Chapter 2 Two

• Sarah was in the kitchen, looking through the fridge to see if anything had run out when she heard the sound of a car pulling into the driveway. Immediately, she knew who it was. No doubt, it was Jake’s mother. Her first instinct was to go out and welcome her, but when she remembered that Jake and his friends were upstairs, her heart skipped a beat. She’d better save that cocky young man, otherwise he would be in a basket of trouble in no time.
• Without thinking twice, she left the kitchen and rushed upstairs to Jake’s room. Trying her best to ignore the moans coming from inside the room, she knocked harshly on the door. But there was no response.
• “Jake! Your mom is here!”, she said in hushed tones.
• Immediately, the moans and other sounds came to a halt. Seconds later, the door was flung open and two half naked girls followed by a young man that was throwing on his clothes hurried out of the room, all of them sweating profusely.
• Sarah was shocked. What had these kids been up to? Were they having a foursome or what??
• “Thanks, Sarah. I owe you,” a shirtless Jake said to her just before he closed the door.
• Sarah scoffed, but then, she suddenly realised what he had just called her: Sarah! What the hell! This was the first time he was calling her by her own name instead of her ex husband’s name. Was he nuts or what? She had half the mind to knock on the door again and demand that he explain what had gotten into him that made him call her by her first name, but then, seeing his confused friends scurrying around like rats made her change her mind.
• “Hey, come with me,” she called to them, and they quickly followed her.
• After leading them to an empty room and leaving them there, she went outside to meet Jake’s mother.
• “Rosie, you decided to take us by surprise, eh? We weren’t expecting you so early,” she said cheerfully.
• Rosie Martins, Jake’s mother, was a good friend of hers whom she had known since they were in high school. After her sudden divorce which left her with almost nothing apart from her daughter, Rosie had been the one who stepped up to help her and gave her a job as a housekeeper at her home. That was a few years ago.
• “Yeah, I changed my mind about attending the last meeting,” Rosie said with a sigh as she hugged her friend and walked into the house with her.
• Sarah made sure to stay on Rosie‘s left side as they entered the living room. The room she had hidden Jake’s friends was on the left side. She was determined to make sure that she kept Jake’s mother from getting anywhere close to that room.
• All of a sudden, Rosie plumped down on the nearest sofa and kicked off her shoes with a deep sigh.
• “Come on, you’re being like Jake now,” Sarah teased her. “Stop being lazy. Just go upstairs and have your bath.”
• “I bathed at the hotel before leaving. Just let me rest a bit. The weather is so hot,” Rosie yawned.
• “It’s hot, that’s the more reason why you should bathe again,” the housekeeper insisted. She was trying hard to get Jake’s mother out of the living room. The longer she stayed there, the more likely the possibility that she would notice something which might lead to her finding out that those young people were hiding in the house. Apart from that, the living room was where they would have to pass through in order for them to leave the house. With Rosie seated there, that would never happen.
• “You’re right, I guess,” Rosie finally conceded and stood up.
• “After all, I don’t want to be like Jake,” she added with a lighthearted chuckle as she reached to take her bag from Sarah.
• “Don’t worry. Let me escort you,” the housekeeper said instead, and followed her up the stairs to make sure that she got to her room.
• After dropping the bag in Rosie’s room and chatting with her a bit in an effort to make sure that she was preparing to shower, Sarah Garcia finally rushed back down and went straight to the room where she had sequestered Jake’s friends.
• “Now, hurry!”, she instructed them as soon as she opened the door.
• Fortunately, they hadn’t forgotten to wear their clothes. The moment she let them out, they rushed straight for the front door without even remembering to thank her.
• “Naughty things,” Sarah hissed in displeasure as she watched them leave. “I wonder what he sees in such girls.”
• As far as she was concerned, there was nothing special about these thin, shapeless girls that she felt could easily pass for boys. Why couldn’t Jake go for real females like... well, not herself, though. She was too old for him. Or was she, really?
• With each passing day, she was losing more and more of the once tightly-held reservations she used to have about any potential relationship between them.
• “Ahem.”
• This sudden cough startled Sarah, and she quickly turned around to see who had coughed.
• It was Jake himself. He was walking slowly down the stairs towards her.
• “Thanks for your help. I really appreciate it,” he said to her.
• “Whatever,” Sarah said dismissively. She wanted to walk away when she suddenly remembered something. “And by the way, don’t you ever call me by my first name again. I’m Mrs. Garcia to you, got it?”
• The unusually harsh manner in which she said this took Jake by surprise. She’d never talked to him like this before. She seemed to be really mad at him right now, and for the life of him, he couldn’t understand why.
• “Umm... okay. Understood,” he said with a shrug, wondering what was behind her anger.
• “Good,” she said and stormed off to her room.
• Little did Jake know that her anger stemmed from the sight of those girls that had just left.