Chapter 16 - Nothing

Nef’s POV


I sat on my bed looking at my phone. He hung up on me. He was mad and hung up on me. Mad at me for what? That I hadn’t called him since Saturday night? Well excuse me. I didn’t intend to get my purse snatched or to come home to find my car stolen. I went to my parents’ house on Sunday and forgot to bring my phone. While I was at work on Monday the damn thing died and I couldn’t call him. Excuse me for having to take care of this shit and not having time to call him.

What had crawled up his ass and put him in a bad mood?

Tuesday morning while I was at work I got a call from Officer Peterson.

“We found your car. It was on a street in Dover.”

Delaware? Really? That’s random. He told me that it was at the police impound just outside of Dover waiting to be processed. It didn’t look like entry had been forced or anything had been removed but they couldn’t assume anything. He told me that I would get a call when I could come and pick it up.

A few hours later I got a call from a Dover police station saying that they had apprehended the person who had stolen my car.

“Ma’am,” the officer said, “The suspect said that she knew you. She called in the car stolen this morning but we had already had a report about your missing car so we went and picked her up. She had personal details about you.”

Huh? What the hell?

“Nef, it’s Stephanie.” The officer had put the phone on speaker.

You have to be kidding me.

“Steph? You took my car?”

It turned out that Steph had taken my car. She and Terry had been arguing all night. He stormed out of our place and jumped in his car. Instead of driving back to his apartment he went home to Dover. Steph had gone into my room and took my keys. She didn’t have her own car so she jumped into mine.

“So you took my car without my permission and drove to Delaware?”

“You said to go into your room and grab your keys—“

“To come and pick me up from the hospital! Not to chase after your boyfriend!”

I was angry. I wanted to choke her. She couldn’t come and pick me up from the hospital after my purse was stolen but she could take my car to Delaware.

“That was Saturday night. It’s Tuesday. Why didn’t you call or text me? Why did you disappear for almost three days with my car?”

I told the officer that Stephanie was my roommate and that I did in fact know who she was. I didn’t however give her permission to take my car across state lines. I didn’t give her permission to have my car at all. Once I got off the phone with the police I called Jesse. She agreed to ride up with me to Dover to pick up my car. I still had my mom’s car.

I left work early and Jesse and I drove up to the police impound in Dover. I was able to pick up my car with little hassle. We then drove to Baltimore to drop off my mom’s car. On the drive I told Jesse about the conversation…or lack thereof with Sasha.

“You guys had a nothing fight.”

A fight about absolutely nothing. A bullshit fight. By the time Jesse and I got back home it was late. I called out from work the next day because in all the insanity of the past few days I had gotten the chance to study too much for the final I had on Thursday. I lived in the library Wednesday and Thursday leading up to my exam. I had already finished the paper for my other graduate class so all that was left to do was turn it in.

When Steph came back from Dover I didn’t say a word to her. I was able to pick up my car with little hassle but Jesse and I didn’t go to the police station to get her. We left her to call her parents to bail her out. We would have to go to court and I had to decide if I was going to press charges or not.

On Friday the Caps played the Canucks and The Oilers on Saturday. I still hadn’t talked to Sasha. I hadn’t had much time to call him and I honestly didn’t want to deal with his pissy attitude. This week had been trying enough. I just really needed time to relax and decompress.

I made plans to go to a spa in DC with my mom. My mom and I had always been close. I mean she and I were the only girls in a house full of boys.

"So tell me about this boy you have been seeing."

"His name is Alexander ahd he's from Siberia."

"A Russian? Where did you meet him?"

"At the Season Ticket Holders Party back in September."

My mom looked confused. She knew exactly nothing about hockey. In all the years that my dad and I had been watching she'd never gotten into it.

"The hockey tickets that dad buys. They're called season tickets because they're tickets to all the home games of the season."

"Ohhhhh. Okay. I get it."

By the time we left the spa my mother told me that she wanted to meet him. I had to bring him over for dinner one evening.

"We'll see. He travels a lot for work."

I didn't tell her that he was a player because she would run back and tell my father. I wanted to be the one to break the news to him. He wouldn't be happy about it. He was a firm believer that professional athletes were bad boys, no matter what their media image said.

"I'll call you after I talk to him about it."

I wasn't sure when I would talk to Sasha. It hand been almost a week since out nothing fight and we hadn't talked to each other.