“Dammit!” I curse just as Michaels catches up to me. “We’regoing to have to call someone. We can’t exactly go looking for her with an Uber driver.”
“Fuck, that means Lincoln and Trey, right?”
“Yeah, Marcus sent me a text last night saying he and Jeremy were going back to Seattle.”
Michaels side-eyes me when I pull out my phone. “Marcus and Jeremy have an interesting dynamic.”
I glance at him. “You noticed that too, huh? No idea what that was about.”
“They’re fucking, obviously.”
I burst out laughing and almost drop my phone. “That’s a cute idea, but Marcus is arrow straight, Stitch.”
“If you say so,” he says doubtfully. “But my gaydar is hardly ever wrong.”
“It was wrong about me.”
“No, it wasn’t.” He backs me against one of the movie poster displays, and I have to catch myself on the wall to keep from toppling it over. We’re standing nose to nose. “I just had to tease it out of your grumpy ass.”
I swallow. “I’m…calling Lincoln now.”
He steps back with a smirk, and I pull up Link’s info and hit the call button. It rings once before he answers, which is surprising since it’s the middle of the night.
“What’s going on?”
“Fi’s gone. She took Michaels’s truck, so we have no way to look for her. Can you send your driver back or?—”
“Fuck.” I hear rustling and a sleepy whine, probably from Trey. “We’ll be there in five minutes. Meet us in the lot.” Then, he hangs up.
I glance at Michaels, who gives me a questioning look. “They’re coming to get us.”
“Why would she leave?” Michaels asks. “Where would she go?”
“She plays the martyr well. Always has.” I open the door forhim, lock it behind us, and we lean against the building, pressing our shoulders together for warmth.
Michaels shivers, and I put my arm around him.
“What do you mean?”
I chuckle. “I thought you knew her better than I did.”
He frowns. “I knew aversionof her. We didn’t share a lot of deep shit—not like we do now. We were both so scared…”
I squeeze his shoulder, surprised at how perfectly his hard body slots against mine. “Sorry, it’s not a criticism.” I smile faintly. ”One of the first things I noticed about Fiona when I met her is how she focuses on her friends and deflects when it comes to her personal demons. She’s an empath to a fault.” I sigh. “Charlie used to FaceTime me so frustrated because Fi was dealing with some shit back home with her mom, and she wouldn’t talk about it.”
Michaels nods slowly, his hair tickling my neck. “Yeah, I guess I see it now. Despite how casual our relationship was sometimes, she was always focused on my NHL prospects.” His breath escapes his mouth in a white puff. “Sometimes I thought she was the only person on earth who was actually proud of me. It meant everything back then.”
“Right,” I say. “So it makes sense that she’s trying to distance herself now.”
“But where would she go?”
“I saw the look in her eyes last night. She’s tired. I don’t really know her plan, but I think she wants Dennis to find her.”
Michaels worries his bottom lip between his teeth. “He doesn’t just want the money though.”
Anger roils in my stomach when I think about the sick bastard calling her Red. Touching her. Violating her. “I know,” I say darkly. “Which is why we need to find her first.”
Lincoln pulls up in his black Audi, and we open the backdoor and climb inside. Charlie gives me a sad smile when I slide into the backseat.
