The whispers woke her up. That was the first thing Daphne registered as she stirred in her sleep. But she felt too tired to make her presence felt so she just continued to lie down with her eyes still closed, allowing the whispers to go on. Truth was, she found it fun to listen to them. Especially since it was about her.
"Dude, seriously, who is this girl? What's her story?" That was Josh.
Shawn stayed silent, contemplating how to answer. He hated lying to his best friend despite feminine driven magazines insisting that men loved to lie. But how could he possibly tell Josh the truth? What, that he had really gone back in time and she had followed him back here? In fact, if Daphne wasn't there in the room with him at that moment, he would have thought that he had just dreamt his entire adventure up. But seeing her curled up there on his bed under his blanket, her hair splayed all over his pillow and her hand tucked under her head, he felt so glad that she had followed him back. She looked so beautiful asleep as well. Shawn knew that there was no way he could tell Josh about this girl without getting teased like hell so he just shrugged and said, "We met at the Marriott."
Josh made an impatient noise and said, "Yeah thanks for the CIA-worthy info. I gleaned as much from her yesterday, dumbass. But she's beyond weird, Shawn. She found like, everything fascinating. From our PlayStation, to our room to the bean bag chairs — do you know she made fun of our awesome bean bag chairs? Oh wait, why would you know that? You fell asleep!" Josh hissed. Shawn had never really heard Josh hiss before unless you count that one time in high school when he did it intentionally to scare some poor chick off. She was sitting on a bench near a thick, tall bush and Josh hated her, God knows why, so he had crouched behind that bush and hissed, hoping she'd think it was a snake making that sound and run off. Well, they were only thirteen then.
Shawn remembered it backfiring miserably though right now, he couldn't remember exactly what had happened after that. "I'm really sorry dude but I was so tired. I had such a tiring day and you won't believe it but—" Shawn turned back to check that Daphne was still sleeping before he continued, "those Russian dudes are after me like crazy!"
Josh frowned. Screwing his best friend over for falling asleep on him could wait. "Damn man. What are you gonna do? I could help you. Try to sell it to some people I know. It's not that many people but what with NYU kids studying hard for exams and stuff, they ain't gonna want your shit."
Shawn knew that. And he knew that Josh had connections with people who wanted or needed drugs. But Shawn saw two problems with this. Firstly, those people out there that Josh knew were hooked on way worse than LSD. They were into the heavy stuff that Shawn didn't peddle and he didn't know if it was possible to fake that LSD was some other form of heavy drugs just so he could sell it to them. Secondly, and this was the more potent problem, could Josh be disciplined enough and sell all the drugs Shawn gave him without coveting a small but substantial amount for himself? Shawn loved the guy like a brother but he knew that Josh was more into this stuff than Shawn would ever be. Josh could smoke three joints during their gaming sessions but Shawn could only do half a joint after which, he would give the other half to Josh. So actually, Josh did three and half sticks. "Well, I'll see what I can do, man," Shawn said. "I don't wanna involve you in this yet. You don't need the Russians after your ass as well."
"Hey, I can't help it if people like my ass. It's fantastic. Stop getting all green with envy if the Russians want it."
Shawn let out a snort and shook his head. "Look, about Daphne, cut her some slack ok? She's really pretty great."
"I know she's really pretty and smoking hot, Shawn, but great? I'm a little skeptical. Where did she come from? She said she came a long way to get here. What I know is that she came from Forever 21 last night which isn't that long a walk from here. You don't need a girl complaining like that."
Shawn sighed. If this was Josh cutting her some slack, he'd hate to see him tightening the reins. He turned to his bed to find Daphne staring at him wide-eyed.
"Hey," Shawn said in a soft voice and Josh whipped around to stare at Shawn, incredulous that he sounded that way when talking to her. "Did you sleep ok? I'm sorry I fell asleep on you last night, Daph. I was just exhausted!"
Daphne sat up in Shawn's bed and rubbed her eyes. "Yes, I know what you mean. I'm tired too. All the excitement I guess."
All the excitement? Josh wondered. "Dude, I thought you guys didn't have sex. Or at least that's what she said," Josh told Shawn, pointing at Daphne. "Did you guys get it on under the sheets last night?"
