Stupid Favours - Favours Series #2

Chapter 30

We had all come over to Vivian's house to go over the pictures with her mother, who surprisingly liked my pictures. She'd said I had a better eye with the camera, than with my footwork on a catwalk.

Maybe next I could sign on as her photographer.

Vivian was now doing a glam session with Kat as her casualty in a separate glam room, which was her way of helping her friends be distracted. Rose and I sat out in a balcony, and she attempted at small talk with me.

"Don't you need to go visit your dad?"

Yes, probably. I could. But that involved paperwork, and a heavy emotional toll. So...

"No." I don't give a further explanation and she drops the subject.

She sets her coffee cup down. "Okay. How did it go with Oliver?" the question was the one that actually mattered.

"It went." Rose gives me a side eye. "He talked, I spoke over him, screamed a little actually, but he's not resisting." I sigh, "I think...he wants help? Like an unwilling victim."

"Wants to help? Oliver?"

"I may have guilt tripped him over Isaac and Annabelle."

"Oliver has a conscious?"

"Even I'm surprised."

Rose shakes her head. We fall quite for a moment before she speak again. "How's Kat handling all this?" Now I'm the one with the curious expression. "She doesn't speak to me about these things. Especially now since its Oliver and Anna...she won't come to me. She trusts you."

"Funny how far we've come huh? This time last year, we'd been plotting to blackmail her and get back the power you guys were robbed of." I shake my head in contemplation.

"Kat's not doing great. But she endures. I think by the end of it all, once she's far from these people, she'll feel better. Best thing is to remind her, that we're here and that no matter what happens, she can come to us."

"Would she come to us? It took her us asking to get the truth about her and Michael."

"Speaking of..." I didn't want to ask. As a friend, I could spam Michael, barge his house, get him to open up. But as a complicated fling, who rejected him twice and plays the friend?

I couldn't just call Michael. Things were too grey. We loved grey areas, but this one was tense.

"He's ignoring my calls, but he's willing to question our whereabouts through text. He never replies instantly as if he's afraid he'd have to pick up when I call."

"Did you try his house?"

She gave me smile, "First thing I did after that bomb drop. I even tried speaking to his dad. But he refused to talk about adult things with me. He was upset though that Michael hadn't picked me."

I frown. "But he didn't pick Katrina either."

"No he didn't. But he also didn't refuse." We go silent for a moment. "But either way, I don't think he had a choice. The Wallins were too perfect of an opportunity to miss."

She releases a sigh and takes a sip of her coffee.

"We should throw her a birthday party."

I held my eyes from an instant roll. Smooth change of topics. Rose was apparently good at parties, but in the rocky year I had spent with them, she hadn't thrown any talk worthy parties.

Although she did help throw all of Michael's...whose parties were always extra.

"We can have it on a yacht."

"Aren't yachts for summer? Anyway, I don't know if a party with people is what she wants right now."

"It is. It'll be like a small slice of freedom for her. Now that we have Oliver on the shelf, we have no problem convincing him."

Last year, I wasn't, hell none of us were particularly fond of Kat. So of course she'd simply flown back to her home country, and probably had to endure the misery of celebrating with her rotten family members.

This time could be so different from any other party in her life. Because we had Oliver, who would have to say yes to anything.

"And to answer your question, when you're rich enough, yachts can be for anything you please. But," she sighs, "I suppose we can put a pin in it for now."

I paused, my gaze on the tiled floor of the balcony.

"Wait, that's it."

"A yacht?"

"No. A birthday party. It could lure them all out to the same room. A room that is our territory."

"What are you thinking?"

"My speciality: blackmail."