Just Say Yes (Just Say Yes #2) (12 page)

Sasha chose that moment to yell through the open patio door, “Z, your scrimps are ready! Get off the phone with your fine man and get your skinny ass out here to take care of this shit before it burns!”

Andy cracked up laughing because he could clearly hear my loud-mouthed friend through the phone. “Is she really saying ‘scrimps’ instead of shrimp?”

“Yep, she saw it in a movie years ago and has called them scrimps ever since,” I admitted, thinking back to watching the movie and her spitting out soda when she heard the word.
Freaking Sasha, gotta love that crazy wench.

“Okay then, go take care of your
scrimps
before they get ruined, Beautiful. Will you call me tomorrow?” I didn’t want to get off the phone, but I had stuff to do and I am sure he did too.

“Of course I will. I love you, Sexy.”

“I love you, too. Have another good day tomorrow, Zoey.”

My friends, family, and I sat on the patio devouring our appetizers and drinking margaritas. Dinner was close to being ready, so I tossed the green beans into the steamer. As we waited for them to cook, I sat next to my aunt and scrolled through my phone, showing her all the memories we’d captured during our horseback ride.

“Those are great pictures. See how peaceful you look?”

“Thank you, Tia.” I smiled as I told her all about Josie and Smoke.

Before we sat down for dinner, Sasha pulled me aside. “I thought your aunt’s name was Maria. You keep calling her Tia. You’re confusing the fuck out of me. I don’t know what to call her now.”

Holding back a laugh, I explained to Sasha that ‘tia’ was the Spanish word for ‘aunt’. We sat down for dinner a while later, enjoying our meal and talking about the day’s events. Later that evening I crawled into bed happy, sleeping through the night for the first time since being in Cabo.

The next day we went snorkeling. I hated it. Well, I only hated one part. The tour guides threw broken up tortillas in the water to lure in the fish, which caused them to swarm around us. It freaked me out because they looked like piranha and I was definitely not in to swarms of
any
kind.

The last straw was when one of them slammed itself against my facemask. Yep, that was enough for me. After swimming away from the ‘piranha’
,
I
joined a few other people who found some less threatening fish to look at.

Jess and Sasha had one more day before they returned to Sacramento, so our final activity was going out for one last night of partying. We dressed up, me in my new dress and sandals I bought when we went shopping. Sasha wore a black, mini skirt with a matching corset top and red hooker heels, while Jess dressed in a slightly conservative, but short floral dress and gladiator sandals they’d bought the day before. We snapped a couple of pictures for the memories and headed out the door.

Since it was their last night in Cabo, I was the designated driver for the evening. We arrived at the club and were halfway across the parking lot when my cell phone rang with Andy’s signature ringtone.

“Hang on a sec, girls. Let me get this really quick.” I wasn’t sure why he was calling me back so late, since I talked to him earlier. He was supposed to be out with my brother.

I tapped the screen and said, “Hello.”

Silence.

“Andy? Hello?”

Silence.

“What’s up, Z?” Jess asked.

“I think he butt-dialed me again.”

As I pulled the phone away from my ear to hang it up, I heard a woman moan,
“Andy.”
What the fuck? I pressed the phone closer to my ear and plugged my other ear with my finger to block the noise coming out of the club. Seeing the horrified expression on my face, Jess and Sasha stepped closer, questioning looks on their faces.

I put the phone on speaker and they heard the same thing I did when the woman moaned again. Their eyes grew as large as mine had. Someone was definitely getting lucky and it was definitely Andy’s phone. I was immediately upset in addition to being angry. Was this really happening? He wouldn’t. Not after everything...

We continued to listen. The next thing we heard was a man’s voice moan,
“Oh, Nicole.”

The voices were muffled, but I refused to listen anymore because it was making me sick. Was he really screwing Nicole, one of Jeremy’s old fuck buddies? I thought back to how interested she was in him at Will and Justin’s New Year’s Eve party, and then when she blatantly propositioned him when he went to the bar with Jeremy a different night. I started to end the call but Jess stopped me with a suspicious expression on her face.

“Hang on a second, Z,” she whispered as she whipped out her cell and punched a few buttons.

“Hey, baby, it’s me,” she said into her phone.

Jess had called Noah. She knew he was supposed to be with Andy at the bar playing pool. “Where’s Andy at right now?” she asked my brother.

Jess looked over at me with a relieved expression on her face. “Z, he’s standing five feet away from Noah playing pool. It’s not him on the phone.”

Thank God. She let Noah know what we were listening to on Andy’s phone, then handed me her phone.

“Here’s Andy,” she said.

“Hello,” I said into Jess’s phone.

“What’s going on, Zoey?” Andy asked.

“Where’s your phone?”

“It’s sitting on the table next to my beer.” There was a moment of silence on his end of the line. “No, it
was
sitting on the table. It’s not there now.”

“Well someone has your phone and called me from it. Whoever it is sounds like they’re having a good time with Nicole.”

“Fuck,” he growled. “Stay on the line. I’m going to find it.” He was irate when he let my brothers know what was going on and they went to find his missing phone.

Sasha was holding my cell, which was still on speaker; the two people on the other end were still going at it from the noises they were making.

