Five Men, One Tent, Her Parents

My fiancée is beautiful and has a steady job. She's into drones, and she joined a group chat. I hinted to her, carefully, that the people in that group weren't right, and that if anything went wrong she'd be on the hook too. Then I joined the group myself on a burner account, and saw the way Alyssa carried herself in there. Several men who were obviously close with her kept posting flirty stickers. Alyssa's voice messages came back all bashful. “Stop it! You're all married men, and you're picking on me like this!” “Next flight, let's all go camping together.” Their plan was five men and one woman, two days and one night. And a drone taking photographs at twenty-six thousand feet. You'd have to have something wrong with your head to do that. Chapter 1 I canceled the wedding photos, and everything booked around them. I'd rather eat the deposits than go through with any of it. “Yes,” I told the studio over the phone. “I understand the deposit isn't refundable. I don't need the package anymore.” On my tablet, the private drone-group chat kept scrolling. They were close to meeting up now, and the mood in there was so openly suggestive it was practically coming through the screen. The group admin asked Alyssa whether she wasn't getting married soon. Alyssa sent a voice message, drawing every word out. “Marriage just wipes out everything that came before it, right? “I can be as wild as I want and my husband will never know. After the wedding I'll be the perfect little homemaker. “He should count himself lucky. It's not like I slept my way across the city before he met me. He got a bargain.” My chest tightened. The admin's profile picture was of the man himself: bleached blond hair, leaning against a small sports car. His name in the group was Tyler Quinn. He answered in a low, teasing rasp. “Alyssa, there's something underneath that. “We don't have much in this group except men. “You're the only woman in here. Want to make the camping trip a little crazy?” My breathing went shallow. Something closed around my heart and squeezed. Even after I'd given up on her, some pathetic part of me still wanted Alyssa to turn him down. For me. “Sure.” One word. That was all she sent. And my mind supplied the coy little smile that went with it, whether I wanted it or not. I lit a cigarette. It was harsh and it burned. It still didn't come close to how I felt. I couldn't work it out. Had I not been good enough to her? My parents treated her like their own daughter. If they ever heard I'd upset her, I was the one told to apologize. I made a little over eight thousand a month. Three thousand of it went to her, every month, like clockwork. With the hours she actually kept — in late, out early — she barely covered her own gas. The car was mine too. I bought it. Spotless in public, reckless in private, with a marriage underneath her as the safety net. Then the front door opened, and Alyssa was home. “Oh, you didn't go to your parents' place? “Good, that saves me a phone call. Work's sending me out of town, last minute. “Nobody said how long. Three days, at a guess. Don't worry about me.” She lied without a flicker, and the anger I'd been sitting on nearly came up my throat. I made fists and watched her load clothes into her suitcase. Alyssa sniffed. Her eyebrows drew together. She put down the shirt in her hands, followed the smell out to the balcony, and fanned the air with distaste. “Jason, have you been smoking in here? “Since when do you smoke? I've told you I can't stand the smell!” I made a sound in my throat and gave her a cold smile. “You've never run into a man who smokes? Do you get on their case too?” Her head tilted. The patience left her face all at once, and she looked me up and down. “I'm talking about you. Why are you dragging strangers into it? “You're going to be my husband, so of course I get a say. Some stranger can smoke himself into the ground and it's nothing to do with me. “Where is this even coming from? Is this because I skipped dinner with your parents?” Alyssa took my hand. Her voice went soft. “Don't be upset. Once we're married, seeing them is the most natural thing in the world. “I have my own career to think about. My client is in a hurry! “Can you please just make things easier for me?” I looked at that pouting, put-upon face, and every other time she'd dropped the blame in my lap came back at once. The anger came straight up out of me. I gathered her things and dumped them by the front door. “If you're going, don't come back. You think I'm an idiot? “I asked one of your coworkers. You can't handle the basics of your own job, and they're sending you to entertain clients? “That's not a business trip. That's sleeping with somebody for a signature.” Her face flooded red under it. Her lips shook, and her eyes went everywhere but my face. “You're yelling at me! “You are unbelievably controlling. How could you go behind my back and contact my coworker?” I wasn't going to coddle her. “Get out. The apartment is mine. “The card on my account gets canceled today. “And the seventy-five thousand I lent your parents for their down payment? You've got one week to get it back to me, or we do this through lawyers. “We're done. Go wherever you like.” Chapter 2 Alyssa went white. She nearly lost her footing. She couldn't believe I'd raised my voice, let alone ended it. But at