AHVI TAKEDA
"How'd it go?" Eman asked as I stepped into the passenger seat of her car. Jace had left already after asking if he wanted him to drop me off. I had declined because I needed some time to process my feelings. I had walked into the diner with worry and fear churning in my gut but I had walked out with something weighing on my chest and although it wasn't unpleasant, it needed some processing.
"Vi?" Eman's voice pulled me out of my thoughts and I looked at her questioningly. "I asked you a question." She added and my eyebrows rose on my forehead.
"I'm sorry. What was it again?" I cursed myself out for being so distracted and...affected by the conversation in the diner although I had a right to be, didn't I?
"I asked how it went with Jace." Eman's gaze turned concerned as she searched my face. "Vi, what is up?" She asked before I could respond to the first comment.
"It was okay." I shrugged, my cheeks heating. "He still doesn't know what he's going to do." I lied. I hated lying to Eman but I needed to think about everything myself first before telling her or jumping to conclusions.
"I think Kiara is full of bullshit," she said after a moment and I turned to face her. Eman didn't curse. Ever. And if she dropped a curse bomb, it meant that she was serious. Deadly serious.
"What do you mean?" I frowned. Eman had known Kiara for as long as the rest of us had since Jace started dating her only two years ago. They dated for a year and half before they decided to break it off. None of us said it outright but we were all relieved that he ended things with her, especially me for more reasons than one.
"I think she is screwing with Jace." Eman shrugged. "I don't know why but I have a feeling that something isn't right." Her eyebrows knit together in confusion.
"You haven't even met her after the pregnancy, Eman. I don't think it is wise to jump to conclusions or assume things about her." I pointed out. I didn't like Kiara one bit but I wasn't going to question her innocence just because I hated her. Moreover, she was pregnant. How was I supposed to question a pregnant woman?
"It's this gut feeling that I have been getting since Jace told us about the pregnancy. I can't shake it off no matter how hard I try." She chewed on her bottom lip as she stared out of the windshield. We were still in the parking lot of the diner and Eman didn't seem inclined to start the engine anytime soon.
"What are you saying?" She was getting at something, I knew. She was rarely ever this serious and the fact that she was unwilling to let it go and had brought it up in the first place told me that she had something on her mind already.
"I'm saying we look out for Jace. He can go around and say that he's untouchable and a bad boy and what not but if Kiara is up to something, it will affect him the most. We already know he has major trust issues. We can't allow this woman to add to it," she said, twisting in her seat to look at me.
"And how do you propose we do that?" I cocked an eyebrow at her. A spark entered her eyes and I knew I had played right into her trap.
"By spying on Kiara." She grinned. I groaned as I slumped in my seat, a hand on my eyes.
"Not again, Eman." I mumbled, not wanting to look at her. I knew she was getting at something but I hadn't expected it to be her suggesting that we stalk Kiara. But I shouldn't be surprised. Eman had a thing about stalking people and jumped at any chance to do so. She could find out everything and anything there was to find about a person in a matter of hours. She didn't mean harm. It was just a hidden talent of hers that she bought out at times of need. Which this situation was not.
"I'm telling you, Vi. Something isn't right. There is no way that she just happened to be at the same club as Jace, that she was so hammered that she didn't realize she was sleeping with her ex. She barely ever drinks and we all know that." Eman pointed out and I removed my palm from my eyes to glance at her.
Her expression had turned somber once more and she looked at me hopefully, asking for my permission. But the permission wasn't mine to give. It was Jace's. And there was no way I was going to ask Jace if my best friend and I could stalk the shit out of his pregnant ex who was a borderline psychopath. Stalking her behind his back would be wrong.
But then Jace had been so troubled for the past few days that I wondered if I should just risk it. I thought back to the diner, to how he had consoled me, held my hand and assured me. He had said that he was always there by my side. If I ever needed him, he was one call away.
I would do the same for him. I would always be there for him and I would always protect him, not only because he was my brother's best friend and we were close but for the sake of whatever it was that I had been feeling between us for the past few days. Hell, for the past few years.
Moreover, perhaps involving myself in something as interesting and twisted as Kiara might help me get my mind off of Hailey and the memories that had been fighting for my attention these days.
"I don't think we should do this." I sighed, knowing we would be fucked if anybody found out what was going on.
