Whistleblower ✓

35 | the rough (part one)

Bodie didn't come to Human Sexuality on Tuesday. Or Thursday.

I told myself it was a good thing he wasn't in class. It meant I was able to give my undivided attention to the lectures, since I wasn't busy glancing across the room every five seconds to glare at the back of his dumb head.

The week felt like it happened in slow motion.

But, inevitably, Sunday came.

I texted PJ in an attempt to mooch another ride to work, but her sore throat had turned into a full-blown case of the flu, which meant that—not for lack of trying—she was unable to get out of bed.

The bus would've taken hours.

I was left with no alternative.

I walked to the parking garage across the street from The Palazzo, climbed three flights of stairs, and got into my vandalized car.

Driving the LIAR-mobile in broad daylight was about a hundred times worse than the night it'd happened. Andre's sunglasses were my security blanket. I knew, of course, that people could still see my face—and they could definitely still see the word on my hood—but the tinted lenses felt like a shield against both public humiliation and UV rays.

I told myself I'd be alright. I would get through today. If I swung around the side of the clubhouse and parked in the very back corner of the employee lot, under that awful tree that perspired sap, then nobody would even see me.

It was a solid plan.

And it totally went to shit when, on the freeway, I glanced down at my dashboard and realized my engine was running on fumes.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," I chanted as I took the next exit and pulled into the first gas station I could find. "Fuck—" I climbed out of the car, "—fuck—" I jammed my card into the machine, "—fuck!"

I only had the patience for half a tank.

Rebecca was going to have my head on a gold platter.

It was a full ten minutes into my shift when I pulled up to the clubhouse. As I maneuvered into the corner-most spot under the sappy tree (a tricky feat, considering Rebecca had parked her black Lexus in the adjacent spot with its wheel halfway over the white line) my phone buzzed twice in my cupholder.

I cut my engine, ripped my phone off the charging cord, and found a pair of texts from my boss.

where are you?

laurel if your sick get someone to cover for you

I uttered my twenty-seventh fuck of the morning, pocketed my car keys, and booked it to the workers' entrance by the kitchen.

I was all of two steps into the bar when Rebecca materialized before me like a polo-shirt-clad poltergeist. Her hair was slicked back into a tight ponytail. I could've sworn she was wearing eyeshadow and a light coat of mascara. I'd never seen her in mascara.

"Laurel," she said, followed by a phrase I never thought I'd hear come out of her mouth: "Thank God you're here."

"What's wrong?" I asked, because something had to be wrong.

"Get your caddy bib on. Please. Right now."

Yeah, something was up.

I'd seen Rebecca at her most stressed, her most frantic, her most irate. Never had she been desperate enough to pepper in a please.

"Is it the Sherwoods?" I asked.

Rebecca shook her head.

"We have a party of four," she explained as we hustled into the lobby, "and they're really, really important, and two of them want to walk the course. So I just need another set of hands."