“What’s going to be okay?” Riley asked, clearly not following.
He heard Jason clear his throat, “Look, can you do me…”
“And me!” He heard Katie chime in in the background.
“...and Katie, a favor?” Jason asked.
“Yeah, what do you need?” Oh well, Riley thought, this short reprieve of no one needing anything and not having to answer to anyone seems to have ended quite abruptly.
“Chelle, Eddie’s sister, is in San Francisco, staying in Katie’s apartment. She hasn’t answered her phone in a couple of days, and now it’s just going straight to her voicemail.”
Riley felt like his heart stopped beating in his chest, “Shit! I won’t be able to get there for hours! Why aren’t you calling the police?”
“No, no, it’s not like that. We know nothing has happened to her. Katie’s landlord, Randall, said he saw her last night when a pizza was delivered.”
“Then, if you know she’s fine, why did you call me?” Riley snapped at his brother. He didn’t mean for his voice to come out sounding so harsh, but he was a bit taken aback by the out-of-control sensation he had just experienced at the thought that something may have happened to Chelle.
Truth be told, he never liked any of the feelings he had ever experienced which related to Chelle. They all seemed a little out of control. He didn’t appreciate them being brought to the surface, not today. Today was supposed to be carefree and happy, not intense.
“Look, do you remember David Price?” Jason asked.
“Yeah, that douchebag from school,” Riley stated dismissively. He had never liked David, even before he and Chelle had started dating in high school, and he had definitely not liked the little prick after that.
Jason laughed a little, “You always were a good judge of character. Well, David and Chelle were engaged, in fact, they were supposed to get married next month.”
Riley felt like someone punched him in his gut. He had seen that Chelle was engaged to David when he had checked out her Facebook profile a few months back. And even though he had tried not to, he had been checking it fairly frequently since then. He had not seen any posts that indicated that the wedding was that damn soon!
“Then a week ago,” Jason continued, “on the morning of our wedding, as a matter of fact – thank you, Douchebag David – he tells her that he’s been cheating on her with his secretary Kayla, who is eighteen and pregnant.”
Now he didn’t feel like someone had punched him. Now he just wanted to punch - no scratch that - kill David.
“She needed to get out of town, and Katie still had the apartment, so she went to San Francisco to stay in it. Katie's been calling her every day to check on her, and she seemed to be doing okay until a few days ago. That's when she stopped picking up her phone when Katie would call, she would just text back that she was fine. Now she’s not even texting back and when we call her phone, it's going straight to voicemail.
“Eddie was going to head out to California and bring her home, but Emily came down with the chicken pox and so he had to stay with her. Katie wants to catch the next flight out of here to go make sure she’s alright, but I remembered you were gonna be in California. So, I thought if you could go and check on her, then maybe I can convince my wife to stay in paradise with me just a little longer.”
Riley heard Katie in the background saying that of course she wanted to stay with Jason, but she was just worried about her friend. He smiled. He had always liked Katie, and he knew his brother had been head over heels for her all his life. He was glad that things had finally worked out for them.
Riley, truth be told, was still having a hard time wrapping his mind around the fact that Jason and Bobby were both married. When he had left for the Marines, Jason was 16 and Bobby was 12. Now they were grown men - married men. And he had missed both of their weddings. Jason’s by only a few days. He had a lot of time to make up for in this new phase, he knew.
“Yeah, no problem. Tell Katie not to worry, she can stay in paradise. I’m only about four hours from San Francisco. I’ll stop by before my flight out of Oakland tonight.”
“Great, I’ll text you the address. Thanks Riley.”
The phone line went dead and Riley couldn’t quite put his finger on what he was feeling about this unexpected detour. He no longer felt light and carefree. He felt tense, on edge, anxious. Partly because he now did have someone he had to check in with. But mainly because he knew that he was a few hours away from seeing the only person he had ever let in, ever let see behind the curtain.
He didn’t know what it was about Chelle that made her so easy to talk to, so easy to open up to. What he did know was that every time they had spent any amount of time alone together he had ended up spilling his guts.