First class pain in the ass

[Jaime Garcia]

"Shit! Take it easy!" Jaime dropped his phone onto the bed and threw up his hands in a defensive gesture as a pair of shoes came flying over his head. One of them flew through and grazed his hair, ruffling the nest of curls. He cursed again as Jen stormed out of her walk-in closet with an armload of clothes and dumped them onto him.

"Oregon?!" She screamed as she started stuffing clothes indiscriminately into a massive suitcase. "I can't believe he ran away to Oregon! That fucking bastard, how dare he! It's not even New York or Los Angeles! Oregon?!"

"Are you more upset that he ran away, or that he ran away to Oregon where you can't shop or eat caviar at Michelin-starred restaurants?"

"BOTH!"

"Ah." Jaime shifted the clothes onto the bed beside him when he heard his phone buzzing underneath the pile. He picked it up nonchalantly as Jen continued punishing her suitcase, pummelling clothes into them and stabbing things with the pointed heels of her various shoes. It looked like she was going to ruin most of them, but they both knew what that meant—new clothes. Not in Oregon though. Oregon wasn't known to be the fashion capital of the world.

"It's not confirmed that Cris is there, though. Maybe Edel's going for other reasons." Jaime snuck a glance at her; she was glaring at him like he single-handedly caused the great depression.

"What other reasons? Where would he go without Rey?"

Snorting, Jaime fell back onto her bed. "Maybe he has a lover overseas. Maybe he's living a double life." He flinched when she hit him in the thigh.

"Shut up! Edel's not the type!"

"I'm not sure it's better that he knows where Cris is and didn't tell either of us then..."

"Shut up!" She hefted a shoe and Jaime put up his hands again. "We'll find out when we catch up to him. Ask Rey to come with us. I know you're texting him right now."

"...I'm not." Jaime shifted his phone to the other side of his body where Jen couldn't see it but the jig was up. "I'm texting Mirabelle. She's throwing the party this weekend now."

Jen rolled her eyes as she lifted a gauzy dress up to her body, then apparently decided she didn't like it and threw it off to the side. "You're so stupid and obvious. I know you're only after him because he doesn't like you. Like all those other guys you pissed off and then slept with."

"I'm not after anyone. And if I was, it wouldn't be my best friend's boyfriend. What crazy dramas are you watching lately that you think I'd be that much of an asshole?" He grinned up into her murderous glare. "Besides. If I really wanted him, I could have him. I could have a dozen guys like him."

Jen threw a pair of pants over his grinning face. "No wonder he hates you. Ask him to come along. I don't want to be stuck on a 15-hour flight with only you."

"Well I don't want to be stuck on a flight with you either," Jaime scoffed from under the jeans, not bothering to remove them since Jen was just going to throw more things at him. "I'm not booking first class for him though. He's sitting in economy."

"Don't you dare!" She kicked him in the side of the leg and although he didn't flinch... motherfucker, that hurt! "Book first class! Now!"

Ugh. Spoiled princess much? "Don't you have any other friends we could bring?"

"No. Book the fucking seats!"

"Even if you get him into first class, he's still not sleeping with you—OW! Bitch!" That was almost his dick!

[Rey Nino]

Rey could not state thoroughly enough how much he hated Jaime Garcia. From the moment he met him, he couldn't stand him and his smug face, his hoity-toity tone, and his holier-than-thou gaze. Even knowing that the things Jaime said to him over text were meant to rile him up still riled him up. And he felt like a fool for letting him get under his skin, every fucking time. If it wasn't some dig at his family, at the fact that he'd grown up poor as dirt, or he didn't belong with his best friend, it was always about Edel.

How he wasn't good enough for Edel. How Edel had the hots for their other best friend. No word of a lie, it hurt. Every single time he thought about those two, it hurt. Seeing them together hurt. And he knew part of it was his own insecurity, just like everybody said it was and everybody knew it was. But... he couldn't help but believe there had to be some grain of truth to it. That his loyal, loving boyfriend was actually and had always been in love with somebody else. Somebody he couldn't have, so he settled instead for Rey.

And that hurt. Knowing that hurt. But he kept fighting. For them, for Edel. He loved him so much but sometimes, he didn't really, truly believe that Edel loved him just as much.

So he was fuming and furious, barely able to sleep a wink that night. But he tried to stay calm, to regain his composure. For Izzy.

The nurse Jen found was a nice one. Although he was still wary of leaving his sister with a stranger, Izzy seemed to like her very much and that put some peace in his mind.

