Page 40 of A Vicious Rumor

"Sorry, doll face," he said immediately.

Tyson growled from where he was standing off to the side. I could see him heaving from the exertion. "Rock," Luca said.

"I'm sorry, Lily," he said. He looked really distraught. "Are you okay."

I looked at him, smiled, and nodded my head. "Yes, I'm okay."

I could see the relief on his face.

"Right, now, the two of you will be coming across the hallway with me. Lily, dear, please feel free to take a moment for yourself after all this commotion. We shouldn't be long."

"Okay," I said. I watched as the three boys exited the room. Tyson looked over his shoulder and mouthed, "be right back," and I nodded.

When they all left, I collapsed onto the bed and let out a big sigh. Thankfully, this time the bathroom door was open, so I wasn't worried about any other unwelcome visitors.

I stayed there for a few minutes as I let my heart rate fall back to normal. The entire day had been a rush of emotions for me. After a while, I started to feel claustrophobic in the guest bedroom. I decided that it couldn't hurt to do a little bit of exploring. I wouldn't be gone for too long, I figured. Just enough to look around and get all the adrenaline out of my system.

I opened the door slowly to the hallway. It was a covered hallway with a line of rooms opposite me, as well. There was a break every now and then for a large open archway, and I made my way to one of them. The house had a fantastic view of the river. In some ways it felt odd to be on this side of the water. I believed what I'd said to Zachary. I didn't think that anyone's soul was above anyone else's. Whether they were divided by class, race, social status, money, rivers, countries, none of that mattered to me.

But, as I stood there, looking out at the beautiful scenery, I could see why some people might think that it did.

Noise drew my attention down the hall, and I followed it. I didn't know what any of the rooms were, but the hallway had five doors on each side, which meant at a minimum ten rooms in total. I put my ear against the door that was making some noise. At first it sounded like a conversation, and I pressed my ear even further into the door and stuck a finger in my other ear to try and hear better.

"Oh fuck, don't stop!" was one side of the conversation, the other being, "Yeah, you like that, don't you baby?"

I blushed furiously and backed away from the door. This party was more than a little intense for me. It seemed like all anyone did on this side of the river was drink and have sex.

Even still, I really did want to explore a bit while I was here. These were the people that were in Tyson's life. I wanted to understand them, so that perhaps I could help him in some small way.

I made my way down the stairs and was thankful that the couple that had been there previously had moved on. "Blinding Lights" by the Weekend started to play, and I heard splashing from a way's off. I made my way towards the noise and saw that there was an inground pool close to the cliff's edge. A good deal of people were milling about around it, and a number of others were in the pool, drinking beer, dancing to the music, and throwing beach balls around.

I stood there and watched the scene. I wasn't sure what I felt about it. As I watched them all dancing, not having a care in the world, wanting for nothing and having everything, I started to understand why Tyson disliked them so much.

"Watch out!" someone shouted as a beach ball came hurtling towards me. It landed rather embarrassingly on my face before I was able to bat it away.

"Ouch, is your nose okay?" a tall girl in a string bikini and bleached blonde hair asked as she ran up to me. She was flanked by two other girls, one a little shorter with sun kissed skin and deep brown hair, and another dirty blonde that split the difference between the two.

I leaned over and picked the ball up, handing it to her. "It's a plastic ball filled with air. Why wouldn't my nose be okay?" I said, genuinely not understanding why she was concerned.

She covered her mouth with her hand, and the girls on either side of her instantly mirrored her actions. "Oh," she snickered, trying to hold back laughter. "I just assumed it'd broken your nose given…" she paused. "Never mind."

I frowned. I'd never encountered girls like this before, but I was guessing they were what the movie Mean Girls was modeled after.

"Okay then," I replied, not giving into her teasing.

"So, are you new here?" the brunette asked in a fake valley girl voice.

"No," I replied simply.

"Well, I've never seen you before," the blonde said while giving me the side eye.

"'New here' would imply that I'm staying. I'm just visiting and not for very much longer," I said.

"Good," the third girl said in a haughty voice.

"Bianca, don't be a bitch," the girl in the middle said, which to me was highly ironic.

"It's nice meeting you, ladies," I started to say. I started to turn around, deciding that I'd had enough of exploring, and I'd just wait out Tyson's meeting upstairs. But, for the second time that evening, a stranger I'd just met didn't respect personal boundaries and reached out to grab my wrist.

---