Just like that Sarah was yanked out of her near frantic mood, and she laughed, feeling like a drama queen. “No!” She laughed even more thinking about what she must’ve sounded like to Sydney. Taking a deep breath, she tried again only this time a lot calmer. “He went to a party last night. One Dana threw at a hotel. Not with her. But there are all kinds of pictures of him with her online now. Since he never called or texted me last night like he said he would, it’s just making me crazy. And, no, I don’t want to go party in Havasu because of this. You know that’s not like me. It’s just that this is already making me insane, and I know I won’t be hearing from him at least until this afternoon when his game is over. I’ll be losing my mind by then, so I was thinking since I’m pretty much done with my paper maybe I should get out. Get my mind off all this. It’s what Valerie’s doing.”

“You should,” he said simply, “even if he hadn’t gone to a party or taken pictures with Dana. Why not? It’s a three-day weekend. Go enjoy yourself.”

“But you don’t think because this did happen he’ll think I’m being petty, trying to get back at him?”

“He might,” Sydney said then chuckled. “Actually, it’s probably exactly what he’ll be thinking, but unless he has a damn good reason for not only going to Dana’s party but hanging out with her when he knows how you feel about her and then not even bothering to call you, I’d say he doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on and argue. Besides we know he has nothing to worry about. It’s not like you’re going out there to get crazy.”

Smiling weakly, Sarah still debated whether she should go or not. She really didn’t want Angel to think she was playing games because it wasn’t about that. It just scared her how quickly she’d gone from staying calm and giving Angel the benefit of the doubt to nearly losing it. She knew now the longer she sat around all day waiting and possibly more photos resurfacing—photos she’d be too weak to keep herself from looking at—the worse she would feel about it. She’d go nuts all day unless she had a major distraction.

As soon as she got off the phone with Sydney, she called Valerie and told her she was in. Valerie was beyond ecstatic. Fortunately, she didn’t mention any more about the happenings in Hawaii. Sarah really didn’t want to hear anymore, not from Valerie or anyone else but Angel. Anything she heard from anyone else would be hearsay and only serve to piss her off for possibly no good reason.

She pulled out her overnight bag and started throwing a few things in it. She concentrated on what she’d need out there. As chilly as it was beginning to get out here near the beach, Valerie said it was still in the low hundreds in Havasu. She even told Sarah to pack a bathing suit—more than one.

A couple of hours later, she had showered, packed and was waiting for Valerie. She still hadn’t heard a thing from Angel, but she figured he was likely in the middle of warm-up drills for the game. It’d be at least a few hours before she heard anything from him. She’d be halfway to Havasu by then.

Suddenly she remembered how rudely and abruptly she’d cut Leonardo off. Not wanting to fire up her laptop, she decided to text him instead.

So sorry about this morning. I just had a few things going on all at once. But that was really rude of me. Anyway, I decided to go to Havasu after all. I’m waiting for my cousin to pick me up now. =)

Unlike the rest of the times when she emailed or texted him, he didn’t respond immediately, and she wondered if maybe he was mad about her rudeness.

Valerie and Monica arrived to pick her up. Her mom was back from shopping with her aunt and walked them out, asking all the usual mom questions. Where were they staying? Did they have enough money? Had they packed enough clothes? And she then gave them all the usual warnings about not drinking too much or drinking and driving and watching out for crazies, etc. Finally, a few minutes later, they were on the road.

“Hey,” Valerie said, and Sarah looked up from her phone in the back seat, meeting Valerie’s eyes in the rearview mirror.

“Huh?”

“Road trip rules.” Her eyebrow went up before bringing her attention back to the road. “No checking Facebook for annoying photos. No talk of those two infuriating brothers unless either of them call or text us directly. And no sulking all weekend no matter what. We’re going out there to have fun. I know you’re not single, and I don’t expect you to act as if you were, but I do expect you to have fun, okay? No fuddy-duddies. That’s not why I invited you.”

Sarah frowned, glad Valerie was looking straight ahead and not into the rearview mirror anymore. She didn’t care for her cousin lumping Angel into the same category of infuriating as Alex because he was far from it. But the last photo she’d just seen of him and Dana on her phone’s Facebook app was pretty damn infuriating. She threw her phone in her bag and looked out the window.

“Agreed,” she said. “No Facebook, no talk of the Morenos and no fuddy-duddies. I will have fun. I promise.”

“Good,” Valerie said, turning up the music, and did a fist pump.

Taking a deep breath, Sarah had a sudden thought. She and Angel had been inseparable for so long. In all the times she’d been with him, she’d never even gone out to a local party without him. Not only was she doing so now she was doing it out of state in a major college crowd party resort and for the whole weekend. Before she could start feeling bad and let the unease in her stomach manifest, she reminded herself that Angel was in Hawaii without her. For as much as he said he wished she was there before and even though she didn’t have all the facts yet, one fact was clear. He’d be out there all weekend, and he hadn’t even been able to wait to get started. His first night there he’d gone out to party and to none other than Dana’s party. The reminder was enough to snuff out any guilt she’d started to feel about doing this.