Still, as he checked the time on his phone obsessively, waiting for them to arrive the next morning, he felt a growing ball of tension in his stomach. At the thought of what was happening, why his boyfriend outright lied to him over the phone as smoothly as butter. A client in Mexico, he said. Fucking hell. And instead, he was going to Oregon, probably to meet with him. Why lie about it? That made it so much worse.

And why did he agree to this? Why was he going with them?

Too late to back out now.

And there. There he saw it. The car pulling up to his place. Shaking off the nerves, he grabbed his things, kissed Izzy on the cheek, told the nurse to take good care of her, and headed out, brow furrowed, expression serious.

Yes, it was too late to back out now.

[Jaime Garcia]

"Ew you're a pig," Jen hissed, disgusted, as she caught a glimpse of what Jaime was texting his newest flavor of the week. Sexting. What he was sexting as they lounged in the back of the luxury car smoothly gliding up to what could only be described as the slums. They stood out like a sore thumb but luckily they weren't going to be here for long.

He shrugged an elegant shoulder at his sister, who made a face at him. "What? Don't act like you're so innocent, miss open relationship." Avoiding her slap, he edged to the other end of the seat. The car rolled to a stop and Jaime briefly set down his phone so that he could roll down the windows.

He wore a pair of five hundred dollar sunglasses in the car just so he could roll down the windows, gently tip the glasses down and wink at Rey. Because he knew that would piss Rey off. Purely because it would piss Rey off. "Hola chico."

Then he rolled the windows back up, laughing his heart out, while Jen rolled her eyes and got out to hug Rey. Their driver alighted too, in order to put Rey's luggage into the back with Jen's five suitcases and Jaime's one. Contrary to popular belief, he traveled light. Jen pulled Rey into the car with them and then they were off again, headed towards the highway and then the airport.

"Is Izzy okay with the nurse?" Jen slipped an arm around Rey's, leaning slightly against him. "You look tired. Didn't get much sleep right? Me neither."

[Rey Nino]

Rey glared.

He didn't know how much the stupid sunglasses cost but everything about Jaime screamed Rich Asshole. Flipping him the bird, he didn't even bother gracing him with any words. Instead, he helped the driver with his luggage, which admittedly, wasn't much. He saw six whole bags! And his one, an old bedraggled suitcase that had clearly seen much better days. Embarrassing. His face heated up at the juxtaposition but he tried his best not to let it get to him.

Then he was in the car and it was moving and they were heading to the airport. To fly to Oregon. To find his boyfriend. With another guy. Whose girlfriend was presently sitting beside him with her arm linked around his.

"Izzy loves her," he said with relief. "Thank you. But I slept like shit, yes." Which he loathed admitting with Jaime right there. "It's that obvious?"

He didn't want it to be. He didn't want Edel to see him like that. But he supposed he could say it was just jet lag.

[Jaime Garcia]

"You look like you slept like shit," Jaime chimed in before Jen could rush to reassure Rey that he looked good. Because he didn't look so good. Dark circles, pale, clearly angry. The last one was his default expression around Jaime so he was used to it but the other two, not so much. Hard to be pissed off and also bone-tired and vampire-white. Yet somehow in this car Rey managed to be all three.

"Shut up! Go back to whatever the hell you were doing." Jen snapped, digging an elbow into his side.

"Sexting." Jaime grinned and he grinned right at Rey. And he held it for one... two... three beats too long and too awkwardly before resuming riling up his newest form of entertainment, at least until they got to the airport. Then Rey would have to be entertainment for the 15 hour flight.

"Disgusting." Jen rubbed her temples. "But I'm glad she likes the nurse! I told her that if anything happened to Izzy, we were going to bankrupt her whole family."

Ah. The tried and true tactic—the Garcia family way. Jaime was almost proud.

[Rey Nino]

His expression was flat and irritated as he regarded Jaime. No fucking shit. He hadn't slept well so he looked it. Fuck him. Fuck him and his shit eating grin. As if Rey cared that he was sexting. Why the fuck was he staring and grinning like that? If Jen hadn't been between them, Rey might have shoved the phone right out of his hands and into his smug ass face.

"What?" Rey blinked, not expecting the poor woman to be threatened! But he should have been. This was the Garcia family, after all... "You didn't have to do that. Or say that. I'm sure she'll be fine." She was awfully sweet to Izzy but... now he wasn't sure if it was genuine sweetness or fear for her family.

[Jaime Garcia]

"I'm joking!" Jen laughed, finding her own joke hilarious. "I paid her a lot. She'll do a good job, don't worry! I mean if I'd threatened her, she might do something crazy right? No it's fine. And I have our doctor checking on Izzy every other day, just to make sure nothing's wrong while you're gone. He'll text us if he thinks something's up."

