Page 36 of Fractured Hearts

“Okay,” I agree easily. My eyes are starting to close against my will, and the warmth of her body is making me sleepy. Jo mumbles something else, but I’m already too far gone to hear it.

I’m hot and sweaty. My mouth is dry and feels like it’s been stuffed with cotton. The weight on my chest is snoring. I crack open a heavy eyelid to see that Jo and I passed out on the couch last night. All three bottles of wine sit empty on the coffee table in front of me. It seems like she’s been using me as both a pillow and a drool rag. My arms are wrapped tightly around her for reasons I’m no longer drunk enough to think about.

A phone vibrates somewhere. I can feel it through the cushions, but I have no idea whose it is or where it is. Jo groans and starts digging around without moving her head or opening her eyes. The light brush of her hand against my side as she searches for the phone tickles, and I hold in the laugh.

“Got it,” Jo mumbles, whipping out a silver phone and squinting at the screen. Fuck. That one is mine. Jo flies out of my lap and is standing in front of me at a speed that should be impossible for someone who drank as much as she did last night. Her face is flushed, but not from laughter or alcohol this time. No, Jo is angry. Very, very angry.

“Jo,” I start, sitting up slowly and lifting my hands like she’s a dangerous animal waiting to pounce. Considering I know what she can do from sparring with her, I’m not far off. I also have no idea what she saw on my phone and can’t prepare myself for whatever is about to happen.

“Kai,” Jo says, teeth clenched and voice shaking. “You have a fucking missed call from Kai!”

I didn’t tell her my brother had contacted me. It was brief, and he only told me everyone was okay and that he had a burner if I needed to contact him. Otherwise, we agreed that everything was safer going through our dad.

“It’s not what you think.”

“Oh, is it not?” she says, voice laced with venom. “You haven’t had a way to contact Maverick this entire time?”

“No!” I shout, getting to my feet. “Kai called me last week⁠—”

“Last week?” she screeches. “So for at least the past week you’ve had a direct number to Maverick, and you’re trying to convince me you didn’t use it?”

“I didn’t!”

Jo’s glare remains steady, studying my face. “Fuck you, Ezra.” She says it so calmly that I’m more frightened. I watch her stomp over to the sliding glass door.

“What are you doing?” I ask, following her, but it’s too late. She runs to the edge of the cliff and throws my phone. I watch it disappear out of sight. “Are you fucking kidding me? We needed that! The surveillance app isn’t on your phone!”

Jo doesn’t speak. She doesn’t even look at me as she shoves her way past me and back into the house. I’m still staring out over the cliff like I can will my lost phone back into my hands when she comes back. She’s dressed in leggings and the winter coat we picked up the other day.

“Jo,” I start, not knowing if what’s going to come out of my mouth is an apology or anger. I knew she’d be mad that I had Kai’s number, but it never occurred to me she’d think I was talking to Maverick behind her back. It should have. This whole time I was treating her as my competition, but at some point, I got complacent and started to see her differently. I thought her idea of me had changed too, but I can see I was wrong.

Jo doesn’t acknowledge that I spoke and just makes her way down the cliff stairs to the beach.

“There’s a storm coming in!” I yell, warning her even though I shouldn’t. I sigh. Even if she’s pissing me off, I don’t actually want anything to happen to her. And not just because Maverick would never forgive me for it. At least not anymore.

“Fuck you,” she yells back, but it’s barely audible over the wind.

I groan and head back into the house. How did I keep getting myself into these fucking situations?

thirty-three

MAVERICK

Sneaking out of hotel rooms and into stairwells or back alleys has become alarmingly easy in the last few days. Either everyone is becoming complacent or they’re too wrapped up in each other to notice. Kai has been clinging to Belle, and I swear Willa and Declan are even going to the bathroom at the same time. The only other solo person here is Harrison, and he’s so absorbed in his research that I could set his hair on fire and he wouldn’t notice.

I’m fine being ignored. I grew up that way. It was one of the many things Jo and I bonded over. Except I got used to having her attention all the time, and I swear I’m starving without it. It’s why I’m currently in this stairwell that smells like hot piss and stale beer. Needing to figure things out with Ezra is another reason, but I’m still struggling there. He was back in my life for what felt like the blink of an eye, and I think my brain is sort of refusing to believe it happened. I can’t talk to my therapist right now, so I’m just focusing on Jo and ignoring the other mountain man sized problem.

“Maverick, I know it’s you again,” Gavin says by way of greeting.

“Just give me an address. Drop a pin. I’ll even take a paper map mailed to me with a red line leading to them. Just tell me where they are,” I say, trying to keep my volume low, but knowing I’m failing as my frustration increases. I’ve been sneaking off with Kai’s burner phone at least four times a day to call Gavin and demand he tell me where Jo and Ezra are. I asked nicely the first time, and he hung up on me. The only strategy I have left is to annoy him until he tells me just so I’ll leave him alone. If I had even a small sense of where they went, I would be out there looking for them.

Gavin sighs so loud that I know it came all the way from his toes. “I have my reasons⁠—”

“You’ve said that, and I’ve told you to take your reasons and shove them up your tightly clenched asshole.”

“I have my reasons,” Gavin starts again. “And the biggest one should be getting to your hotel room in less than five minutes. Call me after that.” Then the bastard just hangs up.

The only reason I don’t chuck the phone down the stairs is because I don’t want to explain to Kai that I’ve been nagging his dad on the phone he isn’t supposed to have. Harrison would have a stroke if he knew we had it, but we collectively decided that Gavin not telling us to get rid of it meant that it was fine.