I awake feeling like death, my throat is throbbing, my stomach is on fire, and my head is pounding. I lie there, and listen to the thrum of my head, I feel the air sweep lightly across my face, I bask in the sun that is splaying out my window. The sun shines in my eyes and I squint, but I don’t dare move.
With one last huff, I gingerly rise out of bed. I groan as the world around me spins, once my vision is clear again, I tip toe to my door, before opening I put my ear to the door, outside I hear laughter, I hear Remy giggle at something Cara says, then I hear Lexi return with a smart remark that makes all three girls bellow with laughter. A small smile lights my face and I shake my head. I slowly open my door and carefully go down the hallway, as I go I smooth down my tousled hair and wipe away any stray makeup.
“Hey sleepyhead!” Remy says with a smile.
“Hey guys.” I say as I flop on the couch.
The girls and I discuss what the plans are for today, “Well,” Cara says, “I was actually hoping we could go out, all of us,” Cara makes a point to look directly at me, “we haven’t actually gone out as a whole group yet. There’s a bon fire at my friends house tonight, and I think we should go.”
I smile and nod my head, “Yeah totally, we should go.”
I try to be convincing and see that I’ve pulled it off. I hear Remy’s phone go off in the kitchen, “I’ll get it for you.” I say.
I hop up and grab her phone off the table, I pick up the phone and click talk, before I can even answer though, a deep male voice comes through the phone, “Hey babe, did you make it home okay? I was worried about you after last night; it was pretty amazing, huh?” I freeze, totally caught off guard by the deep male voice that is definitely not Manny’s. “Who is this?” I answer back quietly. Then I hear a click, followed by a long beep noise. I look down at the phone and see that it’s back to the home screen. He hung up, I realize.
I drop the phone down on the table and back away from it, wanting to forget what I’d heard. Remy…she couldn’t be…she couldn’t be cheating on Manny?! The thought sends shocks of pain through my heart.
“Jamie!” Remy calls.
“Coming!” I yell back.
I leave the kitchen and go to Remy, “Who was it?”
“It was the wrong number actually,” I say with a nervous giggle, “asked for someone named Ashley? Poor guy. Well hey, I’m gonna go take a shower, I had a long night.” I say with a shrug.
Remy looks at me with nothing but love in her eyes, “Alright sweetie, when you get out I was thinking you and I could go down to the store, we're bringing food to the bon fire tonight.”
“Alright, great.” I say.
I leave and as soon as I’m back in my room I throw myself on my bed. Maybe Remy wasn’t cheating on Manny, that could have been the wrong number, the guy could’ve heard my voice and not recognized it so he assumed he had the wrong number and that’s why he hung up.
Yeah, I say to myself, that’s exactly what happened. Remy loved Manny; she would never do anything to destroy their relationship. As I got up to take a shower, I couldn’t help but feel a nagging in the back of my head that Remy was most definitely cheating on Manny.
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“Hotdogs or hamburgers?” Remy looks at me and I study the pack of frozen, bloody red meat.
“Definitely hamburgers.” I answer.
She smiles and drops 3 packs into the cart, we go along the aisle and pick up chips, and buns.
“So who’s throwing this party anyway?” I ask Remy.
“Brian, he’s actually Cara’s really good friend.” She gives me a knowing look that makes me laugh.
“So Cara’s friend?” I say with air quotes.
“Yup, he lives like 45 minutes down the coast; him and a few friends are renting a house. That’s actually where Manny’s staying.”
“Oh.” I say.
Thoughts start whirring around in my head. This is great, maybe tonight won’t be so horrible after all. Now that I know where Manny lives I can scope out his house and try to see if anything weird is going on. It would give me a chance to see the kind of people Manny is hanging around, and what kind of environment he’s in. We bring the food to the checkout line and pay for our stuff.
Once we arrive home, we unload our groceries. I stack the drinks and hamburger meat up on the counter and rummage around the pantry for a cooler. When I don’t find one, I call out to Remy, and remember that she went to take a shower for tonight’s party. I swear under my breath, and walk outside into the garage.
The heat and smell of gasoline fuse together and they make my head hurt. I roll my eyes and curse Miami weather. I walk over to a stack of boxes, well over my height, and see at the very top is a cooler.
“Of course, the one thing you need is at the very damn top.” I mumble to myself.
“Sorry, my job was to clean out the garage a while ago.”
My heart feels like it jumps out of my chest and I spin around. Manny stands in the doorway looking sexier than ever. He’s wearing a gray shirt that has the sleeves ripped off; my eyes automatically go to his muscled biceps. My breath catches at the sight of his arms. Before, his tan skin was bare, now his biceps are decorated with black tribal markings.
Heat rises in my belly at the sight of him, he’s beautiful.
I advert my eyes and step back from the boxes; I try not to watch as he reaches up to the cooler. I see his muscles ripple as he grabs a stack of boxes off the top. I look down at my feet; I so do not need this right now.
“Here you go.”
I look up and Manny hands the cooler to me, I smile and take it from him, as it gets passed our fingers briefly touch and I pull back quickly. The cooler slams on the concrete floor, and the loud bang echoes throughout the garage.
We both look up at each other in surprise. Then, we just stand there and stare at each other, both of us breath hard. Sweat pours down the side of my head, and my cheeks burn as I take in Manny, his lips are parted, his chocolate eyes stare into mine with an intensity that takes my breath away.
I am reminded of a time when love was like a snake in my veins and passion envaded my body.
Lately, with it just being me and Joe, my love life had been dull, but now, every nerve in my body felt like it was being awakened. I don’t know why, but every time I get close to Manny, my whole body hums in response. It was scary and exhilarating all at once. It filled me with hope, but at the same time, it scared me.
I watch him as he brings his hand up, I keep my eyes focused on his and watch as he gently traces my jaw, my body shudders in response.
“Manny! I see your car! I know your here!” Manny’s hand drops suddenly.
Remy stands in the door way with a huge smile, “Come on guys! We’re gonna be late!”
“Hey.” Manny says stepping away from me. He walks over towards Remy, she puckers her lips for a kiss, Manny hesitates and gives her a light peck.
Remy frowns, “Baby, what kind of kiss is that?”
Manny just shrugs and walks off. I furrow my brows at his weird behavior towards Remy. I look over at her and see her give him a weird look, but just as quickly as I saw it, it was gone.
She bounds over to me and smiles, “Let’s get the drinks in the cooler and we’ll go ahead and go.”
Me and Remy wash out the cooler in the sink, then Remy gets the bags of ice out of the deep freeze, she pours the ice in and I lay all of the soda’s and beer carefully in. Next, I wraps the packs of meat in paper towels so the meat doesn't contaminate anything in the freezer. We wash up and together we carry the cooler out to the car.
“Okay girl, you better go get ready, me and Manny can handle the rest of the supplies.”
“Alrighty, I’ll be out in a second.”
I dash into the house and start to change, I slip my hair out of the ponytail, and run my fingers through it, it reached almost to my waist now, I really needed a haircut I think to myself. I open my closet and pull a fitted tank top out, its gray, nothing special.
I rummage through my drawers and foind my white pair of short shorts. I knew it was going to be hot tonight, I look into the mirror and contemplate putting my hair back up, but at the last minute, I run a brush through it and decide it looks fine.
I put on a layer of mascara, and apply some powder. I slip on some black vans and decide that would just have to do.
I knew right away that Remy would criticize what I was wearing, but honestly I wasn’t gonna be flirting with guys and getting wasted at the party, I was going to be looking for clues about what Manny was involved in. With one last look at myself, I fled out the door and prepare myself for whatever lay ahead.
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