Noted

Chapter 11

I woke up to Troy sleeping soundly beside me, I was  so used to waking up to an empty bed; that a little bit of company felt nice. He stretched out his arms in search of my body but was already standing next to the bed and he was left with an armful of warm bed sheets. He looked up to find me smiling at his sleepy-ness. He returned a smile but seemed too comfortable to move a muscle. I thought the smell of pancakes would get him out of bed. I proceeded to the kitchen and left him to snooze a bit longer.

I set my first stack of pancakes onto a plate and like magic, Troy was suddenly in the kitchen.

"Are you cooking?" he asked.

"Yeah, I thought you'd be hungry." I replied, admiring his slept-in messy hair and tired eyes. He even looked gorgeous in the morning. "Besides, pancakes are kind of my specialty....Blueberries or chocolate chip?"

"I'm starved." he said, scratching his head with one hand and his stomach with the other, slightly lifting up his shirt. I looked away as quick as possible. "And do you really need me to answer that question?"

"Chocolate chip it is." I smiled and turned back to the stove.

"Did you sleep at all?" he asked, even though he knew we were both tossing and turning all night.

"Not so much, you?"

"Yeah, me neither." he said, looking down at the plate of pancakes I had just placed in front of him. "Do you regret what happened last night?" he asked, taking my hand before I could turn around. I was about to reply but then we heard the front door open, we both turned to see who had entered the apartment. I swallowed my heart for a second thinking it was my father, but it wasn't anyone to be terrified of.

"Hi, Amelia," I said to our family's maid.

"Hola, Miss Moore," she replied as she deposited some bags on the counter. "Here's the New York Times."

"Mr. Moore isn't here this morning," I informed and pointed at the table with my spatula, adding, "Can you place it on the table? My hands are gooey right now."

Amelia smiled at Troy, and he gave her a warm smile.

"¿Hola, cómo está usted?" she asked Troy.

How  did she know he spoke spanish?

"Muy bien, gracias. ¿y tu?" he replied.

"Si, muchas gracias," Amelia replied and left the room.

I saw Troy pick up the news paper and started to read it to himself.

"So did our plan work? Did it make it to the Times?" I asked, still facing the stove. When Troy hadn't answered, I turned to face him, and his eyes were glued to the Times.

"Troy, talk to me." I demanded. My hands started to go numb, something wasn't right. His morning flush disappeared before my eyes. He went pale, as pale as he could.

"We...we made it to the Times, all right..." he said very slowly as he read with his eyes seemingly out of focus.

"What do you mean?" I asked as I walked towards him. I took the paper out his hands, and suddenly dropped my spatula just as my eyes met the paper's headline:

"ACTRESS OLIVIA SWAN: MURDERED!'

"You need to leave!" I insisted as I dashed back to the stove and shut it off.

"I'm not leaving." Troy insisted. "Especially now." He was shaken but I couldn't have him here a second longer. I had fucked up.

I urged him out of the apartment as I grabbed his things off of the floor which had been there since the night before. I took his soggy coat and his large boots and ushered him out the door. "Maybe you were right last night," I said as I pushed him out. "I think we shouldn't be seen together." Once he was out of the apartment, I slammed the door in his face.

"Quinn!" Troy called from behind the door.

A couple of tears fell from my eyes as I slid down the door, clutching the newspaper in my hands as I sobbed as quietly as I could. The cover displayed the events of last night, Olivia going into an ambulance and my father going in with her. It worked, the truth was out. What had I done?

I kept telling myself that I was an idiot. Over and over in my head. Of course it was a stupid and rash idea, of course karma wasn't going to let it slide and of course I just had to involve the only good thing that was going on in my life. I was so stupid to think I would get out free of anything.

I finally got up from the floor and slowly walked away from the front door. I didn't want Amelia to have any suspicions about why I was crying over the death of an actress. Just as I stepped into the hallway, the front door opened. I was convinced it was Troy coming back for me, but it was my father.

"I told you to deal with this!" he shouted into his cell-phone as he slammed the door shut. "Now it's on the cover; you fix this now!" He hung up and threw his brief-case onto the kitchen table and let out a deep, frustrated, furious sigh.

"What in the world?" he questioned, noticing the mess in the kitchen, and shouted, "Quinn, are you home?"

I felt my heart fall into my stomach. I had to put on my best poker face. I took two deep breaths before walking slowly back down the hall to find him waiting impatiently. "Yes?" I asked, as innocently as I could.

"You had company?" he asked, anger still boiling inside of him. I knew it wouldn't be much longer until he'd release his rage on me; like he always did.

"Yes, Tr-I...uh, I had a friend sleep over..." I said with difficulty; I was having a hard time acting normal in front of him. "She couldn't walk home in the storm last night, so I let her stay...and she had to leave before we could eat...and I didn't have time to clean up..." Realizing I was rambling and making matters worse, I shut up immediately.

Luckily, my dad didn't notice. I studied his face, trying to find some sort of emotion over Olivia's death, but he wore the same old inexpressive look he always did. I figured that either he didn't actually have deep feelings for Olivia, or he had a better poker face than I did.

"Send Amelia in here to clean up." he said as he left the kitchen and headed towards his office, taking his brief-case with him.

Once he was behind closed doors, I let out a deep sigh.