"Kayla's?" I repeated.
He sighed again. "Nikki, I don't feel like fighting with you. I am exhausted and—"
"Yeah, and I don't feel like sharing my boyfriend with his ex-girlfriend, either, so I guess neither one of us got what we expected out of this relationship," I snapped.
"All we ever do anymore is fucking fight," he said, raising his voice a little.
"That's because you keep doing fucking stupid things!" I shot back. "You know that we got in a fight about this last week, and yet you kept it from me again? Why would you do something so idiotic, Derek?"
"Because I didn't feel like doing this, Nicole. Yeah, I could have called you right after Kayla called me, but we would have just fought before and after, and you would have been worried about it the whole time."
"You still haven't said why you were over there."
"You're not going to care," he said. "You're sure as hell not going to think it's a good reason."
"Give me the benefit of the doubt," I suggested.
I heard him utter another sigh. "Okay. Kayla called me. She was crying."
I paused for about a half a second. "Yeah, not hearing any good reasons yet."
"I guess her mother... she wasn't planning on telling her yet, and her mother found out. I guess her mom is really religious, and she freaked out on Kayla, and... it's a long story, but Kayla needed me to come over so she could reassure her mother and let her grandparents know officially."
"I have several questions. One, why did you have to be there? Two, why didn't you tell me when you first found out so I didn't have to hear it from someone else? Three, are you going to be running to her rescue now every single time she cries? Because if you are, she's going to cry a lot."
"I already told you, I didn't want to fight. I knew if I called you at work to tell you I had to call off so I could go be with Kayla, it wouldn't go over very well."
"So why didn't you tell me this morning at school, Derek? Or at lunch? Why did you think intentionally keeping it from me would make it better?"
"I didn't know about it then, Nikki," he said defensively. "Kayla called me at four o'clock crying her eyes out. I really didn't have time to do much, and I didn't want to call you at work. I figured you would find out later, and I knew you would be mad, so I figured I'd put it off until I could explain myself."
"Why would... four o'clock? Today?"
"Yeah," he said. "It's not like this was planned, Nikki. I would have told you about it if it would have been."
I frowned, thinking about what Steph had said. "When did she say her mom found out?"
"I don't know when, she just said her mom was waiting for her when she got home from school. I would assume she probably found out somehow this morning."
That just didn't add up.
"Well, tell me, did they say anything?"
"They said a lot. Be more specific."
"Did they say anything about finding out today?"
"No," he said. "Kayla said it's a sore subject, she didn't want me to mention how they found out or anything."
Derek and I didn't talk much longer. Given our argument and Derek's drowsiness, we decided not to hang out that night, and obviously we wouldn't be able to hang out the next night because he would be working.
Instead, I decided to do a little snooping, and I got on my cell phone and texted Stephanie, asking her to do me a favor.
"Sure, what's up?" she asked.
I asked her to find out for me, just to sate my curiosity, how long Kayla had been planning the dinner with Derek.
A few minutes later she sent back, "A few days."