Where We Began

chapter twenty-four

To say we tore that room apart was an understatement. Each piece of bedding was pulled off one by one and shaken out the piled into the corner. The mattress was lifted off the frame and placed against the wall. The entire frame was picked up at one point while Rebecca and I looked under it. We looked everywhere in the room but there wasn't even a trace of a wrapper.

"Um, what are you guys doing?" Mandi emerged from the bathroom with a full face of makeup and her hair done.

"Zane is a dumbass," Eli said as he and Cole lifted the mattress to put it back on the frame.

"Okay?" Mandi looked at me confused.

"Mandi, I started trying to figure out the best way to ask if he had put on a condom to not freak her out or sound weird.

"Did Zane put on rubber?" Rebecca flat out asked her, tired of looking and dealing with messy sheets.

"I uh," she paused thinking, "I don't remember."

"Welp," Cole said putting his hand on Zane's shoulder, "better get used to being called daddy in a not sexual way."

Zane looked like he may actually pass out as Cole pushed his shoulder so he sat down on the bed. In all the years I've known Zane to be a man whore this had never happened. He was very strict on protection. He didn't care if the girl said she was on birth control; he was wrapping it. At one point we had an ongoing joke about him opening his own line of condoms.

"Zane?" Mandi said sitting on the bed beside him, "are you all right?"

"I think I'm going to be sick," he said, leaning forward and resting his head in his hands.

"I am so sorry," Mandi whimpered, putting her hand on his bicep.

"It's not your fault," he sat up and looked at her, "I should have been more responsible. I knew better, you didn't"

"As much as I love it when Zane is wrong and admits to it," Eli said holding the bathroom trash can, "I found it."

"Oh thank fuck," Zane said sighing in relief and pulling Mandi close to him, kissing her forehead.

"Okay so now that we won't have mini dumbasses running around," Cole laughed, running his hand through his curls, "Food anyone?"

"I have to call my mom," Mandi said, grabbing her phone, "I don't have my car here. We brought Thea's car down so no one would recognize mine."

"We can all squeeze in my car then we can drop you off at home," I offered.

"Yeah," Rebecca added, "I can sit on Eli's lap."

"So iHop?" Eli suggested, for having such a toned body he could eat anything and not gain an ounce.

"I'm driving," Cole said as we all headed to our rooms to collect our things, check out and pile into the mom car.

"My brother is going to meet us there," Mandi said sitting between Zane and Eli who had Rebecca on his lap, "if that's okay?"

"Yeah sure," I turned to smile at her, "is he your older brother or younger?"

"Older but only by a couple minutes," she giggled, "I have three brothers."

"Oh this is going to be interesting," Cole laughed, shaking his head as Zane flipped him off.

Fifteen minutes later we pulled into the iHop parking lot where we saw three guys leaning against a camaro. One looked like the male version of Mandi with highlighted dirty blonde hair and a medium build dressed in jeans and a hollister t-shirt. The other two resembled the first but they were taller like Zane and Cole. One had a short military style haircut and the other had light brown hair under his backward baseball cap.