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“I can hang on the line.”
His lips tug into a thin line, and his eyes find mine through our screens. “I remember that like it was yesterday.”
“Did you hang up? Or was it me?”
He shakes his head. “I fell asleep. When I woke up, the call was gone.”
“Same here. Made me fucking crazy.”
“Did it?” He gives the phone a troubled frown.
“When I got that text…” I shake my head.
“Mess up.”
I blow a breath out, shut my eyes. “Just…too enamored. I was,” I add. “With you.”
“You don’t protect yourself.” He says it flatly, like this notion should hold meaning for me.
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve got your heart on your sleeve…for me.” His voice dips low on the word. “You won’t put it away.”
“You saying you want me to?”
“I want it where I can get my hands around it.” His voice softens. “But that’s not good for you.” His lets out a breath. “That part, I hate.”
“Let me worry about my parts, yeah?”
He stands up, I think. I catch a glimpse of an arched doorway behind him, and then he’s moving—from soft, gold light into darkness. I can hear him settle on the bed.
“Tell me something, Emerson Vance Rayne.”
In the near-dark, I can really only see his eyes. I turn the car’s light off and back out of my parking spot.
“What kind of something, Luke Gabriel McDowell?”
“Tell me a secret.” This time, he shifts onto his back, and light reveals the contours of his handsome face.
“I can see your dimples.”
“I hope not. You’re driving.”
“How can you tell?”
“The stuff that’s moving by behind you? Maybe I should call you back.”
“Nah, it’s—”
“No. I will.”
The call is gone…and then I turn onto the larger road, and my phone rings again.
I pick up.
“You okay?” He sounds breathless.
“Yeah.” I hold the phone to my ear as I brake for a light. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Thought you were a super stalker.” Something’s off. His voice is hoarse and low. I search my memory, and it hits me like a freight train. His dad. Arthur McDowell. The obituary said he went to get a drive-through milkshake—supposedly one of the secret creature comforts of this down-to-earth rich dude—and his car got side-swiped as he pulled out of the fast food parking lot. That’s how he died, so it’s no wonder he’s is worried about me FaceTiming and driving.
“Oh, shit, Sky. I’m sorry.”
“I shouldn’t have called you back at all.”
“You wanna talk when I get home? It’s okay.”
There’s a pause where I bet he’s doing his struggle breath—that deep inhalation thing he does when he’s losing his shit. But I can’t tell. And he says, “It’s okay.”
“A trooper pulls a pastor over and smells alcohol on the pastor’s breath. The next thing he notices is a wine bottle in the passenger’s seat. Officer says, ‘Have you been drinking?’ Pastor says, ‘Just water.’ Officer says, ‘Okay, well why do I smell wine?’ Preacher looks at the bottle with his eyes all wide and says, ‘Good Lord! He’s done it again!’”
His low, rich chuckle is like a hit of some something illegal, better than club drugs. Makes me feel all good and warm.
“What does an agnostic, dyslexic, insomniac dog do?”
I can hear him smiling as he answers. “Do I want to know?”
“Lies awake at night wondering if there is a dog.” I hang a right, toward Haight, roll into the next one. “Dude’s not feeling well, decides to go in to the doctor. As he’s walking in, a nun walks by him on her way out. Looks like hell. White, pale face…teary eyes and all that. She’s in bad shape. Dude gets to the front desk and says, ‘Damn. What happened to that nun?’”
Luke groans, and I grin.
“Doctor says, ‘Well, I just told her that she’s pregnant.’ Dude says, ‘Wow, she is?’ Doc says, ‘No, but it sure got rid of her hiccups.’”
I hear a sound like a snicker. “That’s a lot of faith jokes for an agnostic.”
“Learned them just for you.”
“Is that true?”
“I’m not telling.” The truth is, I looked them up a long while back in case he called again. In case I wanted to talk, but without really talking. Just to fill up space on the line…if I thought that might help him. “Almost to the townhouse, though.”
“Where were you that night?” he murmurs.
For a second, I’m not sure what he means. “When you called me?”
“Yeah.”
I make the last turn onto the street where the townhome is. “Listening to some of my friends play a gig. Phone was stuck in my pocket. I had to rip the pocket out to get it. When I saw who it was, I beelined for the back door and went outside. Fucking freezing that night. Could you hear the wind?”
“Yeah.”
“Then I walked home.”
“I could hear you open the door.”
I debate before I ask it, but curiosity wins out in the end. “Where were you, Sky?”