“I’ll call you right back. I think we found it,” Andy muttered and ended the call before I could say anything. I handed Jess her phone as we continued to listen in on mine.

The next thing we heard over my phone was a lot of commotion, a woman scream, and more moaning. Except that time, the moaning didn’t sound like the
good
kind.

“Zoey, are you still there?” It was Andy, on his phone. Sasha handed my cell back to me and I took it off speaker.

“Yes, I’m here. What happened?”

He was fuming. “It looks like Nicole snatched my phone off the table when she came over to see Jeremy. It was her and Rob in the bathroom, trying to play a little prank on you.”

That fucking piece of shit and skank-whore. God, I hated them for what they just did.

“What did you do when you found them?” I asked, silently hoping Rob was lying on the floor bleeding. I would pay Nicole back on my own the next time I saw her.

“The little fucker took a swing at me so I might have punched him…a few times.”

Nice. “Is he bleeding?” I prayed he was.

“Maybe a little,” he said, chuckling. “Can I just say how good it felt to finally punch him after all this time?”

“Yes, you can, and I hope you got one good punch in there for me,” I joked.

“They were all for you, Zoey. Every one of them,” he stated matter-of-factly.

Deciding we would talk the next day, Andy went back to playing pool with my brothers and I went dancing with my friends. Andy had done nothing wrong. Rob got what he deserved and Nicole would pay as soon as I saw her nasty face again. I wasn’t going to let what happened ruin my last night with my best friends.

The morning of Valentine’s Day, I woke up missing Andy. Well, I woke up every day missing him, but that day it was worse. I had never celebrated Valentine’s Day and it didn’t look like it was going to happen this year either.

Jess and Sasha left the weekend before, so it was only me with my aunt and uncle at the house. They worked during the day, so I went to the stables daily to visit with Josie and help where I could. I woke up early, but was feeling rather lazy, so I decided to lounge around in bed to read after my aunt and uncle left for work. It was still before eight, so I called Andy first.

He answered after the second ring. “Happy Valentine’s Day,” he said, excitedly.

I grinned because he remembered.

“Happy Valentine’s Day to you, too. Do you have a hot date tonight to celebrate?”

He exhaled. “Actually, I was going to talk to you about that.”
Huh?
“I wanted to go on a date with my beautiful girl, but she’s out of the country right now. I was hoping she would have a Skype date with me tonight around seven. Do you think she would do that for me?”

“Of course. She would love nothing more.”

We set up our date for that night at seven.

He cleared his throat. “I just realized we’ve made it halfway through the month. What day do you fly back? I’ll need that information since I’ll be picking you up at the airport.”

I knew down to the exact second I was flying back to him and I couldn’t wait to see his gorgeous face in person. “My flight gets back to Sacramento at three on the twenty-sixth. I am so ready to see you.”

“I’m ready to see you too, Zoey. Send me your flight information next time you think about it. I’d better get ready for work now. I’ll see you tonight at seven for our date. I love you.”

“I love you, too.” I ended our call, very excited for our date night.

I had less than fifty pages left of my book, and decided to stay home to finish it. With it being Valentine’s, the stables probably wouldn’t be too busy and I would go visit with Josie later in the day.

After finishing my book, I was hungry for breakfast so I went to the kitchen, cooked bacon, pancakes, eggs, and added a bowl of fruit for something sweet to eat.

I devoured every single bite of it.

Working with horses every day was a lot of manual labor, but I loved it. I dressed in old jeans and a T-shirt then pulled my hair back in a ponytail. After I brushed my teeth, I packed a beach bag with my bikini, towel, sunscreen, a new book, and left for the stables. If it turned out to be a slow day, I would head to the beach, start my book, and relax.

The stables were in full chaos when I arrived. One of the guides called in sick, so Josie was desperate for my help and I was happy to give it. I hadn’t thought of giving her my cell number until then, so before I left for the day, I would make sure she had it in case she needed help again before I went home to Cali.

Not only was working at the stables a physical job, it was a dirty job as well. By the time my day was over, I smelled like horses, sweat, and dirt. My body was worn out from the work, but I drove home as fast as possible and hopped in the shower.

Even though I was starving, I wasn’t going to have time to make dinner before my date with Andy. I dressed quickly and tried to blow dry my hair, but my stomach was growling so loud, I thought I’d better get food instead. I twisted my long, blonde hair back in a messy bun and jogged to the kitchen where my aunt and uncle were finishing their dinner.

“Zoey, I made you a plate while you were in the shower. It’s in the microwave,” my aunt said as I was rummaging through the fridge, trying to find something premade.

“Tia, you are a saint,” I panted, out of breath from rushing around. “I have a Skype date with my man in two minutes,” I announced, looking at the clock on the microwave as I pulled out my plate.

I didn’t even heat my dinner up. I would eat it cold. I had somewhere important to be. Laughing and shaking her head, my aunt handed me a fork and napkin as I jogged past her to my bedroom to power up my laptop.

Of course, it decided to take forever to boot up. It never failed that when I was in a hurry it decided to take its sweet time.

“Don’t make me upgrade you, you worthless piece of…” The laptop blinked to life at just that moment.
Shit.
I was already late. I logged in, but I’d already missed his call.