Liz couldn’t help but laugh, although she didn’t want to think about what she knew Aquilla was talking about. “It’s okay,” Liz assured her, placing her arm around her shoulder and pulling her in for a hug. She dropped it immediately, remembering Monica’s advice about giving her space.
“You can touch me,” Aquilla offered, catching it too.
Liz didn’t put her arm around her again, and instead, smiled and moved her hair from the front to her back.
“I’m sorry that you had to go through this too,” Aquilla offered, still unable to call her mom. It just didn’t feel right to her.
Liz smiled, happy with the night’s progress.
Aquilla did feel like they had moved a step closer, feeling like maybe some of the weight had been lifted from her shoulders as she crawled into her bed alone that night. She wondered what Seri and Monica were doing, and wished she were there with them.
She dreaded the days ahead, knowing that Seri had to leave her. She wasn’t looking forward to not having her around. She knew it was crazy and didn’t really expect her to just move in with her at her mother’s house. It was still a nice wish though.
Aquilla pulled the laptop closer and began to read. She didn’t read about anything too emotional and it was mostly happy, memory lane talk. She decided to close out of it when she felt his emotions changing to a deeper topic. She was happy. She had a good day, and she was smiling, remembering the things that they had done together. She didn’t want to go to bed sad.
By eleven o’clock, both Seri and Monica were well on their way to being drunk. They hooked up with a couple of locals, and flirted their asses off while the four of them shot pool tog
“You ladies here on business?” the guy who had introduced himself as Vince asked, as he sent the 3 ball straight into the corner pocket.
“Something like that,” Seri answered.
“Where you staying?” he asked, sending another ball right where he aimed it to go.
“At that little dive down the street, Crimson Inn, I think it was called,” she answered. “You guys live around here?”
“Yup, born and raised,” he answered, missing the next ball and handing the pool stick to Seri. She stood close and purposely touched his hand with hers as he smiled down at her.
Yup, he would do just fine. He was fucking hot and smelled amazing.
By midnight, they were back in their room with the two hot guys tangled in their webs.
“You girls want to burn one?” Vince asked, sitting on one of the queen beds.
“Hell yeah,” Monica answered.
Vince pulled out his bag and twisted a joint. He looked up to Seri, pulling the gun from the back of her jeans and placing it in the hotel safe.
“You carry a gun? You a fucking cop or something?” he asked, alarmed.
“Nope,” she answered with only that, sitting beside him and taking the joint from between his fingers. He held the lighter up and lit it for her.
The four of them sat on the edges of the beds, facing each other, smoking the joint. They exchanged trivial conversation until Vince snuffed the bud out on his beer can. Seri moved back on her elbows and unbuttoned her jeans. His eyes shot up in shock.
“Are we really doing this?” Hot damn, this was his lucky day.
Seri raised her eyebrows as she slipped the zipper down.
“In front of them?” he asked with his thumb.
“Monica’s seen me fuck before. You got a problem with that?”
“Uh-uh,” he replied, moving up her body to kiss her. She turned her head, letting him kiss her on her neck. She wasn’t interested in being intimate with him. She had an agenda and it didn’t involve trading saliva.
She slid her jeans and panties over her hips and closed her eyes as his fingers found her aching nub.
“Hmmm, go down on me,” she moaned.
He looked to see his friend and her friend still sitting on the side of the bed watching. Fuck. This girl was fucking crazy. Yup, she was no doubt crazy, he decided, watching her pull her legs up, opening them and exposing her fucking hot as hell naked pussy. He dazedly moved between her legs. She didn’t even give a shit that they were being watched. And holy shit did she taste as good as she looked.
Seri turned her eyes with a smile when she heard Monica moan from the bed beside them. Her new friend was also between her legs, causing her to squirm.
Thirty minutes later, they were kicking the men out, both satisfied.
“Do you even know what that guy’s name was?” Seri asked as she tossed the condom wrappers to the trash.
“No. Who cares,” Monica replied, pulling on her panties.
“True,” Seri agreed, crawling into her bed.
Seri’s mind went to none other than Quill as she stared at the dingy ceiling. Why was this girl having such an effect on her? She worried about leaving her. It was probably dumb, and she was reading more into it than she needed to. She couldn’t help it. She felt obligated or something.
The next three days were okay. Aquilla continued to talk to Monica about her relationship with her mother, and Aquilla tried to be more open. Seri had spent three days trying to get into Julius’s computer to no avail. It was really starting to piss her off. Aquilla pissed her off even more with her smartass smirks because she couldn’t figure it out.
“Give it up, Seri. You’re just not as smart as I am.”
“Just tell me what it is, Quill.”
“No. That wasn’t the deal. I decrypted it. Just admit that you are not as smart as you think you are.”
“I’ll make you a deal.”
“A deal?”
“Yeah, you tell me what it is and I will give you the story of how Monica and I ended up working for the FBI.”
“You told me you would tell me that anyway. That’s not really a deal.”
“Please, Quill. It’s my job. I have to get on this laptop. I didn’t tell Houston about it, did I? He would have already had it in his hands if he knew you had it.”
“And I would never talk to you again. It’s personal, Seri, stuff that Julius wrote to me.”
“Quill, don’t you think the two of us have been through enough together for you to trust that I would never judge you, and I already know how you feel about him?”
“I don’t think you do, not really.”
“Then let me read it, and try to understand.”
“I haven’t read it all yet. I’m afraid there is something in there that will tell you where he is, and you’ll go after him.”
How did she reply to that? She was right. She would go after him, in a heartbeat. There was no doubt that she wanted to bring Julius Chavez to his knees.
“Okay. How about this; I will read it with you and if you feel as though he is about to reveal that information, you can move ahead to where I can’t read that part.”
“There is some pretty fucked up shit in there,” Aquilla warned.
“My whole life has been pretty fucked up. I’m sure I can keep up.”
“And you still have to tell me your story,” Aquilla required, giving in.
“I will.”
Aquilla took the laptop and typed the two passwords to let her on. “I have to go over to my grandparents and meet a bunch of aunts and uncles or some shit. I have a book mark where I left off. I doubt you will get that far. I’m not going to be gone that long, but if you get there, you have to stop.”
“I promise,” Seri said, taking the laptop.
“And this is between you and me? Not Monica, my mom, Houston, nobody, just you and me,” Aquilla advised.
“Okay, Quill. I get it. Go eat hotdogs with your family.”
“Yuck. I’m not eating a hotdog.”
Seri spent two full hours reading the words of Julius. She wiped tears more than once, laughed at the innocent way he loved Quill, and had her heart ripped to shreds when she read about some of the things Julius had been through. She couldn’t imagine seeing her mother and sister crushed beneath a car, and then leaving them.