I wince. Declan told me a few weeks ago that Frankie is pregnant, and to say Sean has been overprotective would be putting it mildly. I can only imagine how he’d feel about his pregnant wife standing on a ladder and ripping down wallpaper.
“You need something?” Maya prompts.
“I just, um…” I shift my weight from one foot to the other and attempt nonchalance. “I was wondering if you know where Declan is?”
Maya pauses what she’s doing and the buzzing of her machine goes quiet. She looks up at me, scrutinizing whatever is written on my face. Finally, she shrugs. “He’s gone.”
“Gone?” I repeat, dumbfounded. What does she meanhe’s gone?
“Yep,” she confirms. “Left town yesterday.”
“Yesterday?” He was at work yesterday, I know he was. Even if I never looked his way, I could feel his eyes on me. “Where did he go?”
Maya shrugs again and continues working. “I was only half-listening,” she says, raising her voice to be heard over the buzzing again. “New York, maybe? I heard him mention something about needing to pack.”
“New York,” I repeat, my voice sounding hollow.
“I saw him leaving town on his bike just before dark,” the man lying on Maya’s chair says casually. With the blood currently rushing in my ears, his voice sounds far away, like he’s speaking to me from the other end of a long tunnel. “Looked like he was heading toward I-95, I think. I only noticed because of his bike. She’s a beauty.”
I-95 – the highway that would take him straight to New York.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“Thank you,” I whisper, though my words are inaudible. “Um, I’m just going to…” I let my voice trail off and hitch a thumb over my shoulder.
Before Maya or her client can say another word, I hurry back the way I came from.
“He’s gone,” I announce the second I’ve closed the door to the tattoo studio.
The two customers Noah had been helping are gone, but three others have taken their place. All four of them turn bewildered eyes on me.
“Declan isgone,” I reiterate. “As in, no longer here. As in, he took that job in New York.Gone.”
“What? No.” Noah sets down the vase he’d been showing to Macy Green, who graduated a year ahead of me in high school. If it was any other day, I’d care that I’m about to have a full breakdown with an audience. Macy stares at me wide-eyed, while the other customers, an elderly couple I recognize from the class I taught, pretend not to listen. They study a display of potted geraniums like they’re the most interesting thing they’ve ever seen.
“There’s no way,” Noah argues. He starts to make his way over to me, but stops when I begin pacing along the length of our work table.
“Gone. To New York,” I mutter. The words feel all wrong coming out of my mouth.
Declan wouldn’t go to New York.
Except apparently, he would.
“I screwed this all up,” I groan.
“Try calling him again. I’m sure there’s a logical explanation here,” Noah insists.
I’m clinging to every last bit of hope I can muster, so I grab my phone from my dress pocket and find Declan’s name in myFavoriteslist. Noah and our customers wait patiently while I take a few moments to psych myself up.
“Okay,” I breathe, and I click on his name.
“Your call has been forwarded –”
I end the call and drop my phone onto the tabletop, fixing my eyes on the smooth surface. I can’t bring myself to meet anyone’s eye.
“Straight to voicemail,” I mutter.
“There has to be some kind of –”
