WHITE LIAR

Chapter 24

Chapter 24

 

The next morning, Justin pulled into the school parking lot and parked his car in his usual space.  He was dragging after staying up over half the night, Googling and Facebooking for any bits of information that he could get on Chloe and her old school.

He hadn’t been able to come up with much, other than she went to Westbrook High, which was only about an hour from where they were now.  When the alarm clock started flashing three am, he could no longer hold his eyes open and was forced to give up his fact finding mission for the night.  Frustrated, he closed his lap top and fell face first into the sheets.

When the alarm clock went off three hours later, Justin felt like he had just drifted to sleep.  Yawning widely, he pulled himself out of the bed and fumbled his way to the shower.

It was in the shower when something suddenly occurred to Justin.  He was lathering up his hair and remembered John telling him about a cousin that he had that went to Westbrook.  He only remembered that particular conversation because that cousin was also on the football team and John went on and on about some kind of family rivalry the two of them had going for the best stats.

Leaning his head back, he let the steamy jets of hot water spray over his soap lathered scalp. Now that he was finally on to something, Justin vigorously ran his fingers through his hair, rushing to rinse out the strongly scented Axe shampoo.  He needed to call John.

He figured if this cousin of John's was on the football team, then there was a good chance that he knew pretty much everyone in the school, including Chloe.  And if he knew Chloe, then he may just be the key to all of the answers he was looking for.

After he got out of the shower, Justin didn’t even bother with drying off.  Instead, he quickly grabbed the towel off the sink, and wrapped it around his waist.  When he walked out of the bathroom, he still had water dripping off his naked torso.  Combine that with the cool air blowing from the air conditioner, goose bumps broke out like a rampant rash all over his skin.  But even that didn’t faze him.  All he could think about, was getting to his phone and getting in touch with John.

He found his phone still in jeans pockets from the night before.  Picking it up, he flipped it open and didn't even bother to look at the time when he sent his first text to John.  He was desperate and desperate times call for desperate measures.  He considered this to be one of those times.  He needed to know what was going on with Chloe.  She had become such an enigma to him and he had a feeling that he wouldn't get a decent nights rest until he knew what was going on.  He just hoped that John could put him in touch with this cousin of his and the sooner, the better, or else he was going to go crazy trying to figure it all out.

When Justin finally got out of his car, he checked his phone again to see if he had a response from John.  There was nothing.  Sighing in frustration, he shoved his phone in his back pocket, grabbed his book bag from the passenger seat and slammed the door closed.

He had no more than turned around when Cathy stepped in front of him.  She smiled her usual seductive smile and placed a hand on his chest.  The meaning of the gesture wasn’t lost on him at all.

“You’re late,” she breathed out heavily, looking up at him underneath those long dark lashes of hers.  Her lips were fixed in a childish pout and it didn’t take a fool to see what her game was.

At one time, he had loved to play this game with her.  The sexy game where she rubbed up on him and teased him with her body all the time putting on quite a show.  But now, with those fake lashes and especially the way that she outrageously batted them at him, if all just seemed ridiculous in hindsight.