The Lift

18

Monday night couldn't come soon enough for Preston and she even managed to get off work early so that she could be at the house on time for once. But just her luck, David got caught up in editing the Vegas vlog, so they had to meet up there, unlike they had originally planned for her to pick him up. And though Preston wasn't the first one to the house, she still beat David.

Preston sat down in the living room with everyone else and enjoyed listening to them regale parts of the weekend. Phones were passed around and videos and photos shown. Preston could still appreciate the hilarity of the moments even though she didn't regret not going.

As they debated what kind of pizza to order, Preston's phone rang. She excused herself to take the call from Graham, one of her teammates on the GoPro project and a friend from Colorado.

Preston had gone outside to talk and saw David pull up. He smiled huge as he walked up to the house, camera in hand and recording. David had taken to filming with Preston around, but he had promised her many times, on penalty of a swift punch to the throat, that the footage would go nowhere unless she approved.

Preston returned the smile, showed her middle finger to the camera with a smirk on her face, and gave him a hug. He buried his head in her shoulder for a moment before he remembered she was on a call. He gestured his head that he was going inside and she nodded while carrying on her phone conversation. David went in and a few minutes later Preston followed.

When she came back, everyone was speaking in hushed whispers, David nowhere to be seen. They pretended to go back to discussing pizza, but she could tell something was off.

"Hey, what did I miss?" Preston asked confusedly, standing by the front door.

Toddy tried to cover up first. "Oh, nothing. Just chatting about the weekend."

She looked at him suspiciously. Corinna elbowed him in the stomach.

"What? I'm not lying," Todd tried to defend himself. That made Preston even more suspicious

She turned to Alex. She knew he wouldn't lie to her. "Alex, why do I get the feeling something about me was discussed this weekend?"

Alex gave everyone else dirty looks and then turned back to Preston. "Not so much discussed with everyone as simply shared by someone."

Preston looked even more confused but she didn't break eye contact with Alex. "Something was shared about me?" she asked slowly.

Alex sort of shrugged. "Yeah, pretty much." She could tell he was treading very lightly.

Preston's mind raced. What did any of them know about her that would be worth sharing? She racked her brain but came up blank. And then David walked back into the room, smiling and starting to talk about where he wanted pizza from. There was only one thing David knew that no one else would, something she'd told him late one night and that they only talked about very rarely.

"You asshat," Preston said quietly, speaking in David's direction. A hush fell over the whole room.

He stopped dead in his tracks. "Preston. What's wrong?" David asked, totally confused.

"I can't believe you fucking told them," Preston said quietly still, the whole group hanging on her every word.

"Told them what?" David asked. He was panicking internally. He felt weak in the knees and totally guilty, but he didn't even know why yet.

"Fuck, David. Don't pretend like you don't know," Preston said exasperatedly.

"I really don't," David said concernedly as he walked toward her. She stepped back as he got close. "What did I tell them? Guys, help me out here." He seemed genuinely confused, but Preston didn't buy it.