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On a huge oak desk that wraps around the room, there’sthreecomputers. A desktop setup, and two laptops. There’s floating shelves on the wall, displaying a range of different cameras. There’s a professional ring light on a stand in the corner. And I get it now.
“Oh. You do porn,” I state.
Gracie parts her lips in horror. “No.” She plops into the fancy swivel chair in front of the desktop and wakes the screen, navigating to YouTube. I lean over her shoulder as she opens a channel that’s full of video thumbnails of her smiling, cheek pressed against that of some guy. “We do YouTube. Luca and me. We started it when we were fifteen, just making dumb videos. But they kind of blew up,” she explains, stealing a quick glance over her shoulder at me. “Essentially, we just vlog our entire life. We get paid to promote brands. We get invited to cool events. And our Instagram has been doing really well recently too.”
I don’t get it. At all. The little banner at the top of their account says they have over six hundred thousand followers. “Why would people want to watch someone else’s life?”
She leans forward to shut off the desktop and then sinks back against the chair, releasing a loaded breath of air. “Because our life was perfect.”
This girl is more heartbroken than I thought. I doubt a relationship can ever truly be perfect, and clearly theirs wasn’t, otherwise it wouldn’t have ended. She was sobbing in the goddamn Uber last night.
“Gracie, I think you’re delusional,” I say.
She scoffs. “Weston, I think you’re judgmental.” She pushes back from the desk, ramming me with the chair, and then pulls open a drawer. “Here. I kept it charged for you,” she says, shoving my phone into my hand. “I was going to hand it in to the police station up on Fillmore later. I figured that was my best shot at getting it back to you.”
“That’s actually my station, believe it or not.” I scan my home screen. Charlotte’s name isn’t there, but there are messages from Adam and Cameron, as expected.
“You work in this neighborhood?”
“For now, yes. I may be moved somewhere else once I finish my field training.”
Gracie opens her mouth to say something, but we both jolt at the sound of the apartment door opening. We exchange a look.
“Gracie?” a voice calls. A male voice. It must be Luca.
“Fuck,” Gracie says, but her voice is too soft for it to sound harsh. She tucks the chair back under the desk and presses a finger over her lips, instructing me to remain quiet. “Stay in here,” she whispers.
I nod while resisting the urge to roll my eyes. I just came to get my phone back. I don’t want to get in the middle of this girl and her ex, but now I’m stuck here in this office. He calls her name again and I lean back against the desk, arms folded. Who knows how long he plans to stay?
Gracie makes to step out of the office, but Luca steps in front of her, blocking her exit.
“What are you doing in here?” he asks, but instantly his alarm bells go off when Gracie seems too eager to push him back into the living room. He steps further into the office, and his eyes go wide when he sees me. “What the fuck? Who the hell is this guy?”
I straighten up from the desk and innocently hold up my hands. “Hey, man. I’m just picking up my phone. I got a little too wasted last night and left my phone in the club. Your girlfriend found it. Or roommate.” I’m rather good at de-escalating situations, even if it does require twisting the truth slightly. I don’t think it would go down well if Luca knew I was already in the apartment last night while both Gracie and I were drunk.
Luca glowers at me with skepticism, then turns back to Gracie. “You went out last night?”
“It was my birthday. Elena and Maddie didn’t give me a choice,” she says, but there’s a tremor in her voice which has me immediately questioning why she seems so scared. How bad was their breakup?
“Shit. It was,” Luca mutters. There’s even a flash of guilt in his expression, but it’s quickly replaced with aggravation when his attention veers back to me, the intruder in their home. “You’ve got your phone. Can you get the hell out of my apartment now?”
“Luca,” Gracie hisses, her hand finding its way to his bicep.
I size him up. He’s a slim guy, but athletic. The kind of guy you’d be able to wrestle to the floor but lose track of if he took off running. I hate the ones who run. I almost never catch them.
“Don’t worry, I’m out of here,” I say. I slide my phone into the pocket of my sweats and make my way through the door, though I feel the pressure of Luca’s stare burning holes in my skull. As I pass Gracie, I catch her eye and mouth, “You okay?”
She gives me a small nod that is anything but convincing.
Luca follows me to the apartment door and takes great satisfaction in closing it behind me, engaging the chain lock. I stand in the hallway for a second, not necessarily eavesdropping, but just for my own peace of mind. When there are no raised voices, no screaming, only then do I leave. It’s not my place to get involved.
GRACIE
“Why are you here, Luca?”
It pains me to look at him, the person I love with everything I have. To look at him and know he wanted anything other than me is agonizing. How can you be with someone for so long and then change your mind seemingly overnight? Why didn’t he realize sooner? God, we have wasted so much time. I have invested everything into our relationship, and now I have nothing left. I gave too much of myself to him.
Luca is on edge. He scratches his palm, his anxious habit. “I came to pick up some more of my stuff.” He casts a final look at the door, clearly aggrieved at having found Weston in our apartment, but it’s not like he’ll ever be back.
