“Yeah,” Katie answered, pulling her phone from her back pocket and tapping across the screen. “Everyone but Luca.”
If I hadn’t seen the guy who was Dallas’ former bandmate with my own two eyes at our friend Ella’s wedding last year, I would seriously question if Katie had made him up. They’d invited him to every single game night, but as far as I knew, he hadn’t so much as sent a text to say he couldn’t come. What an asshole. Even I had more manners than that.
Dallas tugged on her shirtsleeve. “You left him a message earlier, Butter Bean. That’s all you can do.”
“Maybe I’ll just try one more time. It can’t hurt, right?” Katie brought the phone to her ear, her hazel eyes glittering with hope for mere seconds before disappointment cast a shadow over them.
Her shoulders sagged as she dropped her hands to her sides. “His voicemail box is full.”
“Hey. It’s okay.” I reached out and squeezed her arm, annoyed with this jackass for daring to hurt the sweetest person I’d ever known. “We’re still gonna have fun.”
She nodded. “I know. I’m just worried. It’s been forever since any of us have heard from him.”
“Like, how long?” I asked.
“Since the grand opening of the restaurant,” she said. “Remember he sent those flowers? I sent him a text to say thank you, and he told me then he was doing some traveling. We haven’t heard from him since. He didn’t even come see Ella last month after…you know…”
She trailed off, and I jerked my head back. “Seriously?Shit. Is the guy dead or something?”
Katie flinched, and I immediately wished I could shove the words back in my mouth.
“This is just how Luca is,” Dallas explained. “He won’t be found unless he wants to be. There’s a reason he’s the only member of Midnight in Dallas who didn’t move here. He likes his space.”
“Even still,” I said, “it’s kind of shitty not to letanyoneknow he’s okay. He has to realize you guys are worried.”
Dallas shrugged. “This isn’t the first time he’s disappeared, though it is the longest. After the band’s first tour, he skipped out of the country to Amsterdam for a month and nobody heard a peep from him. And he’s definitely ignored our calls plenty of times. He’ll come around eventually. He always does.”
“Are you guys coming or what?” Katie’s loudmouthed friend Caesar hollered from the living room, and I rolled my eyes.
“No,” I shouted back.
“Is that McKenzie James?” His shout was tinged with a smile.
“No,” I said again. “It’s your worst nightmare.”
A chorus of laughter followed before he said, “ItisMcKenzie!”
I tugged on Katie’s arm. “Come on. Let’s go kick Caesar's ass at Pictionary.”
She gave me a tight smile. “Okay.”
Dallas lifted his brows and pointed at me. “But you can’t just draw dicks for everything this time.”
I held my hands up like a criminal caught in the act. “I make no promises.”
TWO
Luca
I hadno idea what time it was. Based on the cheesy infomercial for some commercial-grade blender flickering on the television, I suspected it was late.
Why did these things always play in the middle of the night, anyway? Did people often wake up at 2 a.m. to take a piss with the irrepressible urge to buy kitchen appliances possessing the horsepower of a small lawn mower? The woman on the screen was wearing a hideous orange jumpsuit and was way too fucking happy about pulverizing a bunch of green vegetables to a pulp. Anyone buying a Vitamix at two thirty in the morning wouldn’t be making a smoothie that didn’t contain body parts, and there was nothing anyone could say to convince me otherwise.
I sat up on the couch and pushed my fingers through my hair, thick with grease, studying the woman with the severe ponytail and too-white teeth. Locked inside my sixty-five inch television in her prison-issued ensemble, I imagined her as my cellmate.
“Isn’t this amazing?” she shouted over the power drill sound of the blender. “In a pinch, I like to use this bad boy to shred the meat for my world-famous chili. It’sthatgood. It’ll tear your chicken up in no time.”
Chicken.I snorted.More like the testicles of some asshole named Ted. This blender can beatanymeat, guaranteed.