Jaime snorted a laugh down at his phone. Throwing money at problems was also another tried and true tactic, he couldn't lie. Jen wasn't opposed to threats but not if money could solve the problem more easily. Something he was sure Rey wouldn't know about.

"You can sleep on the plane." Jaime was talking to pass the time now because sexting was getting boring. Same old, same old. Suck your dick, rim job, bang your head against the wall, blah blah blah. Eventually he tossed his phone onto the seat beside him and leaned his head against Jen's shoulder to rest his eyes.

"Did you hear anything from Edel?" Jen dropped her voice for whatever reason—like Jaime wasn't right beside her.

[Rey Nino]

"Oh..." He laughed but it was slightly nervous. Hopefully she had showered the woman with money; that seemed like a much better incentive to take care of his sister than threatening her. Because yeah, she might do something crazy and his heart couldn't handle another loss in the family. He thanked Jen again, though, glad for the foresight about the doctor and everything else she'd done for him. Lightly, he stroked her arm.

Yes, asshole, he wanted to say, that was the plan. To sleep on the plane. It would be a long flight and he needed the rest. And it would be so boring, he was certain to get in at least a nap. But he said nothing because he hated Jaime and he didn't want to talk to him.

"He texted me when he landed," he said sourly, "in what he still said was Mexico."

[Jaime Garcia]

Jaime rolled his eyes behind closed lids. God Edel was so hopeless. It made him actually annoyed, like to the core of his being, whenever he saw those two together and that was a genuinely impossible feat. Maybe five people in all the world could get to him on that level of real negative emotion.

"Lying bastard," Jen hissed, rightfully angry if one of her very good friends was heading down to secretly meet her boyfriend.

"It's not like they're going to fuck so I don't know what you two are all in a huff about," Jaime said lazily, cracking open one eye to look at them. "They've had a decade to fuck and they haven't even gotten past the drunk kissing stage. All they'll do is drink, make out and then probably pass out or something."

"Shut up, nobody's even talking to you Jaime!" Jen shrugged his head off her shoulder and turned fully to Rey. "I mean he's probably right but maybe Edel went down there to stop Cris from doing something stupid. He could have told me, Cris' girlfriend, first, but maybe he has a good reason. We shouldn't assume things."

[Rey Nino]

"Hard not to," he said, annoyed by Jaime and everything to do with him. But seriously, it was hard not to assume things. Why the hell was Edel going to meet with Cris privately? Even if he was going to stop him from doing something stupid, shouldn't he have at least told Jen and Rey? Instead, he was lying through his teeth about some fucking client in Mexico.

"Even if he's out there trying to help Cristoval, why the fuck is he keeping it secret from us? It doesn't feel right."

But then, nothing felt right when it came to those two being together. Every fucking time. He knew it irritated Edel's friends that it drove him so insane but how could it not? He saw the way Cristoval looked at Edel and it was not just some friendship shit. Jaime didn't look at either of them like that. And neither of them looked at Jaime that way and they were the unholy trinity together.

No, he knew from the start there was something there and it bothered him. But he was second to Cristoval and that bothered him even more. He was second and would always be second to him. Cristoval had been in Edel's life since he was five years old. Five. Years. Old. There was no competing with that, even if he was a troll in the looks department. That he wasn't made things just that much worse.

[Jaime Garcia]

"You two are as hopeless as Edel and Cris. I call them Edis. That's their ship name. Like it?" Jaime grinned as he leaned away against the door, looking at them both with the most annoying smug smile he could muster up. They wouldn't like it. Edis was too good for them to like it.

And yes, he was also horribly teasing his own sister but he knew how Jen operated. She did care; she was hurt by everything Cris did. But he always went back to her in the end and Jaime knew that Cris knew if he ever left her broken-hearted, all of the influence in Jaime's family would go towards destroying him.

Atom by atom.

So a little teasing here and there was cruel, but in the end it would all work out.

Jen turned on him like a tigress and beat him savagely with her hand bag, until he had to start ducking and covering his face. "I. SAID. FUCKING. SHUT. UP." She smacked him hard on the chest one last time then, breathing hard, returned her attention to Rey.

"It's not right. But we'll make it right when we find those two bastards and if anything happened, we're going to castrate them with a rusty spoon." She crossed her arms over her chest and glared. "They're too fucking old to be acting like this!"

"Are we at the airport yet?" Jaime asked painfully, edging away from them both and no longer feeling like being funny with a handbag assault already under the belt--and they hadn't even gotten to the airport yet...

[Rey Nino]

"Seriously," he said after Jen told her brother to shut the fuck up and beat him with her handbag. Good. Because if she didn't do something, Rey was about to fucking slug him. And that might not end well, in a car. With poor Jen in between them.