the word lawyers, her eyes cleared right up. “Jason. You — you're saying you want to break up? “You're angry. It doesn't count.” I didn't give her room to talk her way back in. “I canceled the wedding photos. The card on my account gets reported lost within the hour. “If the money isn't back in a week, the collection letters go to your parents' address. Don't put them through that.” Alyssa started to panic. Then her phone lit up with a number she hadn't saved, and I watched her decide she wasn't giving up the camping trip either. She wrapped both hands around my arm and let her voice go sweet. “Jason, let's both calm down. Fine, I lied. I'm meeting friends. “Girls. My girlfriends. I didn't bring you because it would've been awkward for them. “They're all single. What am I supposed to do, walk in with my fiancé? “Three days! Just give me three days, and I promise there won't be a next time.” I pulled my arm free. The corner of my mouth went up. “Three days?” I was about to take her apart with it when a sports car came growling up the street below. A minute later Tyler Quinn was at my door, taking the last few steps at a jog. He came in loose and easy, and greeted me like we'd known each other for years. “You must be Alyssa's boyfriend. She and I have a client thing lined up. You knew that, right?” I didn't bother looking straight at him. I sat down and let myself smile. Girlfriends one minute, clients the next. They hadn't even bothered to line the stories up. “Go on, then. Don't keep your coworker waiting. “First time I've watched somebody drop a rock on his own foot. “Land the contract, fly a few drones afterward. Sounds like a wonderful life.” Alyssa didn't say a word. Tyler heard the tone and decided he'd been disrespected. “What kind of man drags something out like this? She isn't even married to you and you've already got her tied up in knots. “What happens after the wedding? She needs your permission to sit down at the table?” Alyssa shook her head at him, hard, trying to shut him up. Too late. He'd clearly been fed enough of her version of me to think he was rescuing somebody. “Don't be scared. I've got your back. “Jason, right? I know it's not nice to hear, but there is nothing wrong with the way Alyssa treats people. You're a lucky man that she said yes.” That genuinely made me laugh. We were both grown men. A guy who picks up another man's fiancée for a night in a tent with four more men knows exactly what he's doing. And here he was in my living room, giving me a lecture on respect. So I took the door he'd opened for me and handed him the whole thing. “You know what? If Alyssa's that wonderful, you should marry her. You'd be over the moon. “You've clearly got the money for it. “Saves me calling a courier, too. Take her boxes to your place. “She needs about three thousand a month, she doesn't do housework, and she loves drones. You two already share a hobby.” Tyler couldn't get a word out. He'd walked straight into it. The blood went out of Alyssa's face as well. I do believe she felt something for me — she'd picked me as her fallback while she was in that group, after all. That's a kind of endorsement. Tyler thought about it for a second, then kicked the suitcase over. “You think marriage is a joke? Alyssa and I don't have that kind of history! “You're marrying people off who've never even dated. I'm telling you, we've got work to do. Stop making a scene.” Alyssa stamped her foot, tugging at her own hair. “Jason, I — I'm going for now. “We'll talk when I'm back. I don't agree to any breakup.” I gave her a small smile and nothing in my eyes. “Promise me. Promise you'll let me explain when I get back.” She dragged it out, hovering, on the edge of tears. Tyler saw the smile and it clearly bothered him. He stuck his neck out and raised his voice. “Come on, you're a grown man. Give her a straight answer!” I stretched, slowly. “Will the two of you swear to it? “Swear that if this is anything other than work — if you're lying to me and it's a drone trip — then neither of you ever has a good day again.” Then I lay back on the couch and picked up my phone. “Lie if you want to lie. Pull the door shut on your way out.” Alyssa couldn't move forward or back. Tyler had a headache coming on. Watching the pair of them calculate how bad this could get, I had the best idea I'd had all day. Why not let Alyssa's parents see for themselves how their daughter behaves in a tent? I only hoped the two of them had strong stomachs. Chapter 3 I felt considerably better after that, so I stopped making it difficult for them. “Go on, both of you. I was joking. Work or friends, it doesn't matter. People in a relationship owe each other trust.” Alyssa lit up. She hadn't expected me to swing around a hundred and eighty degrees. “Baby, you're the best.” She blew me a kiss and practically ran down to Tyler's car. I watched them go, then went back to the group chat. Half an hour later, the other men started complaining. “Have you picked Alyssa up yet? Is she as pretty as her photos?” “You old lech. Scare her off and she'll turn the car around.” Tyler, quiet for a while, finally posted a photo from inside the car. From the angle, Alyssa had taken it. Lips pushed out, top pulled just low enough, the whole thing calculated to keep five men awake. “Relax, everybody. I said I'd deliver and I don't go back on my word. “One