Chapter Fourteen

"We're finally on the last house." Nicole looked relieved as she, Jan and Sami stepped in front of the final house. Sami realized where they were and punched Jan on the arm.

"You sent one of those to Kate? Do you know what will happen to me if she finds that note?" Sami demanded, staring up at the house apprehensively.

Jan giggled, "Nope but it would probably be funny."

"About as funny as me tearing you to shreds for this." Sami growled, taking a step towards Jan. Jan stopped giggling and moved behind Nicole.

"All right, who's going to go get the note?" Nicole asked.

Sami and Jan fell silent. Nicole raised her eyebrows, "If you two think that I am going up there to get that thing all by myself and risk getting caught by devil bitch, you've got another thing coming." unlike most of the mailboxes on the street, which were by the side of the road, Kate's mailbox was right next to her front door.

"We should all go." Jan spoke up, "Then, it will be three against one and she won't be able to do anything to us. And you're going to need protection if she read that diary entry already, Sami."

"Fine." Sami huffed, starting up the walkway. Nicole and Jan caught up to her and all three of them continued advancing on the house until they were standing next to the mailbox.

"Get it out, Jan." Nicole hissed. Jan popped open the mailbox and Nicole and Sami winced at the loud squeaking sound.

"Keep it down!" Sami said, looking into the house fearfully. She knew she could handle Kate, she just didn't want Kate to catch her going through the mailbox.

Jan ignored her and made loud banging sounds on the sides of the mailbox as she searched for the scrap of paper.

"She sure does get a lot of mail." Jan said conversationally as she riffled through the contents of the mailbox, "I wish I got this much mail."

"Would you shut up and find the papers?" Sami raised her voice a notch, temporarily forgetting that they were supposed to be quiet.

"You're even worse than Nicole." Jan muttered, then squealed happily, "I found it! It got stuck in one of the corners of the mailbox. Well, now that we have everything, we can go back home."

The front door opened and Kate stepped outside, her nostrils flaring angrily, "No, you can give me my mail and get off my property."

"I told you to be quieter, Jan." Sami said, stepping away from Kate.

"You two?" Kate sputtered, her eyes flashing with contempt when she saw Sami and Nicole, "What are you up to now?"

"We're not up to anything." Jan answered for them, crumpling the diary entry into a little ball. Kate noticed and turned her attention back to Jan.

"That's mine. You can't steal my mail!" Kate yelled in outrage, flinging herself at Jan and trying to pry the note out of her hands. Jan scrambled a few feet out of her reach and quickly stuck crumpled up of ball of paper in her mouth. Kate let out of disgusted shriek but gave up on trying to get the paper.

"I'm glad you didn't let her get the note but I really think there were better ways to get the note away from her, Jan." Nicole commented. Jan's mouth was too full of paper to answer.

"I should call the police. What were you guys doing going through my mailbox?" Kate demanded.

Nicole smiled winningly, calmer now that the danger of Kate finding the note had passed, "Jan was being a very bad girl tonight. She was going through Lucas' things and she found this dirty, dirty note that Sami had written him. Jan decided you'd like a copy of it, so she put it your mailbox and then we came to get it back because we decided you shouldn't see it. It's kind of X-rated and we didn't think you could handle it."

"She could handle anything after her previous job." Sami mumbled.

"You were sending my son dirty notes!" Kate screamed, "Dear Lord, what is this world coming to?"

"I was not." Sami shot back, "Nicole's lying."

"We have to go now." Jan said, after spitting the piece of paper out, "I don't feel very good."

"Good, I hope you die of ink poisoning." Sami said nastily as she, Jan and Nicole walked back to the car, leaving Kate standing outside the front door of her home.

Once Nicole had started driving, Jan spoke up, "There's only ninety-nine papers accounted for. There's one other one you guys didn't pick up yet."

Nicole slammed on the brakes, "Where is it?"

"I put the last one in an envelope with Lucas' name on it and taped it to your door." Jan muttered, trying to hide a smile.

Sami and Nicole groaned, "That was the person we wanted to keep that information away from the most. How could you wait so long to tell us?" Nicole asked.

"I didn't think it mattered." Jan lied.

Sami let out of a disgusted sigh and turned to Nicole, "You or me?"

"Go ahead." Sami nodded and smacked Jan hard. Jan gave an enraged yelp and rubbed the back of her head.

"Why does everyone always hit me?"

"Because you need to be hit." Nicole arrived back at the apartment building and Sami jumped out of the car. Before she left, she turned back to Jan, "If I ever catch you anywhere near my apartment again, I will not hesitate to hit you again. And maybe next time, I'll use a baseball bat."

Sami rushed up to her apartment and prayed that the envelope would still be on the door. But when she finally got up to her apartment, there was no envelope in sight. Sami knew that meant Lucas, or even worse, Brady, had already read the note. Feeling defeated, Sami stepped into her apartment to find Lucas sitting on the couch. With a white scrap of paper in his hands.

He stood up when he saw her and cleared his throat nervously. Sami remained standing in the doorway, her eyes trained on the piece of paper he was holding.

Lucas noted the expression on her face and spoke cautiously, "I guess you know what this is."

"Unfortunately."

"This means that you've felt it all along too." Lucas looked upset, "For a while, I had actually thought you didn't feel the same way I did. But now I know you do feel the same way and that you've just been hiding it. Why, Sami?"

Sami shifted uncomfortably, "I don't want to talk about this. Not right now and not any other time."

"Why?" he repeated, "Sami, you have to tell me what you want me to do. Because I don't know where you're coming from. I understand why you wouldn't want to force anything. But you don't have to push it away either."

Sami felt herself weakening. The sincere look in his eyes and the soft, warm sound of his voice was overpowering. She knew there was no way she could back out and say she didn't feel anything for him. He knew how she felt. And she knew that he cared about her. She took a step towards him and lifted her head to meet his eyes. For a second, she forgot all about Brady, Nicole and everyone else. It was only her and Lucas standing there, with their lips inches apart.

Then everything came crashing back to her. She couldn't risk it. She wouldn't let Brady find out. She stepped away from him and her eyes filled up with tears of frustration.

"We cannot have this conversation. I'm sorry." Sami brushed past him, retreating to her bedroom before she could see the hurt and confused look that flickered briefly across Lucas' face when she walked away.