Royal Seduction- A Dangerous Affair

02||Heartbreaking Surprises.

02||Heartbreaking Surprises.

IT WAS QUITE a long drive from my house all the way to Quavers and I arrived there incredibly late. Damn, I’m sure the girls must’ve been waited for so long now and this is surely going to get me a yelling from Bonnie. She’s quite the feisty one.

I entered into the popular, ever-busy downtown restaurant and was greeted by the homely blend of the white and brown colored design of the interior, which always gave me a warm and welcoming feel each time I visited. Not to mention the now too familiar, sweet scent of their famous hazelnut coffee which filled the air and gave it a nice flavour, making breathing a whole new fun activity and continually teasing the noses of the customers, tempting you to order one- or maybe six.

I halted not too far from the entrance and scanned the restaurant for my friends. My lips parted into a small smile as I spotted them seated at the far edge of the room. They noticed my presence as well then they grinned as they waved at me and I waved back with a beaming smile.

I rendered a cheerful greeting as I reached where the girls were sat, “Hey girls!”

“Why keep us waiting, your highness?” Bonnie snarkily attacked and Sadie snickered. My gaze met with Bonnie’s obviously crossed expression and I chuckled; her hazel eyes were squinted as she furrowed her brows and had her heart shaped lips pursed to the side in an almost sneer. For a person with soft facial features, she can be look pretty scary if she wants to.

I smiled, “I’m so sorry Bonnie. I didn’t mean to keep you guys waiting.” She huffed, crossing her arms and looking away from me, quite annoyed and it made me to join in on Sadie’s now lingering snicker.

“Well, you’re not the only one who’s late.” Sadie spoke, finally putting an end to her snicker and I followed suit, ending mine with a sigh.

On reaching here, I noticed Brooke, my favorite amongst the three (eek, don’t tell Sadie and Bonnie, okay?) wasn’t here and that’s pretty much unlike her. She’s the early bird among all four of us and is very keen- (sometimes annoyingly keen,) on punctuality and is usually prompt to all occasions. “Sit.” Sadie scooted to the other end of the banquette and tapped on it, gesturing to me to do as she said.

“Where is she?” I inquired as I sat down. It was a table with two sofas at each horizontal end. Bonnie was alone at the opposite end and Sadie and I had this one.

“We don’t know. Her phone’s been switched off.” Miss Pouty Puss finally decided to speak.

“Let’s wait for sometime. Besides, we can’t even go to Legends without her.” Sadie pointed out.

“Yeah, ‘cause she’s with the entry passes.” Bonnie finished.

Brooke’s elder brother is one of the supervising managers of Legends, which means she’ll be getting exclusive VIP passes to the club from time to time, just one of the perks of having a relative as the managing director of a dope ass nightclub.

She had her brother squeeze in some for us too to celebrate our graduation which makes it even weirder that she isn’t here yet. She has a responsibility tonight, she’s with our tickets and that’ll make even the must clumsiest and laziest human on earth be here on time, for the sake of others.

“I guess we’ll have to wait then.” I sighed hopelessly and the girls nodded and hummed agreeing replies.

“Well, while we’re here waiting, we might as well have something to drink, yeah?” I suggested and Sadie nodded.

“Fine. As long as you’re paying.” Bonnie winked and I chortled and nodded, agreeing to pay for the drinks. Bonnie smiled and reached for her purse then took out her phone and began scrolling.

She’s probably logged in on i********:. She’s quite the sucker for the almost-too-perfect, gleaming, handsome, hot and sexy looking (her words not mine) pictures of her numerous celebrity crushes and involuntarily indulges in the popular gram activity- stalking favourite celebrities and spamming their dms with never to be answered texts. Poor little Bonnie and the other unfortunate fan girls.

“Waiter!” I called out to the nearby idle-looking waiter and he walked over to our table.

“So what do you girls want?” I questioned and Sadie tapped her jaw as she thought of what to order.

“Rum, please.” Bonnie ordered and I furrowed my brows and gave her a look. She shrugged obliviously at me and I sighed.

Rum at Quavers? Seriously? I don’t know about others, but I see Quavers as a homely, calm and serene family diner restaurant.

The kinda place you take your kid for some rewarding sumptuous dinner when he finally gets that A+ (well maybe not a straight up A+ though, probably a B or C+,) in math after lots of failures, studying and big, glaring, red Fs that are so alluring in a negative way, that you can’t stop staring at it with a sad pout, and each time you stare, it speaks to you saying ‘ Yo, lookie! You’re a dumb 8th grader who can’t comprehend simple math. Dumbo! *cue Cardi B’s laugh of mockery, hehe*’

Either ways, Quavers is not the place to stop by and casually be like "Hey waiter, get me some rum." It is not a bar. It is not a pub. It’s for soft drinks and yummy food, not to mention the on fleek coffee, all to eaten and drunk with laughter and joy. It’s definitely not for drinking rum or any form of alcohol even, well from my perspective.

