Sweet Like Revenge

43 - Doomed Spies

I threw open my front door with far too much force, slamming it behind me and flying over to the staircase. I climbed the steps two at a time, my phone practically burning a hole in my cashmere pocket.

Needless to say, my anxiety was just as ripe as it had been when I received the salacious text at lunch.

But even after another five minutes of watching the video on repeat in the quiet of my bedroom, reverse-searching the number to no avail, I still had no idea what it was that I was looking at. Sure, the pixels on the screen were as clear as crystal, the action in the video even clearer, but it was as if my mind simply refused to accept the information being presented to it.

Nate didn't hook up with guys.

Nate was not gay, not even remotely.

Nate was Nate, for crying out loud. The only person in the world straighter than the football-playing, Sienna-crazed, dreamy ocean-eyed heartthrob was Astor fucking Black.

Nate wasn't gay. Which meant there had to be some other reason for why I was staring at a video that showed him on camp, wearing the same clothes I'd seen him wearing that night in the cabin, with his tongue down some other guy's throat.

So I FaceTimed the only person in the world who I had any hope of getting that reason out of.

"Straight guys hook up with other guys all the time, right?"

"Hello to you, too, stranger." Ryan chuckled, using his camera as a mirror and fluffing up his platinum blond hair. "You fell off the face of the earth for a second there. I thought you were dead or something—"

"Ry!" I cried, waving my hands frantically. I fell on top of my bed, staring into the phone as though it possessed all of the answers in the universe. At that moment, it did. "Has a straight guy ever wanted to make out with you? I'm talking a total straight-as-an-arrow macho guy who's maybe just, like, curious? Or drunk? Or doing a dare?"

Ryan's smile faltered. Was that a bad question to ask? It wasn't like tact was the first thing on my mind.

"Well... yeah." He shrugged, "I guess. Straight guys are the worst." He paused. Then, "Why? Do you know one who's interested?"

I brushed off his sarcasm, nodding to confirm the supposition in my head. "That's what I thought. He's just experimenting."

Ryan's amusement melted into confusion. He propped his phone up on his desk, frowning at me in a way that caused my temporary state of relief to totally capsize.

"What?" I asked hesitantly.

I could see that he was debating something, that he was biting down hard on his tongue.

"Ryan!" I prodded, desperately that time.

He sensed my urgency, releasing his tongue from its hold. "This isn't hypothetical. This is about Nate."

The name took a second to reach my diamond-studded ears. And when it got close, my brain spat it right back out.

I stared silently at my pale-faced best friend for what had to have been five very long seconds, my narrowed eyes asking the question my mouth didn't dare: How did you know?

"Ana?"

My head snapped up to find my mother's head poking into my room.

"I've been calling you," she said.

"Sorry." I shook my head from side to side as if that would rid my face of its panic. "I'm talking to Ryan."

"Ry!" My mother bounded towards us, a smile spread from ear to ear. "How are you, darling?"