Neil let out a long pent-up breath. “I swiped right,” he said, before adding, “Pretend you know what that means.”
“How’d it go? Before you got called in.”
“It didn’t.”
“I’ve clearly assigned a value to ‘swipe right’ that’s nowhere close to accurate,” I muttered.
“I was stood up,” Neil answered with a tinge of embarrassment.
I propped myself up on one elbow. “Why?”
“I can only presume that if I knewwhy, I would have been able to avoid waiting at the bar for over an hour.” Neil rubbed his face. “Sorry. I should listen to a few angsty Depeche Mode songs and get on with my life.”
After a moment of consideration, I said, “You’ll find someone.”
“That no-sympathy thing works both ways, just so you know.”
“It’s not sympathy,” I answered, getting comfortable once more. “Trust me on this: stop being afraid.”
“Of what?”
“You.”
MY STOMACHwoke me from a deep sleep. I sat up and rubbed my tired eyes. Anemic light crept in between the not-entirely closed curtains, and the room had that briskness unique to winter mornings. I grabbed my glasses off the nightstand. Neil wasn’t in his bed, but a piece of paper with the hotel logo lay on the comforter. I crawled out of the warm nest of blankets, reached across, and snatched the note. In Neil’s clean handwriting was a notice that he’d gone downstairs to grab us breakfast.
I stood and carefully stretched, testing the aches of various body parts, then started toward the bathroom.
My cell rang.
The biggest coffee they offer, I thought, mentally answering Neil’s inevitable question on the other end of the call. I returned to the beds and picked it up from the nightstand.
Not Neil.
Not a number I recognized, in fact.
My underarms immediately began to sweat as I hit Accept and brought the phone to my ear. “H-hello?”
I was greeted by living silence. I nearly spoke again but caught myself at the subtle sound of rubbing or scratching against the microphone.
Then it grew louder.
A huff of air—of breath.
“B-baby?”
One word. Myfavoriteword. That’s all it took to fill me with hope again. My knees buckled, and I dropped to the floor like a sack of potatoes. “Calvin? Oh—God—where are… are you okay?”
Calvin grunted again. “Machinery,” he murmured before there was more friction over the line.
Machinery?
“Calvin?” I asked more insistently.
“Old machinery,” he clarified, voice gruff and thick, as if every word was a struggle to pronounce correctly.
He sounded out of breath. In pain. He must have been disoriented, because what the fuck was he talking about? Andwhywas he dragging the phone across what sounded like a wooden floor?
“Gray…ngh… skyline. Rooftops. It’s—” Calvin stopped. His breathing was erratic. “P-probably five… seven… stories.”
