Shame Shame Shame

Ch. 10

Riley: I'm about to be outside your house

Lexi: okayyy!

My grandparents are going to kill me if they find out I'm sneaking out of the house, but I feel so bad for Riley. For some reason she seems so scared to go alone, and I feel like I'm partially at fault for what happened. I can't let her deal with this on her own. That'd be unfair.

After looking out my bedroom window for a few minutes I finally see Riley pull up in her lexus. I lock my bedroom door and slide my window up just enough for me to get out through it. Carefully I climb down the tree that's next to my window and jump to the ground. I quickly run to the passengers side of Riley's car and she takes off.

"Hey. So are you sure you're not going to get caught" Riley innocently asks. "I hope not, otherwise I'll be in some deep shit. What'd you tell your husband you're doing?" Riley shakes her head very lightly as if she's about to cry. "He's out of town again" she throws up an air quote with her right hand as she says 'out of town.' "Why the air quotes" I ask as I turn her radio down so I can hear her better.

"I don't think he's really out of town for work. He's never had to work out of town, until two months ago. He's probably cheating on me because I won't ha- never mind" Riley cuts herself short. Instead of asking her what she was going to say, I just let it go. She seems kind of emotional towards the subject and I don't want to end up making her cry. That's the last thing I'd want to do.

We sit in silence for a few minutes, but a comfortable silence. I get lost in my thoughts, thinking about how I honestly don't know much about this woman at all besides she's married and is a school teacher. It's kind of strange how much I'm trusting her because it normally takes a while for me to warm up to people. Something is just different about her though.

"Oh by the way, what were you going to say earlier today at school when you said your husband wouldn't handle seeing the pictures of us very well" I escape my thoughts and break the silence. Riley gives me a glance then moves her eyes to the road again. "I don't really want to talk about" she answers softly which makes me a little worried. Has he ever done something bad to her before because of her being with someone else?

We pull into the Polo's diner parking lot as the time on the car radio screen reads out 8:50pm. "Should we go in now or" I stop speaking, waiting to hear what Riley will say. "I guess so. Maybe the person is here already." She takes the keys out of the car. "But how will we know who it even is. They didn't leave their name on the note" I ask kind of confused about how we will know who we are supposed to be meeting with.

"I think the answer is obvious" Riley says as we walk inside the diner. Her mouth is left a little open with her eyes locked in place. I look to where she is and see Gage sitting at a table with a big smirk wiped across his face. "Holy shit" I whisper but loud enough for Riley to hear. "This isn't going to end well" I say as Riley and I both walk to the booth he is sitting at.

"Hello Riley, Lexi" Gage nods his head at each of us. "Don't call me that" Riley snaps at him with a look of disgust on her face. Gage sighs and rolls his eyes, "Well you two were good enough to not blow me off, so maybe this will be easier than expected."

Riley and I slide into the booth and sit across from him. "What will" I ask in a sassy tone, raising an eyebrow. "You two don't want me to show everyone the pictures of you two right" He asks with that smirk plastered across his face again. Riley sighs "those pictures aren't even what it looks like. You know what happened and it was nothing. We were just talking." Gage let's our a sarcastic laugh "I know nothing happened, but by the looks of those pictures you looked pretty rough with Lexi. And I'm sure you two have something going on, if you didn't, then you wouldn't have brought Lexi."