“Sorry, we don’t serve that.” The blonde waiter replied with a small smile.

“Darn.” Bonnie sighed. “So y’all don’t serve alcohol here?” She inquired.

“Well, we do now. We have mild cocktails. You can try our fast selling Aperol Floats.”

“There’s alcohol in it?”

“Yes. Mild.”

“I guess that’ll do. I’d love to have some.” She answered and faced me, like as if she was seeking approval, well I don’t really know what she looked at me for. I guess I’m not they good at reading people. Nevertheless, I rolled my eyes in response and she chuckled, looking away. The waiter brought out his booklet and wrote down her order, then he focused his attention on me.

Well I guess it can’t be helped, the owners have been pressured by the likes of Bonnie to add some sort of alcohol to the menu and since it’s now served here, it is quite predictable and unsurprising that she’d order it. Quite the sucker for any form of booze. Sigh.

“And ma’am, the usual?” The waiter asked, referring to my inevitable purchase of their hazelnut coffee and I nodded with an agreeing smile.

The waiter was about putting that down in his booklet but Brooke continually mouthed that I should try the float too. I guess there’s no harm in trying, even though I feel like I’m betraying my self love for hazelnut coffee.

Forgive me dear god of delicious hazelnut coffee.

“Fine.” I muttered with gritted teeth and she pumped her fist in victory and I rolled my eyes with a sigh for the umpteenth time. I feigned a smile, “I guess I’ll have something different today. I’ll have the Aperol Float too.” The waiter nodded and wrote that down.

“Plane soda for me.” Sadie ordered with a smile and I arched my brows at that while Bonnie snickered, a snicker which soon tittered into a laugh that I couldn’t help but join in the bursting convulse and Sadie stared at us, as clueless as a lost pup.

“Soda IS plane, you noob.” Bonnie teased Sadie amidst her laughter and she rolled her eyes with a glint of embarrassment.

“Sadie love, no above seven one orders Soda at Quavers.” I pointed out and Bonnie nodded in agreement still engulfed in her almost guffaw.

“I just don’t like alcohol, okay?”

Sadie claims she’s alcohol intolerant. Not because of any religious or moral backings, she simply doesn’t take it or like it, at least that’s what she makes us think.

Left to me, I think she’s just lightweight and gets drunk easily and is afraid of drinking or has had a previous past of hangovers, not that I’ve really seen her around a bottle of anything interesting before.

Yeah, but even if you don’t take alcohol, they’re tons of other things to order apart from plan soda, lol. Quite the noob, isn’t she?

“Okay, okay. Plane soda for our nooby friend who’s clearly missing out on life.” Bonnie’s teased with dramatic emphasis on plane soda and Sadie huffed in slight annoyance. She’s pretty much used to our tease and it doesn’t annoy her as much as the early days. But sis, this is America! You are freaking twenty five! And this is 2021! You’ve got to get some booze, love.

The waiter wrote down the plane soda (pretend I said that with dramatic emphasis,) “Anything else?” The waiter questioned and we shook our head in unison disagreement. With that, the waiter turned and left to get our orders.

Bonnie’s attention returned back to her phone “Tsk. Plane Soda.” She teased in a mutter but loud enough for us to hear and for Sadie to pick an offense and that resumed our mocking snickers.

I usually thought that the day I’d die would be the day I’d come to Quavers and not order a cup of hazelnut coffee. But that was not the case, I guess even I need a break. And I’ve got to admit, the Aperol Float was THE BOMB! I guess, I’ve found a new favorite.

I hope I don’t have nightmares of flying cups of hazelnut coffee with tiny hands, devil wings and horns, trying to beat the snot of out me because I betrayed my sworn love for them. Hopefully, I’ll have Aperol Floats with angel wings and halos to save me from their tiny claws. It’s a win win.

Sadie, Bonnie and I chatted and shared laughs over our Aperol Floats and plane soda as we reminisced our favorite moments in the university and in law school. We ended up waiting for Brooke for almost an hour and still, there wasn’t no sign of her and her phones still weren’t going through either.

She lives with her elder sister, Annie. We phoned Annie and she said Brooke wasn’t home and she’s also been trying her line nonstop and there was no answer.

Annie said she initially thought Brooke was with us, but now that she knew she wasn’t, she started panicking and crying over the phone, “Her sister had gone missing.” She wailed. To the rest of us, she was being dramatic about this and was quite overreacting. But then again, you can’t blame her for it, she just uh, cares too much about her sister.

We decided to call it a night, because we had no idea where Brooke was and she was with our Legend entry passes, and partly because Bonnie had one too many glasses of the Aperol Float and was getting drowsy. We bade our goodbyes and we dispersed. My one regret was letting Bonnie drive home alone in her drowsy state, hope she gets home safe!

