“No. He got agitated earlier, so they gave him something. I should have called,” Jonah added.
I wanted to say yes, he should have. But I didn’t need to be given any more excuses to avoid coming out here.
“If you want to go, you can. I can pay for the car?—”
“No.” I bit my lip. “Has Caleb been by?”
“I think I need something from the vending machine,” Boden said loudly.
“I’ll go with you, mon amour,” Hugo added.
Yeah. Really fucking subtle, guys. I didn’t call them out on it. I simply waited until I couldn’t hear their footsteps any longer before turning toward Jonah’s voice.
“Spill. I haven’t talked to Caleb in like six weeks.”
“He got kicked out,” Jonah said from behind a sigh. “He came in and got into an argument with Dad, and they asked him to leave. Like…permanently.”
“Christ, his temper.”
“That’s rich, coming from you. You’ve been biting everyone’s head off for the last six fucking months, bud.”
He wasn’t wrong. But I was the patron saint of, like, I don’t know, being quiet and docile in a hospital compared to Caleb. “At least I didn’t get kicked out of our dad’s medical facility.”
“Give it time,” Jonah said.
Yeah. He was still kind of pissed at me for my whole part in this. Or, I guess I should have said, my not-part in this.
“I can come around more, you know. I…I know I’ve been difficult?—”
“No. It’s fine, and there’s really no point. He doesn’t remember shit. The last conversation we had, he thought I was a doctor.” Jonah went quiet. “And I’ve been talking to my therapist, and she said people like us tend not to get any real resolution out of trying to make amends with parents suffering these kinds of memory issues.”
I bowed my head. “I don’t think there are amends to make. He was a shitty dad, and the only way he could fix it was to go back in time and be less shit.”
“Yeah.” Jonah cleared his throat. “Anyway, I appreciate that you showed up at all.”
That was patronizing as fuck, but I think I deserved it. Jonah and I used to be inseparable. There had never been secrets between us. Now, there were several.
Part of me wanted to at least tell him about Vanya. I wasn’t ready to speak Hunter’s name into the air, but I really wanted someone to know what Vanya and I had done. How it made me feel.
How it was different.
“How are things going with Alexio?” I asked instead.
“Fine. And if you’re going to try and feed me some bullshit about how all relationships fail?—”
“No,” I said, cutting him off. “I like him. Even if he has a weird, almost sexual attraction to his fucking car.”
Jonah burst into laughter. “Yeah. That’s between him and his therapist. But he said it was nice to hang with you and Vanya on the road. He said you and Vanya?—”
“What?” I snapped. “Vanya and I what? Because whatever he said is probably a lie.” It was panic talking, but as much as I wanted to trust Vanya had kept his mouth shut, I didn’t.
“Jesus, bud. Relax. He said that you two seemed to be getting along better. God, what did you do to him now? You need to be nice to him, Micah. He’s delicate, and his feelings are tender.”
My throat went hot, and I fought the urge to lunge at him and punch him in his fucking mouth. But was that actually my fault? Had I been such an asshole that the default was to assume I had fucked everything up?
“What else did Alexio say?” I demanded.
Jonah was silent for several seconds, then said, “He said you two seemed like you were actual friends this time around.”