problem, though. I never bought a tent. Are you splitting one off for me, or what?” One of them jumped in, delighted with himself. “We only packed the one big tent. Guess it's boys and girls together tonight. “Fair warning, I move around in my sleep. If I end up somewhere I shouldn't be, don't take my head off, Alyssa.” Alyssa left them plenty to imagine. “We're all adults here. If we're going out to have fun, let's actually have fun. “And for the record, I move around in my sleep too.” Tyler posted a few seconds of video. He was stopped at a light, phone in one hand, pointing at his own cheek with the other. Alyssa leaned straight over and kissed it. “See that? She isn't shy. So don't sit on whatever you're thinking. I packed protection, and anything you're too scared to do, I'll do.” The chat came apart. “Who says I'm scared? I'm braver than any of you!” “I can't believe I didn't sign up for this trip.” I wasn't angry. If anything, I'd never been calmer. The first thing I did was back up every line of it. Screenshots. Voice messages. Photos. Video. I thought about dropping the whole file into the family group chat. Six people in there. Alyssa, her parents, my parents, me. Nothing in it that couldn't be sent. I stopped myself. I had a better idea. Why not take them out there and let them see it? Let Alyssa's parents get a clear look at the well-raised daughter whose new house my money had paid for. I gave it enough time, then called her. There was rustling on the other end. Her voice came out dry and half-covered, like she had a hand over the microphone. “Baby, I'm busy. What are you calling for? “We got caught in the rain, and the girls and I are changing in a restroom. I can't talk, somebody's already knocking.” I asked my questions in order, calmly. “The girls? Then what's your friend with the bleached hair doing out there? He isn't one of the girls. “I'm calling because I'd hate to be the last to know I've been made a fool of.” Alyssa laughed, thin and dry. “Baby, don't joke like that. We're husband and wife next month. Why would I make trouble for myself? “Wait for me. I'll be home the day after tomorrow and I'll make it up to you. Be good.” Sweet to my face, something else entirely the moment my back was turned, and all of it delivered so smoothly that if I hadn't been in that group I'd have swallowed it whole. “All right. If you say so, I'm not worried.” “See? You're the best.” Then I turned it. “Once you're done changing, let's do a video call. Then I really won't have to worry.” That did it. She came up furious. “Jason! That's enough! “I give you an inch and you take a mile. “Since you clearly don't trust me, I'm turning my phone off.” She hung up. When I called again, it was off, exactly as I'd expected. I took my time, then dialed her mother. “Diane? I think Alyssa may be missing.” Chapter 4 “Jason, tell me what's happened. Quickly!” “Diane, I think Alyssa's run into the wrong people. A man with bleached hair picked her up, and since then I can't get through to her.” Diane Bell's voice shook. “Then we call the police.” “We can't. It's only been a few hours. They'll tell us to keep trying her number. “But I think I know roughly where they are. I'll drive over and get you.” On the way to the Bells' house, Tyler put two more videos in the group. The first was a celebration. The drone had gone up far enough to bring back a wide, cold, beautiful view — and a commercial airliner passing not far off. That was flatly illegal, and yet in writing he played it down. “Twenty-six hundred feet, challenge complete. Those who know, know.” Twenty-six hundred feet does not put you level with an airliner. He'd gone five times that and he knew it. The second video was a different kind of problem. “Here! Right here! You nearly had it!” “Blind man's bluff. Whoever gets caught takes something off!” The tent wasn't large, and there was exactly one woman in it. Win or lose, every man in there came out ahead. Then a few more photos, with nobody in them at all. Somehow that was worse. A pile of clothing, everything that had been lost in the game, and sitting on top of it a piece of women's underwear nobody could mistake for anything else. “That's me offline for a while, gentlemen. Time for the real business.” By the time I got to the Bells' house, they'd already called in relatives. “We should take plenty of people,” one of the relatives said. “More of us looking, more chance of finding her.” I called a carload of my own friends and told them to record from start to finish. That closed the last exit her family had. Nobody was going to tell me afterward that these people were only messing around and nothing happened. We set out, two cars behind mine. A little over half an hour later we came to an empty stretch of country, and there was the tent, sitting in the middle of it without a care in the world. Laughing, back and forth. Men, and a woman. The tent was shaking hard, and there was a man breathing behind it. You didn't need to be clever to know what was going on inside. Diane Bell stopped walking. “Jason. Are you certain this is the right place?” I nodded at Marcus Webb to keep the camera up, and slapped the side of the tent. Everything inside went still. After a few seconds the zipper came down and a man somewhere in his forties pushed his head out. “You want to start something? I'm in the middle of enjoying myself.”