“Hey, have you seen Roxanne?” I asked Nate as I passed him in the hall.
He was dressed and looked ready to take on the day. He had on a tacky-looking pair of pants and shiny shoes. He looked like one of the regulars on the Miami scene. It was a good touch since we were going to try and blend in that day. I certainly couldn’t have pulled off an outfi
t like that. I was actually pretty happy that Nate was the one who would be dealing with Stephano and not me. I couldn’t have worn that outfit without laughing.
“You are leaving her room. I would guess she’s in there somewhere.” Nate laughed.
“Nope, I think she went down to breakfast already.”
“I’m on my way down there. I’ll keep here company,” he said with a wink.
“For God sake, don’t make her uncomfortable. I’ll be down in ten minutes.”
“I’ll make her really comfortable.”
Nate knew just how to bug me when it came to women. I didn’t usually have someone around, but the times that I did, he made sure to drive me absolutely crazy. It had gotten him tackled on a few occasions when we were younger.
I hurried and gathered my things in my room and made my way to breakfast downstairs only to find Nate, Chase, Jordan, and PJ all sitting there, but no Roxanne. The feeling in my stomach continued as I looked at the four of them and realized that she was not there. She wasn’t in her room and she wasn’t at breakfast. Where the hell could she be?
“She’s not here, bro,” Nate said.
“Who?” PJ asked.
“Roxanne.”
“Oh, she came and visited with me early this morning. Gave me some tips on dealing with Stephano. She was very helpful.”
PJ looked horrible, but a good horrible. Jordan had worked on her hair and makeup, and PJ looked really damn close to what I imagined a woman who had been held captive would look like.
Her cheeks were sunken in and her hair greasy. Even her collarbones appeared more prominent. After seeing her looking so put together the day before, it was hard to wrap my brain around how she looked as she sat there at breakfast.
“Oh, good, I’m glad she visited with you. Do you know where she went after your talk?” I asked.
I tried not to seem too alarmed, but Roxanne really didn’t have any place she should be going without me with her. Stephano was likely to figure out something was going on when he saw that she hadn’t been back to the hotel we were at before. Quite frankly, simply sending those men to the hotel was enough for me to think that she should stay away from Stephano altogether.
“She said she would catch up with us later today and to be safe,” PJ said. “Was there somewhere you needed her to be?”
“What’s up, Jackson? Where do you think she went?” Chase asked.
“Not sure, I think she got mad when I said we didn’t need her to help anymore.”
“What? Why would you say that to her?” Jordan angrily asked.
From the tone of her voice, I knew that I had done something wrong. There was always a tone that women used when they thought you were being ridiculous. But the problem was I didn’t know exactly what it was that I had done that was so horrible. I had only asked her to stay at the hotel for her own protection. I wasn’t trying to be mean or anything like that. I just wanted to keep her safe.
“Sorry. I didn’t think she would need to be involved anymore. We had the plan to use PJ today and I expect that we will get Ana while we are there today.”
“Oh, God, Chase. Is this what he’s like all the time?” Jordan said in disgust.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I mean, you fucked her until all hours of the night last night and then told her you didn’t need her help anymore. Doesn’t that seem a little bit like you were using her? Don’t you think as a woman she probably felt horrible about having you stay with her and then you saying that?”
The way Jordan said it made me feel horrible. I absolutely wasn’t using Roxanne. I was trying to protect her. I didn’t want her to be anywhere near Stephano or for him to have any clue that she was involved in anything we were doing. As far as he knew, Roxanne had run off with her new boyfriend. I would let Chase and Nathan deal with Stephano regarding PJ, and I would just stay in the background. It seemed like a good plan to me.
“I wasn’t using her. I was protecting her so she didn’t have to be involved anymore,” I said firmly.
“Did you ask what she wanted?” Chase asked.