I racked my brain and threw out some names. Luke had either already checked with those people or they were people we didn’t have numbers for. Like that Saul kid Ro co-taught with at the tennis club. Or Claudia, a sophomore last year, who Rowan had dated for, like, half a minute.
“Shit,” Luke muttered low, under his breath. It wasn’t that often he swore or that often he was worried, really worried, but I’d seen it twice just this summer. Tonight, and the night Mel got her results.
It unnerved me.
Luke was saying something about calling him if I heard anything, when it suddenly hit me.
“Celia!” I shouted into the phone. “It’s Friday night!”
Celia famously had a blowout bash every Friday night in the summer. She lived on the edge of town, and her parents were always spending weekends at some lake house upstate. It didn’t make sense that Ro would be there. He could be impulsive and stupid, and from the time we were little, he had always been the life of the party, but the last thing Ro would do was risk losing a tennis scholarship by being busted for underage drinking. Also, Mel would kick his ass. Still, I couldn’t think of any other place to try.
“Celia?” Luke repeated. Sometimes, with the year between Luke and Ro and me, I forgot that there was a small but significant group of people we knew at school who he didn’t know, and vice versa.
“Celia Murphy. I can show you where she lives.”
Luke was in front of my house in fifteen minutes. When I climbed into the passenger seat of his car, the moonlight cut a jagged line across his face, but it was clear how stressed-out he’d been. His hair was all messy, like he’d been running his hands through it, and his eyes were wide and tired.
“Thanks for coming with me. Are you good with your parents?” he asked, and I waved off his question.
“It’s okay. They won’t care.” It wasn’t true. Dad was most likely to notice my absence, and he would certainly care, but I was counting on my parents not waking up until the next morning, when I would be fast asleep in my own bed. Just in case, though, I’d scribbled a quick note on the kitchen counter before I left, telling them Ro was missing and I’d gone to help Mel look for him.
We didn’t speak much as we drove. It was only after the sound began to aggravate me that I realized I was responsible for the tapping noise, my nails rapping repeatedly against the door of the car. If it annoyed Luke, he didn’t show it.
It was rare for it to be just us two, driving somewhere this late at night, and the fact that my best friend was missing made it even stranger. Still, I felt a quiet comfort that Luke and I were in this together. That wherever Rowan was, we would find him. Everything would be okay.
I was glad I was the person Luke had thought to call when he needed help.
“He better have a damn good reason for disappearing like this,” Luke said, annoyance temporarily overtaking his worry.
“I’m sure he will,” I said, even though I wasn’t quite sure it was the truth.
I leaned back in my seat as a trace of mint tickled my nose. I wondered whether Luke had been eating something minty or whether the small leaf air freshener around the rearview mirror was new.
Stealing a glance at his profile, I wondered where he’d been before he’d started looking for Rowan. Had he worked at the computer store today? Was he packing for college already?
The thought of him being six hours away in just a couple of months made my stomach lurch. I would probably only see him over the holidays and in the summer from now on. Mel kept reminding Luke that she had Mom Rights, as far as communication went, so he’d definitely have to call home at least once a week. I was another story. Would he even think about me when he was surrounded by a bunch of new friends in a new town in a new life? I could barely get him to drop punctuation in our sporadic text messages; a phone call would be downright earthshattering.
“What?” he suddenly asked, touching his chin. My cheeks warmed as I realized I’d been caught staring. “Do I have something on my face?”
“Yep. Skin,” I said, the best I could do to save face.
Luke grimaced at my lame joke.
“I’m thinking of staying,” he said all of a sudden.
“Staying—” I repeated dumbly.
“In Winchester. Not leaving Mom and Ro when she’s so ...” He cleared his throat.
A pang went through my chest.
“And not going to college?”
Luke nodded and glanced over at me.
“But ... Mel would kill you. And what about your scholarship? She said she just bought you a laundry basket.”
Luke’s laugh filled the car. He laughed so rarely that it felt like a badge of honor when I was the one responsible for it.