"Yeah they are," he said, irritated with his boyfriend all over again. He lied to him. How the hell was Rey ever supposed to trust him if he went around lying to him? One minute he was home, the next he wasn't picking up his phone and then he was lying. Fuck. Sometimes he wondered why he let himself go through this. Was it worth it? Was Edel worth it? Fuck.

He turned his gaze out the window, hating himself for feeling emotional about it and hating even more the fact that he could feel an ugly sting behind his eyes. He wasn't going to fucking cry like a bitch, especially not here, not now.

"They're way past the fucking hormone stage," he said. And if they were, then they shouldn't be--wouldn't be--doing anything stupid or crazy together. "They shouldn't even be drunk kissing at this point."

[Jennifer Garcia]

Rusty spoons were in Jaime's immediate future too if he didn't shut the fuck up with his smart ass mouth! Jen glared at him one more time before turning her back to him, while he coughed weakly and slumped against the car door to play dead. Maybe he should be actually dead, if he couldn't even be human for once in his life!

"They--well. Edel shouldn't be doing things like this. Not to you. We won't talk about Cris." She slipped her arms around Rey for a loose hug and rested her chin against his shoulder, staring out of the same window as him. Cris was a whole other problem that she didn't know the solution to.

Not even after all this time.

He loved her and she knew it but... there was a part of him that could never be satisfied by her. Sexually, emotionally, she didn't have whatever he needed. She had most of it, but not all of it and that part really hurt her. Being inadequate wasn't something she was accustomed to.

"It'll be okay." She had to tell him that or else she'd start believing the opposite. That things were falling apart because Cris' life was falling apart and he didn't want her in it. She thought he could trust her with anything--her love was unconditional. Yet, he ran from his problems and he ran from her.

She fell silent for the rest of the ride, while Jaime fell asleep after making a few more dying noises. They pulled up to the airport in short order and Jen sighed. "Come on. Let's just get this flight over with. Everybody got their tickets? Rey? Do you have yours?"

[Rey Nino]

Rey was silent for the duration of the ride as well. As much as Jen was trying to reassure him, he felt like she only half believed her own words. The two of them were in the same place, even if they regarded their relationships in different lights. It still had to hurt Jen to know that there could be something between her boyfriend and his best friend. After all, like Rey, she had to wonder how she could compete with somebody that had been a staple in his life for so long. Rey didn't have friends that he had known that long. It was a rare thing.

And if romantic feelings were entangled in there... unexplored for so long, it just felt like nature was eventually going to take control. All of them were fighting so hard against it but sometimes Rey wondered why. Why did he fight so hard? Because he loved him. And he couldn't bear the thought of the person he loved being in love with somebody else, even if he was in love with him at the same time. Some people could do that. Rey wasn't one of those people.

When they arrived, Rey still had mixed feelings. Whether he was doing the right thing, whether he should say something to Edel, whether he should just go home and let it all go. But he couldn't; that was his problem. He was too stubborn and he couldn't just let go without a fight.

Sighing, he lifted his phone.

"Yep. On here," he said. He slid out of the car and looked around. So here they were. Hours and hours away from the moment of truth.

[Jennifer Garcia]

"Let's go!" Jen headed inside without waiting for her luggage to be brought out, knowing that the driver would do that for her. (Again—perks of being a rich girl.) The plane ride was going to be murder and she didn't need to worry about unnecessary things like bags and suitcases.

At the check-in counter there was a bit of a blow-up, mainly because Jaime actually booked economy (the JERK) and Jen insisted on the ticket being upgraded to first class with them. Names were thrown around. A phone call was made. And then they were shown to the security screening area, where Jaime kept rolling his eyes at her and telling her that she was ruining his fun.

As if it was fun to force someone to fly coach for fifteen hours!

"I swear I don't know how we're related," she muttered fiercely to Rey, arm latched around his as she headed inside to wait for the flight. There was a lot of shopping that went on while she 'waited' at the duty free stores. What? She packed light! And then it was time to board, and Jen settled into the acceptably comfortable pod with the reclining bed while the captain came on with the pre-flight speech.

"Where are we staying?" She asked aloud. Jaime was sitting to her right, scrolling through his phone, and Rey's area was to the left. The remaining area was left empty; Jen had thrown her things onto it.

"With Angel."

"Who?"

"You'll see when we get there. Now shush. I'm planning a party."

Jen shot Rey a disgusted look. "Worst comes to worst, we'll get a hotel room of our own and leave this," she jerked a thumb at her brother, "with whoever the hell Angel is."