Page 202 of Taeja

“Hmm… How was it when you and Zain spoke about your lifestyle to your parents?”

“It was surprising to them at first, but it wasn’t strange or hard to accept because Zain and I have always shared everything.”

Cassedi opened her mouth, closing it when her phone rang. She grabbed the phone, then looked at Damon with an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry. I have to take this.”

Damon nodded and walked a short distance away to give her some privacy. He could still hear Cassedi’s voice.

“Yes, Sister Pansy?” A pause. “No, I said I wouldn’t make it to choir practice because I am out of town with my daughter and her boyfriends… Yes,boyfriends…” Cassedi laughed dryly. “Sister Pansy, I know you didn’t just say that! Hello, please remember that your daughter is twenty-three with five kids and they all have different surnames, and I’ve never seen a ring around her finger except when she was in primary school buying plastic jewelry from Brother Bertel’s shop! Bye to you too, Pansy! Feisty.” Cassedi hissed her teeth and ended the call with a huff. Then, she called Damon back over.

Damon sat. “Are you okay?” he asked, not wanting to seem like he was eavesdropping.

“Yes,” Cassedi said with a bright smile. “Now where were we? Right. I’ve been watching everyone and trying to better understand everything, but I can’t completely wrap my head around it. I see that you two care for my baby girl and she cares for you too, but it seems so complicated to me.”

“Zain’s my twin and best friend, so everything feels natural to us. Sometimes it takes our family and friends time to adjust, but it doesn’t bother us.” Damon shrugged.

“Hm… I see. As long as you all are happy.”

“We are.” Damon grinned. “Taeja’s an amazing woman and girlfriend.”

“So, you’ve met Jerry? You and Zain?”

“Yes.”

“How’d that go?” Cassedi asked hesitantly.

Damon had flashbacks of his fist meeting Jerry’s face. Over and over and over until his knuckles were painted red. He vividly recalled Taeja’s screams for them to stop, but he didn’t because it felt too good to put the old man in his place. Even when water doused his skin and chilled him to the bone.

“It went… well,” Damon said.

Cassedi scoffed. “Nope. You took a while to answer, so you’re lying. And I know my husband. Things are never that simple with him.”

“Well, I’m not answering that because I like your company and I don’t want you to hate mine.”

Cassedi laughed. “I wouldn’t. I meant what I said about you being the son Inever had. You can do no wrong in my eyes.”

“I’m still not telling you, Cassedi.”

Cassedi chuckled, looking from him to the pool. The sun was slowly setting over the community, painting the pool with an orangish hue. “Ready to go play Sudoku?”

“Yes,” Damon answered, standing. “I need to challenge my brain.”

Amused, Cassedi snorted. “Most people aren’t usually that excited to play with numbers.”

Damon shrugged. “I’m not most people.”

Cassedi hummed as they returned to their seats inside the house. She unfolded the newspaper and grabbed a pencil. “What number do you want to start with?”

A few hours later,Damon realized how time easily slipped him by. He’d ended up playing several more Sudoku games and had a rather long chat with Merissa about rebranding the webpage for her business. The party must have started an hour ago, and neither Zain nor Taeja wasn’t answering their phones.

Annoyed but most of all worried, Damon pulled up an app on his phone. It connected him back to his system at home. The app wasn’t as fancy as the programs he had on his computers, but it always got the job done when he needed it on the go.

“Their phones are still at the hotel. Why aren’t they answering?” Damon asked himself, staring at the two beeping red dots on the screen. As more unease settled inside him, he thought for a couple of seconds. “Okay, let me try this instead…”

With a few more swipes and clicks, he got access to the camera system at the hotel. People were roaming everywhere, so he ran a facial recognition software in hopes of finding his brother and their girlfriend somewhere in the rowdy crowd. After five minutes of waiting for the program to run its course, it found them.

What he saw angered him.

Taeja was on a stage, half-naked and provocatively dancing on a man.

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