After the Drift

Chapter Twenty-One: To Friends

A few days had passed and to my anguish, I hadn't seen hide nor hair of my sister.

I stomped out of my room with every intention to rain hellfire down on my sister. I had done this every day since I found only one of shirt of Chuck's in our shared room.

Could she have taken Chuck's shirt? Could she have been that manipulative?

If she had, that was downright evil.

But, she was my sister. She couldn't do that to me, could she?

She had some serious explaining to do.

It was New Year's Eve and everyone had gotten together to celebrate. I had spent most of the day rereading a manual on fuel injection as well as a quick visit from my parents.

They had told me the baby was well but they were up soon when it came to the big uglies. My heart clenched at the thought.

It was well into the early morning and my clomping feet made a ton of noise down the grated hallways.

Every so often you could hear people chatting or singing Christmas carols.

Like it was some regular, festive time, not the end of the world with giant continent destroyers popping out of the earth like a horror movie.

The main hub was much like the one in Los Angeles, only smaller. Everyone congregated here to socialize, especially now. Might as well start the search for the bitch faced sister here.

Crew members and pilots alike were scattered around the hub, drinking and making merry.

An arm slid around my waist gently as I scanned the room. Turning to look at whoever was touching me I saw Chucks clenched jaw, his stare was hard, I followed his line of vision...

Carlos was down here talking to Emmie, his arm braced on the wall above her head. I wonder what that meant...

I looked back up at him and lightly punched his ribs. He looked down at me and had the decency to at least look properly chastised.

"Kid got under my skin, darl'"

I rolled my eyes. Men.

I pulled on his arm and began moving towards Emmie and Carlos, who both looked up when we got closer.

"Happy New Years, you two." Carlos said with a wide grin.

Chuck grunted and wouldn't make any eye contact. He kept working his jaw. He got an elbow in the stomach. "Yea, Happy New Year..." came the pained reply

"I see the kick in the pants worked then." Carlos kept grinning.

My eye browns knitted together, "Kick in the pants?" I looked at him completely confused.

He nodded his head towards Chuck. "I was talking more to your man here." Chuck turned and looked at Carlos finally. "What?"

Carlos smirked.

Finally the light bulb went on for both of us. Emmie giggled and tried to hide it with her hand.

"Y'all are too cute. Completely oblivious. But cute."

"You...you faked liking me so Chuck would get his head out of his ass?!"

Carlos busted out laughing along with Emmie. "Well, that was part of the plan. You also needed your head removed from that cute butt too, Rubes."

My mouth hung open as I turned towards Chuck. Expecting him to be pissed, I put a hand on his arm.

Turns out, I was an idiot. Again.

Chuck started laughing heartily. "You got me, mate... I guess I did need a wee bit of a reality check."

Carlos nodded and stretched out his hand. The men shook and both turned to the women next to them.

Emmie grinned at me, "I hope you aren't too mad. We kind of came up with this plan on the fly and continued flying by the seat of our pants the whole time. But,... seems like all's well that ends well."

Chuck's arm snaked around my waist again. He looked down at me with a tender look. A small smile on his lips. "Couldn't be happier, Ems."

Carlos chuckled. "Okay, now that the touchy feely bit is over, what're you two doing down here? It's what..." He checked his watch on his wrist. "It's 3:30 in the morning. Thought you two would be caboodling or whatever."

Emmie guffawed. "Canoodling, Carlos.."

"Whatever. Didn't think you'd be here with the lonely hearts club..."

Chuck shook his head, still miffed about how the night had turned out. "Seems that wasn't in the cards for us tonight. Turns out... well..." He looked at me, unsure of how to go on or if he even should.

"Turns out my sister is most likely an evil lying bitch and I'm going to play detective and figure out what the hell is going on..."

Emmie looked interested, Carlos confused.

"What do you mean? What did she lie about?"

I looked to Chuck, who smiled gently, reassuring me everything was going to be okay.

"Well, it all started with me stealing Chuck's shirt out of the laundry." I retold all the events leading up to when we had met them a few minutes prior, though I did leave out the dashed sexy times.

Carlos looked like he had been slapped. Emmie nodded, not really surprised since I had told her many stories on how awful Lucie could be.

I still hadn't wrapped my head around it, telling someone else had made it sink in a little more.

My sister had manipulated me into thinking the guy I had the biggest crush on, who also liked me, had had sex with her... and then proceeded to rub it in my face when I was already down about losing the pilot position.

"Why would she do that?"

Emmie voiced exactly what I had been thinking.

I shook my head. "I don't really know... I know she gets off on being able to hold things over peoples heads but I thought...I thought I was at least exempted from the hardcore betrayal."

Chuck sighed. "It's my fault too. I was drunk and... still can't quite remember." He looked at his feet, his jaw working again.

I touched it lightly. "Even if it did happen, I forgive you. We weren't even together..."

I shrugged. He took my hands in his and brought them to his lips. Kissing my knuckles he said, "It matters to me. I want to know exactly what happened. I may be a self centered asshole but this self centered asshole doesn't want you to ever think I would treat you like that. You're special to me...you deserve the truth."

He whispered the last few words. I couldn't stop looking into his eyes. Emmie and Carlos looked to each other.

"You've both got it baddddd..." Carlos broke the moment, like the clown he was. Emmie gigged and winked at me.

I swatted at him after freeing one of my hands. Chuck rolled his eyes. "Says the lonely hearts club." He motioned towards Emmie who was in the middle of grabbing four champagne flutes on a passing tray.

Carlos blushed then helped her pass the glasses out.
"Even though some of us are underage..." He gave me the stink eye while still handing me a glass.

"We aren't even in the US, Carlos!" I grumbled.

He held up his hand. "Anyway,... here's to friends. New, old, ones who owe others big time for getting them together with their one true love and to possibly more in the future.." His eyes slowly moved over to Emmie who blushed immediately. "I wouldn't want to be in a world without you guys. Cheers!"

The four of us clinked glasses and smiled. Finally, the endless list of miserable happenings at this dome was done. We all had something to be truly happy about.