"But we need to do it. It's a necessity, bestie." Eman winked at me, a grin tugging on her lips and I wondered if I shouldn't have said anything at all. Eman Hashim was innocent but she could be borderline evil at times. And I had a feeling this was one of those few times.
>.<
Two bowls of ramen and Eman's laptop sat in front of us as we blinked at the screen. The lights of the room were dimmed—for the feels, my best friend had said—and we were clicking through Kiara's Facebook. I didn't know what we were trying to find but I was going to trust the process.
"Did you find anything?" I whispered into the dim room, earning a sharp hush from Eman. We sat on her bed, cross-legged, looking like creeps and I felt like one, too. I didn't know what I had signed myself up for but now it was too late to back out.
"Aha! I knew it!" Eman exclaimed after a beat of silence, startling me.
"Ma'am, kindly warn me before going off like that." I snapped, putting a hand on my chest. It rose and fell rapidly as my heart raged inside. "What did you find by the way?" I added, looking at the screen. It was a picture of Kiara, grinning at the camera with the arm of another woman draped over her shoulder.
"This picture is from the night Kiara hooked up with Jace," Eman said, scrolling through the comments of the post. "Jace had said that she had been at the club alone, too. Or so she had told him. But she wasn't. She had her friends with her because I doubt that Kiara was so stupid as to give her phone to a stranger to click her pictures." She finished, facing me. Picking up her bowl of ramen, she took a bite as I processed her words.
"So?" I asked after a moment, not quite getting what she was trying to say. Jace had mentioned sometime before that Kiara had been alone or so she had claimed when she had approached him at the club but it could easily be to get him to take her home.
"So, we know that she was already lying to Jace when she ran into him at the club. Or rather showed up knowing that he would be there." Eman scrolled through the comments once more, pointing to one of them. I narrowed my eyes as I leaned forward to read it. "Here, her friend, who was at the club with her, says that she was glad that Kiara dragged her out to the club that night which means that it hadn't been pre-planned. She could have very well made the plan after knowing that Jace would be there." She explained.
It could be. Jace was popular enough that sometimes his whereabouts leaked through the media but it could be coincidence.
"Eman, I think you're just trying to prove a point here. Kiara might have made the last minute plan without knowing that Jace was at the same club as her." I pointed out, turning to my bowl of ramen. My best friend was losing her mind, I was sure of it.
"Yes? Kiara had been the one to approach Jace, not the other way around. She was the one who had been driving that night and took them back to his apartment since our boy gets hammered every time he goes to the club and we know it. She had been the one who had had no reaction to what had gone between them. According to Jace, she had left the apartment without putting up a fight. When have we known Kiara to not fight for what she wants?" Eman pointed with her fork and I flinched away from her.
"Kindly put the fork away, miss. I am listening but...just put that thing away." I scowled at her.
"Oh, sorry." She gave me a sheepish look as she put her fork in her bowl. "So, as I was saying, I have a few reasons to believe why Kiara might have pre-planned her hookup with Jace." She added.
I nodded as I shoved a forkful of noodles into my mouth. I should have been full after my lunch with Jace but I was a stress-eater and the information Eman had laid out to me right now was shooting up my blood pressure and stress levels.
"Couldn't it be that she just left because she felt as if what had happened was wrong, too?" I asked thoughtfully.
"My love, do you not remember the shitshow Kiara put up when Jace broke up with her?" Eman replied. Woah, two curse bombs in a day. Shit was getting serious. "She did everything in her power to win him back but she couldn't. For the first four months, she used every trick in the dictionary to get him back. And then suddenly, she disappeared for two months only to show up in his life again now, this time, with a supposed baby. What part of this sits right with you?"
"People change." I pointed out but her words had settled in my gut already.
"Kiara is not like most people, Vi. And we all know that. I think the other guys would agree with me if I explained the situation to them." She argued. "Jace is vulnerable when it comes to the role of being a father, when it comes to children and we all know that. He will never admit it but the reason he is putting up with Kiara is because he doesn't want to be his father. How can she not exploit him when she knows it, too?" She asked.
I stayed silent as I listened to Eman's reasoning. My gaze was fixed on the picture of Kiara she had pulled up and I wondered if this what this pregnancy was about; a way to get Jace back. But Jace wasn't so stupid to fall for it, was he? He wouldn't get back into a relationship with her, right?