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Even still, the parents hoped she’d reach out to me. They hoped because I let them know what we’d been, how we had something, and they believed she’d contact me because of that connection.
She never did.
Sloane had left me as much as she’d left this town, and there was so much fucking irony in that. I’d left her once selfishly and to my own delusions.
I suppose this was penance.
My stomach rolled from the reality as much as I watched that change occur across my god dad’s face. He brought a hand over it, brief about it, but that didn’t matter. Our meetings were taking their toll. All of this was so fucking shitty. Ramses Mallick was one of the best people I knew. He was so good, kind.
And all this was gutting him.
I saw the wear and tear every day, and after the check-in, Ramses told me to go see Ares. I planned to do that, but I stuck around for a beat. I watched him on calls, one of the rare parents to actually let me do that. The parents had started their searches outside the city, but the extended ones were being done remotely. They were talking to people, getting information. The whole world knew Noa Sloane was missing at this point, and the families had her face on every screen. They needed the world to see her.
They needed to find her.
The last call was clearly Ramses talking to Brielle. He told his wife he loved her and would see her soon before getting up, and when I asked how they were doing, he simply hugged me.
“We’ll find her,” he said to me, a hard and unyielding hug. “We will, and we won’t stop until we do.”
How ironic he’d been telling me this, and if the emotion hadn’t fucking choked in my throat, I would have manned up and told him that. I would have given him this hug, but then, he wouldn’t be my god dad if he would have let me.
He was always taking care of everyone else.
Chapter Six
Dorian
When I found Wolf, he was in his parents’ garage.
He tossed paint at the wall.
My buddy was covered up to his arms with red and black paint, the canvas in front of him bleeding. He’d literally punctured holes in it, and the paint he threw gave the illusion of a canvas that seeped a blood red, the combined color choices only helping to give it that distinct tone.
Wolf ran his hands through it, smearing it out. He’d illustrated eyes, which bled from puncture holes. The guy was covered in sweat and looking just as untamed as he did on the field.
I wondered how long he’d been out here.
I treaded cautiously into my friend’s space. Saying he was going through it right now was an understatement. I knocked hard. “Hey.”
Not even a flinch from his direction, but he did remove his hands from the canvas. He was playing rock music and shut it off without looking at me.
I suppose I was welcome.
The Mallicks had a sink in their garage, and Wolf used it to scrub his arms. He had paint everywhere, his jeans, his hair. It’d probably be on his shirt too had he been wearing it. He tipped his chin from the sink. “Dad tell you where I was?”
He hadn’t. I came over to him, leaning against the wall. “Followed the tunes.”
He always played them when he worked, kind of like a code for us to stay the fuck out. When Wolf was playing music, we texted him, let him know we were here, and he found us.
A lot of things had changed, and I wasn’t letting my buddy close himself off. None of us guys were. I folded my arms. “Wells and Thatcher coming over?” I hadn’t heard from them but figured they would. Like stated, we’d been all spending pretty much every night together.
Wolf’s parents had pulled him out of school this week, and though the rest of us hadn’t been, we just got up in the morning and went. Ronald usually came by to get us.
“Uh, yeah,” he said. Hands clean, he shut the faucet off, and I tossed him a towel. Once he finished drying, he draped it over his shoulder. “They texted. They’re bringing pizza or something.”
I nodded, pushing off the wall when he left to clean up the area. I noticed he didn’t appear high today, which was good. We all did and continued to do our fair share of weed together, but we typically spent more hours sober than not.
Lately, we couldn’t not find Wolf baked, and I thanked fucking God my buddy had never touched the harder stuff. He might use that now, needing the release. I nudged him. “So, I was thinking tonight we could all just…”
