Chapter 8: Lost and Unfound 

Chapter 7: Lost and Unfound 

The interior of Jude’s car was all black leather, dark wood, and reeked of that new car smell. If Taliana had the choice, she would’ve stayed in the air-conditioned cabin for the rest of her life, especially if it meant she didn’t have to face what was waiting for her at home.

“This isn’t going to end well.”

Currently, said car was idling in front of Taliana’s home in the heart of Georgetown, and she was silently debating whether or not she wanted to enter the place. Her father was probably throwing a fit inside, prepared to ground her the instant she set foot in the foyer. Had she still been living with her mother, Taliana could have slipped in unnoticed since Andrea was rarely home anyway. But this was Charles Avilla, the man who’d blown a gasket the day Taliana had been expelled from Georgetown Trinity Day School and sent her packing to live with mommy dearest as punishment. Taliana wasn’t sure what she would do if this situation had the same outcome.

“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Jude said soothingly, patting Taliana’s arm.

In the fifteen-minute drive from the hotel to her house, she and Jude had gotten to know each other. Jude now knew Taliana was seventeen, had moved back to DC after spending six years in LA, and absolutely despised geese. In return, he’d told her that his birthday was on Christmas Eve, he’d moved there from Miami a couple years ago, and that he’d once been hit on by an honest to god pirate.

Though they’d hardly spent any time together, Taliana felt like she’d known the guy for ages. Maybe it was the fact that their personalities just clicked, but she was glad it looked like she was making a friend—her first back in DC.

“I don’t know,” she murmured hesitantly, glancing once more at the brick structure. “He’s called me like a hundred times, but I’m too afraid to listen to any of his messages. I bet you he’s going to flip the second I walk in there.”

“Maybe, maybe not. Charles seems like a pretty chill guy.”

Taliana shot him a look that said otherwise. “You should have seen him the day I got expelled from Georgetown Trinity back in sixth grade. I thought he was going to turn into the Incredible Hulk.”

Jude snorted. “That was a totally different situation. All you did this time was miss curfew, not try to kill a kid.”

Taliana wasn’t surprised that Jude knew what had gotten her kicked out. She was sure her baseball bat wielding had landed her on a list of Trinity’s infamous troublemakers. “I didn’t try to kill him,” she corrected, folding her arms across her chest. “It was just self-defense. That kid punched me; what else was I supposed to do?”

“Self-defense?” Jude tossed his head back and laughed. “You broke his arm in three places and reduced the boy to a sobbing mess. Now, I’m not exactly taking my cousin’s side, but do you really think he deserved all that?”

Taliana opened her mouth to respond, but her jaw snapped shut when his words fully registered. “Wait, did you say cousin?”

“You didn’t know?” he questioned, obviously surprised. “Sebastian’s my cousin. I thought my last name would’ve given it away.”

“You never got around to telling me your last name, Jude.”

“Well, it’s Phillips. Now you know.”

Taliana shook her head, shocked by the revelation. “I can’t believe you two are related. You’re so sweet and he’s so...”

“Egotistical?” Jude offered as Taliana trailed off. “Stubborn? Bossy? Vain? Melodramatic?”

“I was going to say annoying, but those work, too.”

“You really are too cute,” he laughed. “We need to hang out again soon.”

Taliana nodded in agreement and tugged on the hem of her still damp dress. “We do. I’ll call you tomorrow after I talk to my dad.” But knowing him, Taliana would probably be six feet under in the next ten minutes. “If I’m still alive.”

After thanking Jude for the ride, Taliana slid out of the car and made her way to the front door. She sent a quick prayer to every deity she could think of before slipping inside the house and bracing for the ambush. After a few tense moments of nothing happening, her tired eyes swept the foyer, and she let out a sigh of relief when she realized her father was nowhere to be found.

But her luck ran out a few seconds later.

“Taliana Colton-Avilla, where in the world have you been?”

Cringing at the sheer volume of her father’s voice, Taliana cracked open an eye and took in the sight in front of her. Charles was standing, hands on hips, a few feet away, and his mouth was set in a hard line. In an attempt to pacify the situation, Taliana tried her best to pull an innocent smile onto her lips.

“Hi, Daddy.”

If the twins could get out of trouble by batting their eyelashes and sucking up to daddy dearest, maybe she could do the same.

“Don’t you ‘hi, Daddy’ me, Taliana,” he snapped. “Where have you been? Katherine and I have been worried sick about you!”

Shit. It didn’t look like playing darling daughter was going to get her out of this one. “I’ve, uh— I was— I went…” she trailed off, unable to come up with a valid excuse. With the way he was glaring and clenching his jaw, Taliana was seconds from blurting the truth, but she was saved when someone else answered for her.