"What!" spluttered Daphne turning red in the face. "Excuse me?" She glared at Josh then Shawn. "Shawn, why is he talking about…s-e-x?"
Josh slowly turned to Shawn and weighed him down with a what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-this-girl look. The slow turn was for dramatic effect. "Well, Shawn, that's something else I found out about Daphne. She can spell the word sex. As much as I'd love to stay and chat, I need to head out and do… nothing much. See ya, dude." Then he turned back to Daphne and said, "Daph, it was uh, great interacting with you. Maybe the next time we meet, you can spell a more complicated word for me. What's another word for, hopefully we never see each other again?" And with that, Josh walked out of his dorm room with a backward wave at Shawn.
Now with Josh out of the picture, Daphne turned her full attention to Shawn and stared at him reproachfully. "What did he mean that he thought we didn't…you know. Do it."
"Because he's a jackass and an assuming idiot. But that's Josh, my best friend. But Daph, I swear, I didn't touch you at all when you were sleeping on my bed."
Daphne mulled it over for a while and decided that Shawn was telling the truth. She thought despite kidnapping her, he was a decent boy.
"So what do you want to do today?" Daphne asked, bouncing on the edge of the bed. "I see you've finally changed out of your uniform. I was beginning to think that was the only piece of clothing you owned."
Shawn had changed into a pair of dark blue jeans that had faded slightly in the middle and a plain V-neck T-shirt that made him look nice, not too skinny. "Yeah, I finally showered."
Daphne would have loved the option of showering but she literally didn't have anything else to change into and she had no money with her to buy more clothes from Forever 21, a store she had started to like. So, hoping that she didn't smell as bad as she thought she did, she jumped off the bed and said, "Ok, we'll think of something fun to do while we have breakfast!"
***
Shawn took her for breakfast to the Starbucks outlet (of course) at Herald Square. He thought it would be a great place to show Daphne all the ladies' stores nearby that drove girls insane. But before Daphne could turn into one of the crazy chicks, he had to make her eat something first. As they entered the Starbucks outlet, Daphne smelled the aroma of ground coffee beans and chocolate pastries being warmed up and her stomach grumbled in protest. "Oooh, I want everything. I'm starving!"
Shawn told her to get a seat by the windows for her to look out while he went to get breakfast. "Can I get coffee?" Daphne called to him as walked off.
"Sure. You want black, latte, Americano, macchiato, cappuccino, mocha…" he trailed off giving her a chance to answer.
She couldn't. She stared at him blankly. "Surprise me?"
Shawn laughed and said sure.
Daphne turned to the glass window beside her and stared at the streets that looked so different. The cars looked so shiny and cared for and expensive. She spotted several Chryslers which made her smile and think of home. It was something familiar to her in this unfamiliar dimension. She also loved to people-watch. Being naturally curious, she liked to find out what people were up to, their behavior, how they interacted with others. Take, for example, the two bald men who were standing on the streets across from Starbucks. They had caught Daphne's attention. Even though they were wearing shades (it wasn't even that bright a day), Daphne could tell that one of the men was peering intently into Starbucks. The other was just standing next to him, looking around. The man who was staring suddenly nudged his partner, excitement and anger showing on his face as he pointed at the Starbucks window and said something to him. The second man removed his shades and squinted at the glass window then mumbled something back. Daphne whipped her head around to see what the first bald man was pointing at and it looked like it was the queue at the Starbucks counter.
There were only two people at the counter at that moment: a little girl who could barely see over the countertop let alone be seen from outside on the streets and tall, lanky Shawn.
Daphne put it all together in what seemed like a thousandth of a second. Shawn's conversation with Lucia yesterday, Lucia calling some men 'gamberros' , Shawn's fear, his shared conversation with Josh this morning and more of Shawn's fear. It all added up that these men who really did look like your typical thugs with their ball heads and shades and leather jackets and their entire cold-blooded killers' demeanour, were the ones after Shawn. And they were approaching Starbucks fast. Daphne hoped that Manhattan's traffic would slow them down enough for her to grab Shawn and get the hell out.