Chapter Nine: Lies

Rosalie had spent a good two hours on the phone with Alice getting to know each other. They immediately became friends and promised to call each other soon. Royce had called her a little later and had somehow managed to turn things around on her. He had told her not to post comments that indicated they were seeing each other because he and his wife were not yet divorced. For this reason, if the army found out they were seeing each other, he could get in to trouble. She immediately forgot the fact that he had kissed another girl and had spent the next twenty minutes apologizing to him.

Rosalie sat there confused as hell, she hadn't heard back from Emmett, but obviously he had said something to Royce or Royce wouldn't have called. When she tried to confront Royce about all of it, he acted like it was nothing and that it was just a peck on the lips as a friendly hello. Rosalie didn't see that way, but she didn't want the headache that came with fighting with him so she let it go. Her messenger alerted her to a new message and she opened it seeing it was a message from Alice.

"Did you talk to Royce?"

Rosalie sighed and messaged her back telling her of their conversation. The next thing she knew, her phone was ringing and it was Alice.

"He's so full of it, it was not a friendly kiss," Alice snorted.

"I know that and you know that, but he's not going to admit to it. Hey have you heard from Emmett at all?"

"You know, I haven't, which is odd because we talk daily," Alice's voice sounded a little worried.

"I don't know what's going on with him, we used to talk every day too and then all of a sudden it just stopped," Rosalie recalled, chewing on her bottom lip. This was a nervous habit she had kept from childhood from when her mom had abused her or when she used to listen to her parents fight.

"I do have some interesting news though, you know how they stopped in Oklahoma?"

"Yeah."

"Well apparently Royce slept in the same bed as her," Alice said breathlessly. "I talked to the girl and I'll add her on our instant messenger conversation."

"Okay I'll jump back on, talk to you on there!"

"Okay, bye!"

Rosalie set her phone down on her desk and watched as a new girl was added to hers and Alice's conversation. Her name read, "Nevaeh". This was the girl that Royce said he was stopping at in Oklahoma to introduce Jasper to.

"Hi girls!" the new girl typed.

"Hi," Rosalie typed back unsure of what to say.

"Tell Rosalie what you told me," Alice sent.

"Okay, well Royce, Emmett, and Jasper came and visited me here at my mom's house. All three of them were all over me, but mostly it was Royce and Jasper. Jasper and I had sex and Royce and I slept in the same bed together. Didn't really do anything, but I could tell Emmett was really in to me, too. I really like Jasper though."

Rosalie sat there staring incredulously at the screen, reading and re-reading what Nevaeh had sent to them. Her phone rang and it was Alice again, "Can you believe what she's saying?"

Rosalie snorted, "I don't know, I don't even know what Nevaeh looks like!"

"Oh, Royce is friends with her on social media, go look!"

Rosalie pulled up Nevaeh's social media page and immediately clicked on her profile picture to get a better look. Rosalie honestly couldn't believe her eyes, she had never had a mean thing to say about anybody, especially before she got a chance to know them, but what came out of her mouth next shocked her, "Bullshit, that lying cow!"

Rosalie slapped a hand over her mouth while Alice cackled on the other side of the phone, "My thoughts exactly."

"Maybe I can see Royce somewhat doing something with her, considering what his wife looks like, but only if he was really drunk and desperate!"

This opinion only served to make Alice laugh even harder, "That's exactly how I feel about Jasper. She doesn't know that Jasper and I are actually seeing each other."

"What about Emmett?" she asked hesitantly and quietly.

Alice had stopped laughing at this point and was only giggling slightly, "What about Emmett?"

Rosalie felt her face heat up, "Do you think Emmett would have done anything with her?"

Alice laughed, "No, Emmett has way better sense than that."

Rosalie tried not to sigh with relief, though there was a nagging feeling at the pit of her stomach, "Okay, well I have to get ready for work love, I'll talk to you tomorrow."

"Okay, sounds good bye girl."

Emmett woke up the next morning with a raging hang over. He had passed out on the couch and the last thing he remembered was making out with Tanya on the side of the house. Someone had covered him up with a blanket and he vaguely remembered Royce laid out on the kitchen floor with his friends around him laughing. He slowly sat up and looked around the room to find beer bottles, cups, and trash everywhere. They were going to have a rough time cleaning all over this up.

Emmett groaned swinging his feet around to the floor, his head pounding and the world was spinning. Once he was able to gain his bearings, he stood up and started searching around to see who had managed to stay around. He noticed there was a tooth sitting on the kitchen table and began to wonder how crazy things had gotten last night. His phone chirped from his pocket alerting him to a new text message, the sound was so offensive in his state that he cringed inwardly and put it on vibrate.

Emmett started checking bedrooms and found Jessica asleep with Royce, both topless. He almost slammed the door shut in his haste to rid himself of the view and nearly lost his stomach contents at the sight. Further stumbling through the house, he found Josh asleep in the bathroom sprawled out and Lauren was passed out on top of her bed. Grabbing a beer from the fridge in the hopes of ridding his hangover, Emmett made his way outside where a few people had ended up camping out in a couple of the tents they had set up with the purpose of discouraging people from driving while drunk. He took a long drink of his beer, finishing half the can and then starting searching through his pockets for his cigarettes. Once he had found them and had pulled one put, he plopped himself down in a chair to light it.