I alighted from my vehicle and strode into my apartment quickly then poured myself unto my couch and took off my damn heels, tossing them to wherever they landed, then slowly massaged my paining foot- God, they ached. The sooner I come to terms with the fact that heels are definitely not my thing, the better for my foot.

That was when it befell me- a strong premonition. A hard chill ran down my spine; my body felt the same way it would feel if a bucket load of ice cubes were roughly showered on me. Something felt terribly wrong.

I froze, my hand still clasped around my foot. My eye sockets permitted the moving around of any eyeballs and I nervously looked around the living room, examining it. Everything seemed nice and perfect, the way I like it, the way I left it.

The 60 inches Samsung TV hung on the wall had it’s volume blasting while it televised Zane’s favorite telenovela- as usual. The house was sparkling clean, the windows were open just about the measure I like it, the video game console was plugged in even though I’ve repeatedly warned Zane to unplug when he’s done gaming- but I guess that’s just a sign that everything seems normal around here.

But the again, what is this strange feeling?

P.S; A man who watches Telenovelas is a rare gem. If you find one, keep him, I repeat KEEP HIM, sis.

Everything seemed alright outside too. It was past 11pm and the perimeter was as quiet as it could be on a Friday Night, heck no, I’m being sarcastic.

The surroundings were illuminated with street lights and lively noise. Mrs. Fuergerson’s son clocked 18 and was having a wowza of a party across the street, I’m sure she doesn’t know this but there’s teenagers on her roof in bikinis and it looks like they’re attempting to jump all the way down into their backyard pool. Anyways not my problem.

James, their next door neighbor was having loud, I mean LOUD garage band practice, weirdly by 11pm. Not that the music’s even good, just a collation of terribly played instruments and a bad vocalist.

Mr. Carl, my next door neighbor, despite having three daughters that earned big as doctors, still looked like an unemployed bum. He was watering his garden wearing short tights- only short tights. Seeing the chest hair and naked protruding stomach of a 50 year old man who looked like a hobo was not a nice view, I won’t recommend it, which is one of the reasons I literally speed walked into my apartment tonight. Sadly, the sight has been long burnt into my visual cortex.

So yeah, everything was alright outside. The strange feeling coldly slithered up my spine once more and it jolted me out of my five minutes ago reminisce. I decided to look around and search for the cause of the negative energy I was receiving.

I slunked to the kitchen and scanned the area, nothing. That was when it hit me again, the strange eerie sensation, I was convinced. Someone was inside the house.

No, no. It wasn’t Zane. I was sensing a different presence.

I gulped down nothing at the conclusion and launched myself at the cutlery rack and picked up a knife then slowly then cautiously excited the kitchen

Outside was okay, the living room and kitchen seemed okay too. So this negative vibe is certainly coming from upstairs.

Who or what was the cause? A man? A woman? A child? A mutated pig? Ghosts? Zombies? Aliens? A Demonic Nun? Annabelle?

I heaved a sigh and braced myself for whatever it might be.

I stealthily ascended the stairs with my knife pointed out in front of me. It felt like I was in some horror, mystery or paranormal movie where the main character hears the eerie sound of someone or something coming from upstairs and goes hunting it with a weapon in his hand-typically a bat or knife.

And then suddenly, some person or some paranormal freakish thing comes into sight and scares the living daylight out of the MC. He either screams to death or is brutally killed by the being.

Yeah, that’s how I felt.

Oh, would you look at that.

Something DID come into sight. No, I don’t mean Chucky. On the upstairs corridor laid one of Zane’s shirts in it’s natural habitat- the floor. I hate to think I’m the clean and organized one in this relationship.

But something was off about this shirt. A red stain. Hopefully, this isn’t blood. Oh no, cue the flickering of lights and evil laughter.

I picked it up from the floor and examined the stain, no it wasn’t blood, thankfully. It was a smudge, lipstick smudge. Strawberry. Yeah, I tasted it.

Lipstick smudge on Zane’s shirt? This was the shirt he was wearing before I left the house and I don’t remember kissing it or staining it with lipstick, so where did this come from?

My blood ran cold. Could it be…

That was when I heard it. Zane’s voice. It’s 11pm, he’s supposed to be asleep. After watching Sugarcoated, he’d go straight to bed. It was his routine. How could he still be awake?

Huh?

I heard it.

Another voice. Oddly familiar.

Two voices. How come?

The muffled voices were coming from my room. I hastened my steps and I can’t really say now, if I was able to figure out what those sounds were and meant before or after I opened my room door, but I was certainly dumbfound and bewildered when I met with the heartbreaking, surprising scene, s**t!

It’s an awful thing to see your fiancé having kinky s*x with a woman-no, with your best friend who’s wearing a some bondage gear s**t; a ball gag in her mouth and thigh sling harness with wrist cuffs. She’s bent over, head leaned on the floor, butt in the air and your fiancé is whipping her back and banging the s**t out of her ass.

What the actual f**k?