Her phone was sitting on the nightstand, so she reached over and grabbed it. She had turned it off before dinner last night, and when she powered it back on, notifications flooded the screen with dozens of unread messages and missed calls—most of them a spam barrage from Tara. She dialed Tara back first.
Tara immediately launched into a frantic ramble. She said, "Wren! You finally picked up. You scared the crap out of me! You texted me last night saying you would call back in a minute, but I stayed up half the night waiting and never heard from you."
She added, "Patrick saw the video from the victory banquet in his work group—that's how I found out what went down. Why didn't you text me to come along? If I had been there, I would have beaten that bastard, Adrian, to a pulp."
She conti
