Page 124 of Forbidden Billionaires: Vol. 11

Saturday

“I don’t know why you didn’t call me right away,” Sophie said when I opened the door to Axel’s apartment. “It’s the perfect opportunity to scope out his room and look for clues to see if he’s the kiss thief.”

“What’s the kiss thief?” Parker asked.

Sophie’s eyes grew round. She hadn’t realized Parker had just walked into the hall. “It’s a mystery.”

“Oooh. What kind of mystery?”

“A case of a hidden identity. There’s someone that’s going around Empire High...um...wearing a mask.”

“Like a Halloween mask?”

“Exactly.”

“So you want to look in Ax’s room to see if he has the mask?”

“Bingo.”

“First we need drinks. Like in the TV shows.” Parker walked into the kitchen.

“Is she about to serve us alcohol right now?” Sophie whispered.

“She’s nine.” But honestly I had no idea what a nine year old that didn’t play with dolls was up to. And I had no idea what TV shows she watched.

Parker climbed up on one of the stools at the kitchen island and grabbed a little glass teapot. She proceeded to pour nothing into three little teacups.

This seemed like something you could do with dolls. But I kept my mouth shut.

“Shots,” she said and slid one of the cups at me.

Wow, what were Aunt Hails and Uncle Tyler letting her watch?

“Cheers to unmasking the kiss thief,” Sophie said.

“Cheers to drawing on walls,” Parker said and lifted her glass.

“Can we maybe talk about that real quick?” I asked.

“Which thing?” Parker asked.

“We can’t draw on his walls.”

Parker stuck out her lower lip. “Why? He’s been bad. I’ll draw George and then my parents will think he did it.”

Sophie laughed. “I want to see her interpretation of Georgia.”

“It’s George,” I corrected.

“Sorry. George.”

“You can draw it on a piece of paper,” I said. “And leave it in his room to find.”

“How will that get him grounded?” Parker asked.

“It won’t. But we can make it so he at least knows you don’t like her.”

“He already knows. I’ve told him a million times that I hate everyone he dates. They’re all yucky. I want him to date you.”

Aw. My heart.

Sophie put her hand to her chest. “Adorable. Let’s just focus on looking for clues first. And then we’ll circle back.”

Parker shrugged. “Okay. Cheers.” She lifted her little teacup.

“Cheers.” Sophie and I both tapped our cups against hers and pretended to take a big sip.

“Girls’ night!” Parker shouted and pretended to topple out of her chair like she was actually wasted.

Yeah, she was definitely watching something she probably shouldn’t be on TV. “What’s your favorite show?” I asked as we headed toward Axel’s room.

“I like all the ones with the girls who yell at each other and throw things.”

“You mean some kind of reality show?” Sophie asked.

“Yeah, all of those. I want to be a housewife when I grow up.”

“I think maybe you should be an artist.” I ruffled her hair.

“I’ll do that too. I want to be a housewife, and an artist, and a mommy.”

“That’s a good plan,” I said. Parker had it all figured out. I was about to go to college and didn’t even know what I wanted to major in yet.

We stopped outside Axel’s door.

Sophie tried to open it, but the knob didn’t turn. “Does he seriously lock his room? He’s definitely hiding something.”

“I have the key,” Parker said. She ran into her room.

“This kid is amazingly helpful,” Sophie said. “We should really hang out more often.”

I laughed. “Right? She’s been so sweet all night. Well, when she isn’t trying to destroy Axel’s room.”

“I kind of want to destroy Axel’s room too,” Sophie said. “I can’t believe he’s really going to hook up with all the Triple Gs when he knows how much they’ve tortured you.”

“Yeah.” I folded my arms across my chest.

Parker came running back out with the key. She put it in the lock and opened the door.

I hadn’t been in Axel’s room in ages. It was different, but somehow exactly the same.

I breathed in slowly, letting his cologne fill my lungs. I was pretty sure my room smelled like him now too.

“A white pillowcase,” Sophie said and pointed to Axel’s bed.

“What?” Parker asked.

“We know for a fact that the kiss thief has a white pillowcase. He sent Scarlett a picture of it.”

“That’s not really a good clue,” Parker said. “I have a white pillowcase too. And I’m not a kiss thief.”

“Darn, you’re right, little one.” Sophie turned in a circle. “I’ll tackle his dresser. Scar, you look under his mattress.”

“Do you think the mask is under the mattress?” Parker asked.

“Or something else.” Sophie waggled her eyebrows at me.

I tried not to disturb his comforter or backpack that was on his bed as I pushed the mattress up. If Sophie was expecting him to be hiding porn here, she was sorely mistaken. Who even had porn magazines besides 50-year-old men?

“Can I draw now?” Parker asked.

“You know what would be more fun?” I said. “Being careful to put everything back exactly as you found it so no one will ever know we were here.”

