Walrus Chain (Walrus Hut Series Book 3)

Chapter 37 (Mitchell)

Man, that backfired. Everybody literally hates me now.

"Plan A was a real failure," I tell Jason during breakfast. He's one of the special few that will talk to me.

"You're an idiot," says Jason. "I'm risking my reputation just by sitting with you right now."

"You have to because we're related, and you'll get in trouble if you abandon me," I say with a shrug. 

"You do realize you cheated, right?" Says Jason.

"Actually, Bridget cheated," says Lilla, taking a seat in one of the many empty chairs at my table. "And I made the terrible choice of not saying anything to my childhood best friend because having Bridget as an enemy was not very fun."

"Why are you even talking to me," I say with a sigh. "I've accepted my new title as the terrible person of the group. Becky called me a jerk a few minutes ago, and I said thank you!"

"He's dying on the inside," Jason loudly whispers to Lilla.

"To answer your question, Haymitch," she says with a smirk. No! Not the nickname from when we were dating!

"I'm kind of beyond all of this for once," she continues. "I think everyone is reacting without all the facts. Fact one: Bridget is a known cheater. She went out with Justin when she was dating you, and as we know now, she cheated on JJ with you."

"She probably cheated on Garfield with Cole," I say calmly.

Jason chokes on his orange juice. "When was that a thing?"

"Interesting theory," Lilla says, patting my shocked cousin on the back. "Oh, and let's not forget the time she went out with Jack while I was still dating him!"

Jason chokes again. "You dated Jack?"

"You already knew about that," Lilla says, rolling her eyes. "Anyway, Bridget had it coming. I know you were trying to break them up so she would be with you, but all you really did was expose her, and hopefully, she learned her lesson. So yeah, I'm not shunning anybody at the moment. Nice chat!" She finishes, standing up. "This doesn't leave the table," she says, patting it for emphasis before walking away.

"Wow," I say. Lilla confuses me in so many different ways.

"That woman is driving me crazy!" Jason hisses at me.

"Oh, so you finally come to your wise cousin for advice in the love department!" I say with a knowing smile.

"You are the last person I would go to for advice," says Jason. "Although you did know Lilla extremely well at one point."

"And I don't want to revisit that, thank you!" I say, standing up. "I'm going to frame JJ for a crime he didn't commit! See ya!"

"No!" Jason groans as I walk away.

I know for a fact that I will most definitely be moved into a different room from JJ at the next hotel, so this is my only chance. I'm going to search through JJ's stuff for anything suspicious, and if I don't find anything, I'm going to plant something! I have no idea when he'll come back, so I need to work fast.

"What is going on in here?" Mr. Hayes asks, strolling into the room. Ah, I should've closed the door. He takes in JJ's third of the room and how I've completely ransacked it. In fact, he caught me right as I was elbow deep into JJ's suitcase.

"Not again, Mitchell," says Mr. Hayes. "Stoker's going to kill me. I mean, I'm going to kill Stoker! Well, not physically but metaphorically. Because I'm the one calling the shots here! Not him!"