“She was at Jude’s house,” Vanessa said as she popped into the room, shooting Taliana a look that clearly said follow my lead and no one gets hurt. “He just dropped her off.”

“Yeah,” Taliana mumbled, rubbing the back of her neck. “I, uh, spent the night at his place.”

Taliana thought her answer had been a relatively good one, but judging from the way her father’s face was turning redder by the second made her reconsider.

“You spent the night at a boy’s house?”

“Dad, relax,” Vanessa cut in, coming to Taliana’s rescue once again. “He’s gay.”

The anger on their father’s face turned to confusion, then to realization, then to something she couldn’t read.

“Oh.” His brow finally relaxed and his hands dropped from his hips, both good signs that Taliana wasn’t going to face a life sentence of grounding. “I guess that’s all right. But you should have called us anyway. I had to talk Katherine out of calling the police five times last night since she was so worried something had happened to you.”

“I’m perfectly fine,” Taliana lied, wincing slightly as a sharp pain shot through her head. “Really.”

Charles looked like he didn't believe a word of it. “Go to your room, Taliana. We’ll discuss this later.”

With one last pointed look at her and Vanessa, he turned and left the foyer, leaving the two girls by themselves. Inside, Taliana was doing a victory dance that she’d escaped punishment for the time being, but she was too tired to even give herself a pat on the back.

“I’m going to bed,” she mumbled to Vanessa as she kicked off her heels and shuffled toward the staircase. “I owe you one.”

“Oh no you don’t!” Vanessa grabbed Taliana’s hand and hopped up on the first stair, putting her at the same height as Taliana. “You’ve got some major explaining to do.”

“Can’t it wait?” she whined as she tried to slip around Vanessa. “I’m not in the mood to talk about anything right now.”

Maybe it was the way Taliana said the words, or maybe it was because she looked like she was seconds away from hurling all over the floor, but Vanessa blew out a heavy sigh and stepped out of her way.

“Fine, but you better tell me everything later.”

“I will, I will,” Taliana promised, waving a hand over her shoulder as she started up the stairs.

She finally stumbled into her bedroom a few seconds later and shut the door before wriggling out of her wet dress. The relief she felt as it fell to the ground was almost enough to make her cry tears of joy, but nothing could compare to the bliss of throwing on a pair of pajamas and collapsing face-first onto her bed. She got in one last yawn before her brain decided it was time for lights out.

Her phone, however, had a different idea.

Its incessant buzzing chased away every ounce of sleep in Taliana’s body, bringing on an onslaught of rather colorful curse words instead. To get the damn thing to shut up, she slapped blindly at her bedside table, trying to locate it without having to open her eyes. Once her fingers curled around it, she toyed with the decision to either fling it across the room or simply silence it, but when she saw it was her mother calling, she had no choice but to pick up.

“Hi, Mom,” Taliana mumbled groggily as she struggled to sit up again. “How are you?”

“I’d be better if my daughter could remember to call me,” she sniffed, though Taliana knew she was just kidding. “Didn’t I tell you to give me a ring when you got there?”

Taliana groaned and ran a hand through her tangled hair, wincing when she hit a few snags. “Ah, sorry about that. I forgot.”

Her soft chuckle made Taliana smile. “You haven’t changed one bit.”

“I’ve only been gone three days.”

“It feels like it’s been three months.” She sighed. “I miss you like crazy. Hopefully you’re holding up better than I am.”

“I really haven’t had much time to think about how much I miss LA,” she said honestly, drawing her knees up to her chest. “I’ve basically been on the go since I got here.”

“Your father told me he’s barely seen you since the day you arrived. He said the twins were keeping you pretty busy.”

Taliana raised an eyebrow in amusement. “Since when do you talk to Dad? Even when you lived around here, you barely spoke two words to him whenever you dropped me off at his house on the weekends.”

“We only talk when necessary,” she clarified. “And when a certain daughter of mine forgot to call and tell me she’d gotten there safely, I had call to Charles instead. Not only did he assure me you were fine, he told me you’d gone to a party.” Taliana could feel her smirk across the line. “Didn’t you tell me your partying days were over, missy?”

Taliana groaned and dropped her forehead to her knees. “I thought they were.”

“Did you at least have a good time, though?”

“It was okay,” she said after a beat. She certainly wasn’t about to share any details about the second half of the night, but she figured her mom could know about who she’d run into. “I saw Zak there last night.”

There was a long pause on the other line, but the sound of her mother’s steady breathing alerted Taliana that she was still there. “I guess I should have told you he was going to live with his aunt in DC,” she admitted meekly.