“Or we can break his lamp.”

“Parker.”

She put her hand on the lamp on his desk.

“Parker, no.”

She laughed. “Fine. Can I check his backpack for the mask?”

“Also look for a phone while you’re at it,” Sophie said as she slammed a drawer shut.

“Ax always has his phone on him.”

“We’re talking about a second secret phone. Have you ever seen him with one of those?”

“No,” Parker said. “But he does text an awful lot. And I think he’s been sneaking out at night.”

Sophie and I turned to each other. We both knew where Axel had been sneaking. But it was probably best not to tell Parker. It didn’t seem like she was great at keeping secrets.

Parker lifted up Axel’s backpack and shook it, sending all the contents out on the bed.

“Parker, please,” I said. “Everything needs to go back exactly where it was.”

“Oops. But there is no phone.” She looked inside to make sure.

“Just put it back as best as you can.”

Parker nodded.

Sophie opened another drawer and then another. “Wasn’t the kiss thief wearing a hoodie once?” She pulled one out of the dresser.

“Everyone has a hoodie,” I said as I knelt down and looked under Axel’s bed. There was literally nothing suspicious here.

“Oh my,” Sophie said.

I turned around to see her staring into a drawer.

She immediately closed it. “Don’t look in that one.”

“What was it?” I asked and stood up.

“Nothing.”

I walked over to her.

“You don’t want to see,” she whispered.

“Just open it.”

“There’s a child in the room.”

I looked over at Parker. She had her hands out in front of her like she was framing where her drawing on the wall would be. I’d come back to that later. I pulled open the drawer and stared down at a box of condoms. A huge box. An opened box.

My heart started beating funny in my chest. “Do you think he took some with him tonight?”

“For George? No.”

I swallowed hard. I wasn’t so sure about that. “How many are missing?” I went to open up the top.

“Don’t look.”

“I have to know.”

“You really don’t,” Sophie said. She swatted my hand away and slammed the drawer closed.

“I really do.”

“Go search his desk.”

“I think that box is proof that he isn’t the kiss thief.”

Sophie stared at me. “How?”

“My kiss thief really likes me. He wouldn’t need that gigantic box because there’s no way he’s hooking up with other people right now.”

“Says the girl who was just intimate with Jacob but is still in love with Axel,” Soph whispered.

“What does intimate mean?” Parker asked.

I jumped. “It’s um...it means high fiving someone.”

“Oh. I was intimate with a lot of my friends yesterday at school.”

Yikes. “Maybe don’t repeat that to your parents.”

She shrugged. “Okay.”

“Does Axel ever bring any girls home?” Sophie asked, changing the subject.

“No.”

“So he’s never introduced any of his girlfriends to you?”

“No, but he shows me pictures. Speaking of pictures...I’m going to go get my crayons.” She ran out of the room.

Sophie laughed. “High fiving? Really?”

“Not funny.” I tried to grab the handle of the drawer but she swatted my hand down again.

“Just let me see.”

“You don’t want to see that.”

“Why? Did you already look? How many were missing?”

She looped her elbow through mine and pulled me over to Axel’s desk.

“Aw, look.” She pointed to an old picture of Axel and me pinned to his bulletin board.

I smiled. It was of us playing Pretty Pretty Princess.

Axel was decked out in a necklace and rings laughing his head off. He was always so sweet to play with me.

There were more of us throughout the years and some new pictures too. I was surprised there weren’t pictures of any of his exes. Or anyone else at all really. All of them were of the four of us. Me, Axel, Jacob, and Soph. It was just like all the pictures in my room.

I wanted the pictures to be a better clue than his huge opened box of condoms. But I wasn’t sure it was.

Sophie opened up one of the desk drawers and pulled out a journal. “He has a diary? That feels a little light in the loafers to me.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. What does it say?”

She opened it. “Phew. It’s empty.”

“Well that’s not helpful.”

“Wait.” She’d flipped to the back. “There’s some kind of countdown back here.”

“A countdown? To what?” I peered down at the journal.

“I don’t know. It’s just numbers counting down. And a bunch of them are crossed off.”

“How far back does it go? Maybe he’s counting down days?”

“Um...” She flipped a few pages. “If it’s days, he started counting down 2,093 days ago.”

“So he’s counting down to something that was a really long time ago? Is there a date when it started?”

Sophie shook her head. “There’s no start date. Just the numbers.”

“Maybe it’s the end of high school being over?” I said. Just because I was worried about going to college and everything changing, it didn’t mean Axel was.

“No, high school was only a total of 1,460 days. Well, less really. Because we’re not actually in school all 365 days a year.”

“Okay, math genius.”

“Let’s go the other way. There’s only 147 days left on this countdown. So what is 147 days from now?”