Rude Awakenings: A Novel of the Terribly Acronymed Detective Club (Book 2)

Chapter Thirty-Three: Lauren, Summer, 2009

The Friday after she and Rachel had first slept together, she found herself in her downstairs bathroom again, earphones in her ears, laptop on her lap, watching Rachel staring right at her, upside down, half hanging off her bed while Al thrust himself into her. They were both gleaming wet and foamy, fresh out of a bubble bath, continuing their fun on the bed and ruining the sheets. They were in serious danger of falling off, but they didn't seem to care. The two of them in simple missionary was inordinately arousing for Lauren, simply because she couldn't do that with Joe, and she was masturbating furiously as she pictured, first, herself on top of Rachel as she'd been that Monday, just as wet together on that same bed and, second, though she would have to examine this later, herself under Al, legs locked around his waist, hanging on to him for dear life so she didn't fall off the bed. 

Maybe she imagined Al because it just happened to be him on that screen, as if he were the actor in whatever porn she was watching, there in her head just long enough to do the job and then forgotten later. That had to be it. Still, he was giving it to Rachel good, and Lauren came more than once to their show.

They'd just finished when Rachel's phone suddenly rang. Rachel got herself up to answer it. Lauren was almost disappointed, hoping there would be more even though she knew Al probably didn't have any fuel left in the tank. She thought maybe she should leave this Skype call, when Rachel answered. "Hi, Julia."

Julia? That was patsy #3, and they'd been waiting on her response for weeks on whether or not she would play along entrapping Martin Heath. Had she finally decided?

Rachel's face winced as she listened to the voice on the other end of the line. "Slow down, Julia, slow down," she said. "Say that again?"

Rachel's mouth dropped open, and her eyes widened in horror. "Oh, Jesus," she breathed. "Holy fucking God, why did you...?"

Al touched her arm in concern, but she batted it away as she continued to listen.

"Okay, Julia," she said. "Stay there. Clean yourself up, but do not do anything else or call anybody. Text me your address and I'll be right over. You're downtown, right? Okay. Stay put."

She hung up, her shoulders slumped, and Al asked, "Rachel, what's going on?"

She turned to him and said, "Remember when you said you'd help me move a body out of my apartment if I asked?"

Al looked at her, stunned. "What are you saying?"

Lauren should have used her phone to call her, she had it with her in here, but she did the quicker and stupider thing: she turned her video feed back on, unmuted herself and said, "What the fuck?!"

Startled, Al turned around, and was mortified to see her face on the screen of the laptop in Rachel's room. Without thinking, he rolled himself off the bed and fell to the floor on the other side of it from the laptop. He reached for a pillow above him and pulled it over with him.

"Sorry, Lauren," Rachel said, chuckling. "I forgot you were still there."

Al peeked over the edge of the bed, saw the laptop, saw Lauren waving sheepishly at him. They were busted already, after only having exchanged shows once, and she knew that how Al reacted to this revelation was either going to change their friendships with each other or destroy them completely, and she was powerless to influence his decision from the other side of this screen.

"It's good you're still on the line, actually," Rachel continued, as if nothing at all remarkable had just happened. "I'm going to need your help too, and maybe Joe's. Hell, let's get the whole LSDC back together for one last tour."

"Rachel, you need to tell me what's going on," Al and Lauren said at the same time.

"Julia accidentally killed our CEO," Rachel announced.