JACK'S POV
I paused outside of Lorelei's door, having followed her out of the apartment, a few seconds behind. But instead I sighed and continued walking down the hall, I've probably messed her day up enough as it is. I decided to go for a walk so I made my way onto the elevator and into the lobby. Once I had stepped out into the parking lot I realized that I had no idea where I wanted to go. I wandered the parking lot for a minute before making it to where Lorelei had parked her truck and decided to climb into the bed and just sit there and think for a bit.
No sooner had I sat down than someone asked, "Excuse me, do you know the owner of this truck?" I sighed, turning to face the interrogator, expecting a police officer. "Yes, I do. She's my neighbor" I said, hoping the guy would leave me alone after that. I was shocked to see he wasn't a cop, just some guy, about 21 or 22, with dark hair, muddy green eyes, tan skin and wearing a t-shirt with a flannel and jeans instead. "Oh, cool, so do I. I went to school with her, and well, I just kinda recognized it. James Walters." the guy said, reaching up to shake my hand. "Jack." I answered shortly as I took his hand, not trusting him.
James narrowed his eyes for a second, clearly not liking my not giving him my last name. He shook his head while I maintained eye contact and said, "I saw you walking around and, well you kinda looked upset. So when I saw you climb up here, I figured that we had a mutual friend and hoped that that would be enough to connect us so that I could figure out what was wrong." I sensed that he was trying a little bit too hard to act innocent, so I decided to dart around the truth, then hopefully he'd leave me alone.
"One of my friends was having a bad day, so I brought her to my apartment, and we talked for a bit, but my bed is the couch, so I figured it'd be a bit more comfortable to go in one of my roommates' rooms and I had told her that one of my bad day cures is to just sleep it off, so y'know, we did. Then the roommate whose room it was came in and woke me up and started arguing with me, and, to be completely fair, we both kinda like her, so I see why he's mad. But anyway, us arguing woke her up and we tried to let her stay, but she was just like 'No, I'm just gonna go back home.' So she left, and my roommate and I glared at each other for a few more seconds and then he flopped onto his bed and I left his room and decided to see if I could catch up to her and calm her down. But when I got to her apartment I wasn't so sure about bugging her, so I just decided to come out here and think, maybe go for a walk. So that's where I am right now." I told him, trying to dance around connecting Lorelei to this, in case this was some crazy guy.
James nodded and just said, "Well, I hope it all works out for you, with your roommate and that girl." I muttered a thanks and watched James walk to his car. It was some old Chevy with a Tenessee license plate that read "BECK" and he started messing with his phone. So I had one of two things to choose between, the name he gave me was fake, or that was someone else's car, but something in me said to believe the former. Or maybe he just named his car...but usually guys give cars girl names sooo....going with the first choice.
I stayed in the truck bed for a few more minutes, until I heard 'James' start his car and whip out of the lot. Then I climbed out of the back and went inside. 'I need to talk to Lorelei.' was the thought filling my head as I repeatedly pressed the up arrow on the elevator.
Once the elevator doors opened on my floor I sprinted down the hall and then began banging on Lorelei's door. It took a couple of minutes, but Hayley finally answered the door, brandishing a mop and toy lightsaber. "I believe the lightsaber would be slightly more effective than the mop." I joked after she breathed a sigh of relief when she saw it was me. She chuckled slightly and let me through the door. "What do you want Jack?" she asked loudly, clearly trying to let Lorelei know that it was someone safe. Which only raised my suspicions about this James guy.
Lorelei inched out of her bedroom, glancing around the doorframe. She sighed when she saw me and walked over to join Hayley and me. "I need to talk to you." I said. She nodded, as if she knew what it was about. So I told her about the James guy and our interaction and after I finished she was whispering back and forth with Hayley. I sat and waited patiently for them to finish what they were talking about. Their faces had become very worried when I had told him that the guy had told me his name was James.
They finally stopped talking and Lorelei turned to me, "I really need to tell you some things." she said, glancing fearfully towards Hayley, "First off, my name isn't Lorelei, it's Amilee, but you can call me Lorelei if you prefer, I'd rather go by that now anyway. Second, that guy is not James Walters, his name is Beck Sanders, and he's my ex-boyfriend."
It took a couple of minutes for her to tell me everything and a couple more for me to let it all sink in. Lorelei looked at me expectantly, probably trying to figure out what to do next. "Ok." was all I managed to say. "Ok? That's it?" Lorelei asked. "Well, I don't know...I mean, what can we do? Tell the other guys to watch out for him? Call the police?" I said, not sure what else she wanted me to say. "Jack! He thinks you're dating me!" she yelled. "I don't really see the problem there, that'll get him to back off, right?" "Jack, this is serious! He thinks that you're dating me, but he also thinks that I'm still with him!" she screamed, frustration lining her face. Her voice softened and she looked at the ground as she said, "I don't want any of you guys getting hurt."
"Ok," I said after a couple a minutes of thinking, "I think I have a plan. Travis, Danny, Pete and I are going over to Alex's tomorrow to talk about some stuff. I'll call him tonight and ask him about whether or not you can come over and have a little war meeting at his place with all our friends. He'll probably want to talk to you about it too, just so he knows what's going down. I'll text you what he says. Anyway, you can tell everyone what you told me and then if this meeting happens, we can figure out what to do from there. Ok?" Lorelei and Hayley nodded, agreeing to my plan and I stood up and walked over to Lorelei to give her a hug. I muttered into her hair, "Everything is going to turn out alright. We;re going to try to not let anything bad happen to you." Lorelei hugged me tighter for a few moments before letting me go. "Here," I said, getting my Sidekick out of my pocket, "put your number in so I can tell you what Alex says." "I got your number out of Hayley's phone." she mumbled shyly as her fingers moved across the keyboard. I smiled and she handed me back my phone. "Alright, I'll text you in a bit." I said, walking towards the door and waving goodbye.
"I'm back!" I yelled upon reentering my apartment. I heard some sort of sound from Pete's room, but nothing from anywhere else. So I sat on the couch and called Alex. He answered on the fourth ring, "Make it quick Barakat." he said, knowing that I'd probably bug him until he answered. "Ok, this is legitimately important, I swear." I said, then launched into explaining my plan, without telling him exactly what Lorelei wanted to say, wanting that to be her and telling him that he could call her if he wanted to know what she wanted to meet about. When I finished my explanation he said, "Yeah, sure, it's all good. After our meeting she can have hers. Just tell her that two of our other friends are coming to our meeting, and she can come to that and meet them to see if she wants to tell them too." "Alright, I'll tell her about them." I said. "Awesome, now was that it, because Steph and I just went on a run, and uh...you know how I am about being all sweaty and gross and talking to people and all that...." he said. I rolled my eyes, wishing he could see my face over the phone. "Yeah, yeah, I get the memo, that's all I wanted to talk to you about anyway." I said. "Awesome, bye." Alex said, hanging up before I could say goodbye to him too.
After the call ended I laid down on my back and went to text Lorelei.
Alex says that the meeting is on. He's a bit busy atm, so he's not going 2 ask u about anything. But he wanted me 2 tell u that 2 of our other friends r going 2 b @ his house. U can come w/ me & the guys 2 meet them beforehand if u want 2 c if u want to have them n on it 2. They're both rlly chill, I think U'd like them.
I sent the text and let the phone rest on my chest, shutting my eyes while I waited for a reply. But the day must've really tired me out, because I didn't see it until the next morning:
Alright. I'm in, tell me when you're leaving.
