Eighty Six

Looking left and right to make sure no one was actually looking at her, Raina grabbed the doorknob, twisted it and made her way inside Tyler’s room as it opened. 

The first thing she looked at was the bed, hoping to see Tyler there, asleep, but instead, the bed was made, and empty. But as quickly as she noticed that, she heard the shower as well. 

“Oh great, he’s taking the shower.” She said to herself mentally as she looked around. 

She closed the door behind her as gently as possible, wondering why he wasn’t sleeping like normal people, and then she realized she wasn't sleeping herself so she stopped that line of thought. 

It didn’t matter the reason anyway. 

Walking briskly but silently to the bed, she looked around for his phone, but it wasn’t on the bedside table. She had to be careful but she also had to be fast, so she pulled out the drawers at the bedside to see if his phone was there. She checked under the pillows, but nothing was there. 

Oh shit, where in the hell was his phone? She asked herself mentally. She looked around on the bed but it wasn't there. She tiptoed to the dresser to check if it was there but there was nothing like it there. 

Raina moved quietly around the room, checking every possible place where Tyler could have left his phone. She crouched down to peek under the bed but it wasn’t there as well. Where in the world was his phone then. 

She knew he sometimes left his phone in his office, but that better not be the case tonight. “Oh, God! Please, don’t let that be the case.” She whispered, still looking around as she opened the door to his closet just enough to glance inside and raked her eyes over everything, and even scanned the top of the dresser again, but there was nothing. 

Her frustration was starting to grow with each passing second and it was getting worse. Where was it? Where did he keep it? Those were the questions roaming through her mind. She needed to find it before he got out of the shower, or she would be toast. 

Just as she was about to give up, her eyes landed on the small couch in the corner. There, nearly hidden under a neatly folded pile of clothes she recognized from earlier, was his phone. 

Oh goodness, finally. Why didn’t she find it sooner though? She could have deleted the message and be gone by now. But… she was grateful she still found it, or else… 

She shook her head, not even wanting to think about it. 

She let out a small sigh of relief and tiptoed over to the couch.

Grabbing the phone, she quickly pressed the button to turn it on. But her heart sank when she saw the lock screen demanding a password. "Great," she muttered under her breath, feeling the panic start to rise again in her chest. 

She didn’t think about this, or thought this far when she thought up this solution for herself, because this seemed to put her in more trouble than she was already in. But she just couldn’t leave… no one could do that in a situation like this. 

Her message was there, boldly displayed on the locked screen for anyone to see. Her stomach turned at the sight of the words she had accidentally sent to him. Just what was she thinking? She groaned softly, clutching the phone in her hand. "Of course, it’s locked," she whispered, rubbing her temple. 

“What to do? What do I do?” she kept on asking herself over and over. 

Her mind sprinted around as she tried to figure out what his password could be. Was it possible to was his birthday? Well, she didn’t even know that, if that was the answer. Could it be something military-related? She didn’t have much time to be standing around for this, thinking. The sound of the water in the shower stopped, and her heart skipped a beat. 

She could tell that he was done. She probably had less than two minutes before he walked out of there and caught her. She needed to figure this out and be out of here soon. 

Biting her lip, she decided to take a guess. She quickly typed in a date she thought might be his birthday. The phone buzzed in rejection. "No, no, no," she hissed under her breath. She tried again, this time with the numbers she thought he might use for his military ID.

 Another buzz. Wrong again. 

Her palms were starting to sweat as she stared at the phone. She knew she had one more try before it locked her out completely. She froze, her mind blank as she stared at the phone, willing it to give her a clue. 

Should she take this phone with Hee and just have him look around for it then, it was no big deal. He would probably just assume that he had lost it somewhere, right? Or would he really try tracking the phone until he found it with her? 

He wouldn’t be that petty, would he? It wasn’t as if the phone was all that expensive. Maybe she should just try to flush it, or destroy it altogether, or maybe just trash it and have it carried away, but he could have his messages backed up in a cloud, right? 

Raina’s thoughts spun wildly, grasping for a solution that made sense but finding none. Taking his phone with her? Too risky… Tyler would tear the whole house apart looking for it, and when he found out she had it, he’d never let her live it down. 

Destroying it? That seemed even worse. He would probably assume someone was targeting him, and she would still be caught when he checked the security cameras or something equally terrifying.

Her fingers gripped the phone tighter as she stared at the glowing screen, the damning message taunting her. There wasn’t enough time. Her chest heaved as she tried to calm down, but all she could think of was how stupid she had been.

And then she heard it. The soft creak of the bathroom door opening. Her heart leaped into her throat, and her head snapped up. “Shit!” she whispered harshly, her body freezing for a split second.

Without thinking, she dropped the phone onto the bed as if it had burned her. She needed to get out, now. But as she turned to make her escape, but it was too late. 

Tyler’s tall figure appeared in the doorway, a pajama bottom hanging low around his hips, water dripping from his damp hair onto his bare shoulders. His piercing grey eyes was locked onto hers.

“What are you doing here, Rain?” he asked, his voice low and sharp, sending a shiver down her spine.