my pajamas I grab a spot on the floor with the girls and get a slice of pizza. They were watching Another Cinderella story and were almost halfway in. It was Friday night so the girls and I just decided to stay in and relax.

After our little girls night, we decided to go to bed. I wasn't looking forward to sleeping because last night I had a nightmare about the man being tortured in the video, but instead, I'm in that position. It's very terrifying and I woke up sweating in the middle of the night.

I drink a warm glass of milk before getting into bed and dosing off out of consciousness.