"I don't need to work tonight," I said to my mother.
She shook her head. "No, go ahead. I'm not feeling well. I'm going to head upstairs."
She left and I stayed in the kitchen feeling nervous. My father pretended like nothing was wrong. He even tried to hum as he put away the food he had brought home for me. After the counter was cleared, he headed towards his office and shut the door.
I checked my watch – it was not even 9 pm. The happy hour party at Owen's apartment was probably turning into an all-nighter. I shoved the thought away and headed downstairs. Sienna would have stayed focused.
Still, I checked my messages before I logged on. There were two from Owen.
"Quinn, I don't know what happened. I guess I freaked out. I forgot to eat and drank too much and it all fell apart. How did it all fall apart? I need to talk to you. I need to see you. Please, call me. I didn't mean to hurt you," his first message said.
The second message hurt. "Your ex-boyfriend is all in my face telling me I cheated on you. You're going to believe him over me? I don't know what you think you saw, but you should know better. I'm not with Anya. How could you think that? Quinn, please call me. This is ridiculous. I can't believe you walked out on me."
Owen thought I walked out on him? I tossed my phone aside before I could smash it. Instead of logging on, all I could do was pace the length of our basement family room. I knew I needed to let it go. There was no way I could respond to Owen now. The brisk pacing helped me. It would be stupid to do anything about it until the morning. There was no harm in letting it go until then. That meant I had hours to do something practical, something for myself.
Finally, my breathing returned to normal. I picked up my phone, set it screen down on the coffee table, and tried to get to work. I found the secure website for the Beta version of the Mars game and was about to log on when my phone rang.
I reached for it and then sat back three times before I finally picked it up. "Hello?"
"Oh, Quinn. I'm glad I caught you," Darla said. "I just heard from some friends that Trent is coming out to visit you. I thought you might want a heads up."
"Too late," I said. "I ran into him at a party at Owen's, but trust me that was not the worst part of my night."
"Your ex arriving to try to charm you into forgiving him was not the worst part of your night? Do I even want to know?"
"No. You probably don't want to know that right after Owen and I got closer than we've ever been, he drank too much and may or may not have made out with this gamer chick that's been trying to snag him for years," I said. "Oh, and you probably don't want to know that I think Owen's roommate is setting him up to take the fall for his drug-dealing. But, of course, Owen would not listen to me because he saw me with Trent."
"Yeah, you were right," Darla said. "I did not want to know any of that – especially when I am four hours away and can't get there in time to help you!"
I laughed. "Don't worry. I got out of there and I'm hiding out in my parents’ basement. Oh my God, I know that made it sound worse, but it’s actually okay."
"Thank God you sound okay," she said. "So, have you thought more about taking that rich hottie's thank you money?"
"It was tempting, but I'm going to do this for myself," I said.
"Now that is what I wanted to hear," she said. "Every time you say something like that, you sound better than you have in months."
"I feel better, too, about that at least." My phone buzzed. "Of course, right when I say that, I get a text from Trent."
"Well, call me later if you need. Wake me up, I don't care. Miss you!" Darla said.
She hung up and I checked the message from Trent.
"Back at party, more people here. Asking around and no one in computers, tech, or web design. O is sobering up," he wrote.
"Did you confront him?" I wrote back.
"Yes. He had no idea what happened. Someone slip him shots?" Trent texted.
"Don't care." I wrote.
"Sorry, babe, here for you."
"Sure you are," I said out loud. "You're at a party for me."
I tried to ignore what Trent had said. Asking people what they did for a living was easy party talk so I was not surprised Trent had talked to people about it. The fact that none of Jasper's friends were in computers or IT was surprising. And it bothered me that Owen had gotten so drunk he did not remember the scene in the bedroom with Anya. Had someone slipped shots of alcohol into his beer to get him drunk faster?
Another text from Trent buzzed my phone. "Anya left with Jasper. Got weird vibe. Am coming over to see you."
"No thanks," I wrote back.
Trent did not respond and I was not surprised when I heard the doorbell ten minutes later. I sprinted up the stairs, but my father's office was closer to the front door and he beat me to it.
"Hello, Mr. Thomas, may I come in?" Trent asked in his best well-mannered voice.
"I don't think so," my father said. He turned to glare at me. "Did you invite him over?"
"No, actually I told him not to come," I said.
Trent stood on his tiptoes to see me over my father's shoulder. "Know how I told you that Anya left with Jasper and it felt a little weird? Well, I got in my car and had only made it to the end of the block before I passed a police cruiser," he said.
There was a noise upstairs. My father left the front door and went up the staircase to check on my mother. I took up his position blocking the entryway.
Trent fidgeted on the front steps. "I know it was stupid, but I circled around and I saw the cops busting the party."
"I really don't want this to be my problem," I said. "I tried to warn Owen and he did not want to listen to me."
"I know, and I think you're right," Trent said. "I just wanted you to know I think your theory was right. Anya and Jasper left just before the cops arrived. I saw the cops taking Owen out to a squad car. They arrested him."
My heart sank. So much for staying out of it. "The police would not have done that unless they found something on him. Either Anya or Jasper planted something on Owen."
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Quinn
I hung on to the front door and wondered what I should do. If someone had slipped marijuana into his pocket, then the police had finally found what they were looking for. It would not matter if he had tested clean for drugs. The searches and the possession were against him. It was a thin case, but the police would have something on him now.
"I just thought you should know," Trent said. "Owen's a big boy, he can take care of himself. It's really just a misdemeanor. He probably resisted and that's why he was taken in."
"That makes it worse, don't you think?"
"He made his own decisions," Trent said.
"Not if his roommate planned to set him up in order to take the heat off himself," I objected. "This could ruin Owen's career, at the very least his credibility. He'll probably lose his sponsors."
"But, honey, you don't have to fix it," Trent said. "You don't have to fix everyone."