Best-Friends with Issues

Chapter 12- Recon Mission

I let her in, and her gaze immediately swept to where Alex was now sitting up on the sofa, staring with wide green eyes. After a moment of awkward silence, Alex stood up and moved to stand by my side, surprise and wariness evident on her face.

"Look," Lilly finally started, avoiding our eyes. "Just to be clear, I only came here because I need your help with something."

I nodded, but didn't quite know how to respond. Was I supposed to be happy that she was talking to us again? Or mad that she had only come back because she needed something?

She took in a deep breath, and some intangible emotion flickered across her blue gaze. "I'm still a bit upset that all of you were keeping something-" She paused. "-something like that from me. Especially since Selena, you're just as much my friend as any of the others. But for now we need to put that aside."

"Is something wrong?" Alex asked hesitantly, almost as if she was afraid that Lilly would snap at her.

Lilly looked at her former best friend for a moment, before nodding slightly. There was another silence, filled only with shuffling feet and more awkward eye contact.

"Okay, that's enough of that!" I jumped in, grinning widely. The pair looked confused, but I went on before either of them could raise a question. "How about for tonight, we pretend that the incident never happened and we're all still best friends, hmm? If we're going to have to work together, we might as well do it like old times, right?"

Lilly let out a breath of relief, giving me a grateful smile. "Thank god! That was just about the most awkward moment of my life!"

"More awkward than that time when you farted during a school assembly?" Alex asked with a familiar smirk.

Lilly glared at her, but there was no longer any animosity behind it. "Shut up! You said you wouldn't bring that up again!"

I cleared my throat, and the two paused their bickering to look at me. As much as it felt good to see things with Lilly being back to normal, she had to have shown up at my doorstep in the middle of the night for a good reason.

"Right!" Lilly exclaimed, as if remembering why she had come. "So when I was checki- I mean on my computer, I accidentally pulled up the GPS on Tom's phone."

"Stalker." Alex coughed into her hand, and I couldn't help but snicker.

Lilly blushed and glared, but went on. "Anyways, I noticed that his location was, well, somewhere a little troubling."

"Where was he?" I asked.

She frowned, looking more troubled than when she had first arrived. "In an abandoned warehouse."

"A warehouse?" I echoed incredulously.

Alex only shrugged nonchalantly. "So? Maybe he's just buying drugs or something?"

Lilly scowled. "You can't just say 'just buying drugs or something', so casually! Plus, I know Tom, and he's not the type to do anything like that."

"Ah yes, our beloved golden boy." Alex sighed dramatically.

"So what do you think he's doing there?" I asked, trying to move the conversation along.

"That's just it!" She said insistently, growing increasingly agitated with every word. "I think he was abducted! He started out at the grocery store, and then he was suddenly speeding towards a warehouse on the other side of town! It doesn't make any sense!"

"So you were stalking him." Alex mused to herself.

Ignoring the red head, I thought about what Lilly had said. It was odd, and definitely out of Tom's character. He was probably the most responsible person out of all of us. "All right then. What should we do?"