We Were Strangers| Completed

part 38

Later that night, sometime after 11 p.m., I awoke with a kick to the stomach as Nico stirred awake, stretching his legs.

"Oww!" I exclaimed as I awoke. Nico turned to face me, rubbing his eyes as he looked down at my stomach, which I clutched from the pain.

"Sorry." He laughed. What a jerk! He was laughing at my misery. As I felt the pain fade away, I rolled my eyes. As a form of forgiveness, he drew me in closer and attacked my face with kisses. I felt better seeing how his mood had improved and that he was now feeling much better. His face lit up with a genuine smile.

"I should probably get going," I said, breaking our perfect little bubble.

"I have an early shift tomorrow, and I really miss my bed," I confessed. He nodded, fully understanding.

I straightened my shirt, moved my legs over the bed, and finally touched the cold floor. I put on my slippers. While I was doing that, Nico got out of bed and moved closer to the door. Before turning his head to face me, he cracked it open.

"I'm going to see if Enzo's here." He said this as he slipped out of the room and around the corner to make his way downstairs. I stood in the middle of the room, patiently waiting for Nico to return.

I was fixing my hair when my eyes were drawn to the room, and I noticed a shadow. I held my breath and ran to the closet, but before I could get there, the sound of faint footsteps walking into the room was heard.

I reluctantly turned around, my eyes widening as I looked down to the ground where Blue had waltzed in, drooling as his red ball slipped out of his mouth and rolled on the floor.

He let it fall to the ground as the dog pawed at me, jumping in delight when he saw me. I approached him, crouching down to his level and scratching behind his ear.

"You scared me," I muttered to him as I rose from crouching and wiped my hands away. I watched Blue as he went to each corner of the room, losing focus and looking for his red ball that rolled under the bed. I heard a sound echo, and my thoughts were interrupted by another message.

I moved my gaze to the right side of the bed, where a brown nightstand with a phone sat. I examined the cracked phone as I moved closer to it. Upon clicking the screen, a few messages were displayed. When another message from Mason came in, I fought the urge to look at his phone.

Curiosity won, and I unlocked the phone by entering his passcode and hovering over the message app.I opened the app and looked at the long list of contacts, noticing the recent messages and seeing he had a few unread messages, the majority of which were from Mason, who was the person texting him now. But it wasn't that conversation that drew my attention, but the name below Mason's. I knew I shouldn't have been on his phone, but after seeing Jade's name, I had to find out what was going on. Why was the chat so recent?

My heart began to race, and my hands began to tremble. Should I take a look? I was torn between doing the right thing and putting the phone back down and looking to see what was going on.

It was as if an angel and a devil were perched on my shoulders, whispering into my ear, and directing me on what to do. Finally, the devil on my shoulder won, and I clicked on her name, which opened the message. I told myself that it was probably nothing. There was no reason to doubt. Except I knew deep in my gut that to stop my overthinking, I had to see for myself. I scrolled up to look at the last message she sent five hours ago.

Rather than a message, my gaze was drawn to a photograph. I was taken aback when I saw a picture of Jade standing in the mirror wearing a black lace panty and bra set. The text message under the photo read, "Hope you're not regretting what you did."