Taking a long drag, Emmett tried for the life of him to remember what had happened last night and hoped he hadn't embarrassed himself in front of Tanya. While he was trying to grasp for some sort of memory of the party, his phone vibrated in his pocket again. Sighing, he pulled it out and saw two unread text messages. One was from Tanya and the other was from Alice.

Emmett opened the one from Tanya and read, "Hey, hope your night was just as good as mine. I had a wonderful time with you and can't wait to see you later tonight."

He smiled and sent her a reply, "I had a really good time with you too, looking forward to seeing you again."

Then he opened the one from Alice and read it, his good mood disappearing and the headache from his hangover returned.

When Rosalie woke up that morning she was not expecting to see all the notifications that alerted her to new pictures being posted on social media of Royce, Tanya, and Emmett. Clicking through the photos from the party they had the previous evening, Rosalie's heart sank further and further into her stomach. Some of them weren't so bad, Royce doing keg stands, Royce asleep on the kitchen floor, Tanya and her friend Jessica, Tanya and Royce holding up beers together, Royce and Emmett drinking together, and then it got weirder. Royce was missing a front tooth, Jessica was trying to throw the camera a kiss while clearly holding up a very drunk Royce, Tanya cuddled up next to Emmett, Jessica cuddled with Royce on the couch resting her heard on his chest, Jessica kissing Royce's cheek while they were cuddled up on the couch, and then Jessica and some other girl cuddled up with Emmett kissing him on either cheek. What was even more disturbing, is that Rosalie found herself to be more jealous over the pictures of Emmett and Tanya than the ones of Royce and Jessica and she was dating Royce!

Rosalie didn't know what to do, she just sat there staring at the offensive pictures and trying to decide if being with Royce was worth this kind of torture. Then Rosalie's phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Hello wife, I take it by your tone you've seen the photos?" came Alice's voice on the other end.

"Yeah, can I tell you something? You can't tell anybody because I'm really confused right now."

"Sure what's going on?"

Rosalie chewed on her bottom lip, hesitating for a moment wondering if telling Alice was the right decision to make right now, "Don't get me wrong I love Royce and I know that's really screwed up with how he's been behaving lately, but I'm not there so I can't really say for sure what's going through his head or what actually happened-"

"Honey, you're rambling. Breathe."

Rosalie took a deep breath, "I'm more jealous of other girls hanging off of Emmett than I'm more upset of other girls hanging off of my boyfriend!"

Then Rosalie started to cry.

"Why are you crying? Royce is an asshole, I honestly don't see why you're with him. As far as Emmett goes, have you told him how you've felt?"

Rosalie started crying even harder, "I can't! I'm seeing someone else, and not just anybody else, but his best friend! How awful is that?"

"It's not that bad, Rose. You have feelings for Emmett, and no one can blame you. He's hot and he's a total sweetheart. But listen, I have to get going and go to a doctor's appointment. I'll call you later."

They said their goodbyes and Rosalie looked at her computer one more time before wiping her eyes and getting ready for work.

Emmett called Alice almost immediately after reading her text message.

"Hey, what's going on?"

"Hello to you too, stranger. Having fun in Washington?" Alice answered with a tone that screamed sarcasm.

"Alice, I am hung over as all hell and don't really have time for games, so cut the crap and tell me what your text was about?"

There was a rustling on the other end and he heard Alice saying something to her son before she returned to the phone, "What my text message was about is about all the pictures that were posted online from your guys' little party last night."

Emmett felt his face pale, "What pictures?"

"There are a ton of pictures that Jessica and Royce posted from the party last night. A bunch of them are of Jessica and Royce cuddling on the couch and of her kissing him that look too much like they're a couple or at least screwing around."

Emmett let out a low curse, he knew Rosalie had already seen them if Alice was now getting a hold of him, "Is there more?"

"Yup."

Emmett cursed again, "What else is there?"

Alice went on to tell him of the photos that were of him, Jessica, Tanya, and Lauren. Then informed him of all the things Nevaeh was saying about how he and Royce supposedly acted towards her to Rosalie and with the photos, the situation for him and Royce were not looking too good.

"She's a liar! I hope Rosalie doesn't really believe that Royce or I would do anything! Wait, why am I defending what I've been doing? I'm not seeing Rosalie at all and according to Royce, if he can't work things out with the divorce, he's going to ask Rosalie to marry him and that she's in love with him!"

Alice laughed at him, "You really are that dense aren't you?"

"What do you mean?" he asked incredulously.

Alice sighed, "She's with Royce yes, but she has feelings for you stupid. The only down side is that Royce has her completely wrapped around his finger. He turns everything he does around on her to the point where she actually believes she's the one messing up in their relationship. I'm scared for her Emmett, I'm scared that he's beat her down so much she can't leave him."